[JURIST] UN Women [official website] on Monday released Progress of the World’s Women 2015-2016: Transforming Economies, Realizing Rights [text], the gender-equality organization’s flagship report on the status of women around the world. The report “proposes a comprehensive agenda for key policy actors, including gender equality advocates, national governments and international agencies, to make human rights a lived reality for all women and girls,” by focusing on the economic and social aspects of gender relations “including the right of all women to a good job, with fair pay and safe working conditions, to an adequate pension in older age, to health care and to safe water, without discrimination based on factors such as socioeconomic status, geographic location and race or ethnicity.” The report was launched [press release] to coincide with the 20-year anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women [UN report], a program that set an agenda leading to substantial gains in women’s rights, especially at the political level. Despite these gains, the new report details significant work to be done, as only half of women around the world are a part of the workforce, compared to around three quarters of men, and earn around 24 percent less globally.

Despite international efforts to educate communities [JURIST op-ed] and protect women’s rights to be free from discrimination, women worldwide still face inequality due frequently to a lack of governmental support. Last month the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights urged the government of Afghanistan [JURIST report] to provide women protection against domestic violence within the state. Also last month Amnesty International reported that Nigerian extremist group Boko Haram has abducted at least 2,000 women and girls [JURIST report] since the start of 2014, subjecting some to forced-marriage. On the first of April the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women urged [JURIST report] Tanzania to enforce its international obligations to prevent discrimination against women, after two women brought suit arguing that customary laws enforced in their communities contravened Tanzania’s constitution and its obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. In February the UN reported that in at least 70 countries, women and girls have been attacked for seeking education [JURIST report], which is seen as a challenge to existing gender-based systems of oppression. In January, Amnesty International detailed the significant challenges Egyptian women face daily [JURIST report], including violence in all aspects of life. The group implored the Egyptian government to recognize the wide scale of the problem and enforce the new laws that were put in place to prevent the issue.