Speech: We must choose rights, equality, empowerment for ALL women and girls

As we just heard the Secretary-General announce in his Gender Equality Acceleration Plan clarion call, we must all champion women’s rights, we must confront the backlash, we must enhance our efforts to dismantle systemic inequalities, and we must protect women human rights defenders. Together we can all push forward.

Today we celebrate equality for ALL women and girls, and we celebrate coming together, here, now, everywhere.

This year our call is, “For ALL women and girls. Rights. Equality. Empowerment.” Because equality with exceptions is not equality. Because the world has promised rights, equality, and empowerment to all women and girls, everywhere, always. And this promise has yet to be realized.

The pushback against those promises is nothing new. We have faced it before; we will face it again. Until gender equality is our shared reality and shared reward, we will not stop.

Make no mistake: our movement is powerful, and it is growing. It is all of you here, all those who are remotely connected and listening, all those who commemorate International Women’s Day in different ways. It is all of us who understand that equality is not to be feared, but instead to be embraced, because an equal world is a better world.

This year, we mark the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. We hope to see its commitments reaffirmed in a strong, forward-looking political declaration, to be adopted at CSW69 [the 69th session of the Commission on the Status of Women].

This year, we commemorate the 25th anniversary of Security Council resolution 1325. We look also forward to the final stretch this year of the 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals. What better reminders to energize and guide us all?

From governments to boardrooms, from classrooms to households, women’s equality is the greatest solution, and we know that. Every study we do, every project we do, every programme we do, every effort and partnership we have tells us that women’s equality is the greatest solution.

Real solutions require that women be at the heart of decision-making. From Afghanistan to the DRC, from Palestine, Gaza to Haiti to Myanmar, Sudan and beyond, women bear the heaviest burdens of conflict, displacement, hardship, and loss. Yet, we know that when women are at the table, peace is broader, more inclusive, and more enduring.

We know that when women’s voices are heard equally, societies thrive.

We know that when women lead, economies prosper.

We know all this. Now, we must act on it. So that the promises we have made are fulfilled for ALL women and girls, and so that all women can lead and thrive.

I have had the privilege of meeting many inspiring young women and girls. They are the first to show me and to tell me what can be done differently. They are the first to offer solutions. They are the first to remind me of the potential and urgency of change and for progress.

I believe, like they do, that change is coming and will not be denied. I am neither naïve nor blind to the challenges women face and girls face, from violence to discrimination, to misogyny.

But I know, as you all do, with unshakeable certainty, that equality is the solution, equality is the accelerator, equality is progress, and equality is the gamechanger.

Our choices, whether those of action or inaction, are who we are. They are the record by which we are judged. Those choices we make now will define us, and they are our permanent marks on history’s pages. We must choose rights, equality, empowerment for ALL women and girls.

And we will. Because our resolve is limitless, our movement unstoppable, our unity unshakeable, and our cause undeniable.

Thank you for being here with us today, and every day. And, before I conclude, let me say to those observing the holy month of Ramadan, may it bring peace and hope to all.

I wish you a happy International Women’s Day.

And I thank you.