Every day, we see more headlines documenting the severe rights abuses girls suffer. The primary cause of death for girls age 15-19 is now suicide. As UN leaders open the debate on the next frontier of global development, we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to protect the human rights of girls
One step the Obama administration can take immediately is to develop a comprehensive strategy outlining the actions it will take to end child marriage globally. Lyric Thompson asks whether it will do so at today's GIRL Summit in London on ending forced marriage and female genital mutilation.
Reports that more than 200 girls kidnapped in north-eastern Nigeria have been forced to marry members of the rebel group Boko Haram bring home the brutal human-rights abuse—and, increasingly, security concern—that is child marriage.
Why were women career soldiers, US defense contractors, female peace activists and Pentagon officials talking to each other in Washington DC ? Lyric Thompson reports on a most unusual conversation...
" We’re not interested in making war safe for women… There are many substitutes for oil, but I can't think of a single substitute for a peace woman." Cora Weiss
"If we’ve done as much with as little resources as women have, think what we could do with more. Women are the energy of the future… its up to women to show what women’s leadership in the UN can do." Charlotte Bunch
Why won’t the Security Council endorse the Secretary General’s strategy for enhancing women’s role in matters of peace and security? Is it because of the deep divisions within the UN system itself? Or is it because of the Russians? Lyric Thompson reports on the battle behind the scenes at the UN
"SCR 1325 is a tool, and the utility of a tool depends on how it is perceived and how activists employ it. So we have this resolution. Great; so what? Tell me how we can get people fired up on the ground." Peace laureate Jody Williams talks to Lyric Thompson.
As the 10th anniversary of SCR 1325 approaches and the debates heat up, it is with dual and conflicting senses of deep frustration with the past and tentative optimism for the future. Lyric Thompson reports.
Lyric Thompson, in her last report from New York, writes that as we close the 54th UN Commission on the Status of Women, there’s no mystery as to what it takes to close the tremendous gap between policy and practice: money. Best-laid plans are moot if not resourced. Invest in women. As the UN mott
Lyric Thompson takes issue with those who argue that men are inherently unqualified to speak as advocates for women's rights, and sees a paradoxical mirror image of the thinking that kept us out of classrooms, voting booths, political offices and boardrooms globally
“Peace processes are bad men talking to bad government and other bad men.....women in civil society are doing tremendous work on the ground, but they are not heard, they are not respected, and above all they are not funded.” Mary Robinson speaking at the UNCSW....
