China’s commitment to gender equality

The United States and human rights organizations are sharply criticizing China’s repression and imprisonment of women’s rights activists in advance of a high-level U.N. meeting Sunday co-chaired by China’s President Xi Jinping.

President Xi Jinping of China, under pressure over the jailing of women’s rights activists, promised Sunday to “reaffirm our commitment to gender equality and women’s development”, as Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations gently reminded world leaders to protect “human rights defenders”.

The president is in New York for a series of UN summits marking the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the global body after completing his first state visit to the United States.

“Today, world leaders are signaling their personal responsibility for gender equality and women empowerment, ” Secretary-General Moon said.

Some 74 presidents and prime ministers attended the meeting, including Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan. “His voice in regard to women, which has been good, would influence the discussion at that table”.

Musimbi Kanyoro, president of the Global Fund for Women, said she was disappointed that Mr. Obama would not be at the meeting.

“We hope that on Sunday, governments around the world – including the United States, that played a critical role at Beijing with Hillary Clinton’s famous statement “women’s rights are human rights” – will leave political differences aside”, Hassan said, “and be able to come together under a common platform that is focused on women and girls”. “Wherever women and men participate in all walks of life, ” she said, “the opportunities and chances for development are immeasurably higher”. “While Ireland recognises that there are areas in which we have further to go in achieving equality for women in our own country, Ireland has made gender equality a priority area of our foreign policy, but our strategies now will be, I know, all the more robust because of our new universal commitment”.

With our National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security and by chairing the Equal Futures Partnership, we are encouraging and supporting women’s economic and political empowerment both at home and overseas.

We have worked with Congress to reauthorize the groundbreaking Violence Against Women Act-enacting new protections and strengthening existing protections, including for LGBT individuals and Native American survivors of domestic violence. He called on governments of all states to take measures to ensure gender equality while implementing the post-2015 development agenda.

While the women were released a month later, they say their status as criminal suspects has stopped them from returning to activism and had a chilling effect on women’s rights groups.

Over the next five years, China would help establish 100 health-related projects for women and children in developing countries, finance another 100 projects to send poor girls to school and provide training for women from developing countries, Mr Xi said.