By Haruna Gimba
The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced multiple commitments to drive change for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in all their diversity.
The WHO’s commitment was made at the Generation Equality Forum, held last week in Paris, a statement from the agency’s Communication Department said.
The commitments focused on ending gender-based violence; advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights; and supporting health workers as well as feminist movements and leadership.
The commitments shape a progressive and transformative blueprint for advancing gender equality, health equity, human rights and the empowerment of women and girls globally.
The Forum, marking the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action on Women, came at a critical moment, with COVID-19 having exacerbated existing gender inequalities.
WHO led in two key areas of the Forum: the Action Coalition on Gender-Based Violence co-led with UN Women and other partners, and the Gender Equal Health and Care Workforce Initiative between France, Women in Global Health and WHO.
According to the statement, the WHO recognized that health sector has an important role to play in preventing and responding to gender-based violence against women and girls.
The UN health agency, therefore, committed to increase the number of countries with clinical protocols focusing on a comprehensive, survivor-centred, empathetic health response for women and girls subjected to violence.
“Working with partners in order to scale up evidence-based prevention of violence against women and girls in 25 countries with high prevalence, guided by the RESPECT framework.
“Developing and supporting the uptake by health providers, policy makers and managers of a training course on health responses to violence against women and girls through the WHO Academy.
“Establishing a comprehensive database to monitor implementation of the Global Action Plan and regularly publishing prevalence estimates from the Global Database.
“Working with sister UN agencies to scale up the availability of essential, multi-sectoral and survivor-centred services with functional referral mechanisms, for women and girls in all their diversity, in at least 25 high prevalence countries and upporting the implementation of the Global Plan of Action on health systems’ response to violence against women and girls,” the statement read.
Together with UNFPA and UNICEF, WHO committed to work to end harmful practices like female genital mutilation and child, early and forced marriages.
The health sector will be supported to end medicalization of female genital mutilation and provide quality health services to women and girls living with female genital mutilation and married girls.
At a high-level event focusing on the Gender Equal Health and Care Workforce Initiative, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reiterated WHO’s commitment to advocating for decent and safe work conditions for all health and care workers, especially women.
WHO along with other UN agencies declared solidarity with and support to feminist movements and women human rights defenders, committing to expand an open, safe and inclusive civic space for their work.
This commitment is closely linked to the UN Secretary-General’s Call to Action for Human Rights and the recently published UN Guidance on Promoting and Protecting Civic Space.
