The United Nations (UN) has revealed that no country in the world has yet achieved gender equality in politics and other sectors.
While countries are struggling to achieve gender parity, the UN Women in Zimbabwe, however, said government could be applauded for its “commendable” progress in ensuring that the constitutional provisions on the promotion of women’s rights and gender equality were prioritised as part of its development agenda.
The UN Women’s report on rankings of achievements on gender equality states that in 2022, no country made it to the top 10.
“Reality check: It’s 2022 and no country has achieved gender equality, nor is close to it,” UN Women said in a tweet this week.
“Let’s put women’s rights on the agenda and ask world leaders to step it up for women and girls.”
In a recently released report titled 20 Years Later: A Country Study on the Implementation of UNSCR 1325 in Zimbabwe, UN Women Zimbabwe said although government had made efforts in enacting and implementing gender-sensitive legislation and policies, there were still some gaps noted in terms of achieving full realisation of women’s rights.
The UN said although Zimbabwe had not yet officially announced that it recognised the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, it was committed to all initiatives towards achievement of women empowerment.
“There is a need for the government of Zimbabwe to reform certain laws and abolish certain cultural practices that violate women’s and children’s rights, and the values of the Women Peace and Security agenda. These challenges illustrate to some extent the difficulties faced by the judicial system as certain cultural practices are no longer relevant in the realisation of women’s rights in a contemporary society as the access presented demonstrates,” UN Women said.
“Government should organise periodical targeted activities to raise awareness on the prevention, protection, and participation of women, and programming of activities within all line ministries. It should continue commemorating women’s activities as scheduled within the global WPS calendar in partnership with strategic alliances such as the UN agencies.”
