More than 10,000 people are meeting at the 63rd annual gathering of the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York this fortnight (11–22 March), to discuss women’s access to social security, social services, and infrastructure.
Never before has social protection – pensions, health insurance, social security, child benefit, parental leave – been addressed by the CSW. Achieving progress on these issues is threatened by both religious and market fundamentalisms, although a number of states including Lebanon, Namibia and Uruguay are resisting this backlash.
These issues are crucial for women who comprise 65% of the world’s people above retirement age without any regular pension. Women also do twice to four times the unpaid domestic labour that men do. A quarter of the world’s schools lack sanitation facilities, forcing too many girls to miss class because of their periods.
