"WOMEN'S RIGHTS"

The UN’s top diplomat in Afghanistan Deborah Lyons said more than 50 Afghanistan’s 370 districts have fallen to the Taliban since the beginning of May, most of which surround provincial capitals, “suggesting that the Taliban are positioning themselves to try and take these capitals once foreign forces are fully withdrawn.” UNIFEED

The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) is stepping up efforts to support the Government of South Sudan in trying to end conflict-related sexual violence. UNMISS

A two-day workshop is being held to create the framework for new legislation that will govern the constitution making process in South Sudan. This will lay the foundations for free and fair elections to be held. The workshop is supported by regional partners who acknowledge the process will not be easy. UNMISS

Amid Sudan’s transition process, intercommunal conflict, violence against women present threat to nation’s stability, Mission Head tells Security Council.

In his address to the Security Council on Thursday, the top UN official in Sudan said he was “deeply disturbed by continued reports of human rights violations against women and girls including social media campaigns instigating violence.” UNIFEED

Fully investing in midwives by 2035 would avert roughly two-thirds of maternal, newborn deaths and stillbirths, saving 4.3 million lives per year, according to the 2021 State of World’s Midwifery report issued by UNFPA, WHO, International Confederation of Midwives and partners, which evaluates the midwifery workforce and related health resources in 194 countries. UNIFEED

All around the world, women and girls are not in control over their bodies and their lives, states the 2021 flagship report “State of World Population” launched today by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). UNTV CH

Turkey’s announcement over the weekend that it was withdrawing from the Istanbul Convention, an important regional human rights treaty on combating all forms of violence against women, highlights wider concerns regarding the human rights situation in the country, notably the shrinking of civic space and the lack of meaningful and democratic participation in decision making. UNTV CH

UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka moderates a virtual town hall discussion to provide an opportunity for women’s civil society organizations to engage with the Secretary-General on the session’s priority theme: women's full and effective participation and decision-making in public life, as well as the elimination of violence, for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said women need to be “front and centre of the recovery from the pandemic, not as a matter of charity, not even as a matter of justice and basic human rights," but as a matter of "economics, of efficiency and effectiveness, of social and community resilience.” UNIFEED