By Haruna Gimba
Progress on women’s representation in national legislatures is making slow progress, a United Nations report has shown.
This is contained in a latest edition of Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The Gender Snapshot 2024 launched by the UN Women and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
The UN Women said that at the current pace, gender parity in legislatures remains a distant dream, possibly only to be achieved by 2063.
Still, it added, every fourth seat is now held by a woman a significant increase compared to a decade ago.
The report shows that proportion of women and girls living in what is defined as extreme poverty has fallen to less than 10 per cent.
But at the current rate it would take another 137 years “to lift all women and girls out of poverty.’’
Additionally, about one in four girls continue to be married as children.
The report also stressed the costs of gender inequality.
For example, the annual global costs that arise when countries do not adequately and fairly educate their young population amount to more than N10 trillion.
“Today’s report reveals the undeniable truth: progress is achievable, but is not fast enough.
“Let us unite to continue dismantling the barriers women and girls face and forge a future where gender equality is not just an aspiration but a reality,” said Sima Bahous, the executive director of UN Women.
The report added that the share of women and girls living in extreme poverty has finally dipped below 10 per cent following steep increases during the COVID-19 pandemic years.
Up to 56 legal reforms, the UN women said, have been enacted worldwide that seek to close the gender gap since the first Gender Snapshot.
However, the data presented in the report shows that none of the indicators and sub-indicators of Sustainable Development Goal 5, the goal for gender equality, are being met.
As world leaders prepare for the Summit of the Future on September 22-23, the UN women urged then to forge new international consensus to close the gender gap, achieve gender equality, and advance the empowerment and rights of all women and girls – a distant but achievable goal.
