The world cannot watch while progress is undone, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Friday, saying that women’s rights are being attacked and “we must fight back.”
Guterres claimed that new dangers were aggravating decades of discrimination against women at a United Nations event on Saturday, the eve of International Women’s Day.
“Digital tools, while brimming with promise, are also often silencing women’s voices, amplifying bias, and fuelling harassment,” he stated on Friday. “Women’s bodies have become political battlegrounds.”
“And online violence is escalating into real-life violence. Instead of mainstreaming equal rights, we are witnessing the mainstreaming of chauvinism and misogyny,” Guterres said.
Read more: International Women’s Day: things to know
He urged the world to fight back, stressing that gender equality was not just about fairness, reports Reuters.
“It is about power – who gets a seat at the table, and who is locked out,” Guterres said. “It is about dismantling systems that allow inequalities to fester. And it is about ensuring a better world for all.”
