by Peter W. Pruyn
From March 11–14, 2024 I attended my first Commission on the Status of Women (CSW68) at the UN in New York City. I attended 14 session in total, which I have listed below. Some were held in small-to-medium-sized conference rooms with a few dozen participants; others were held in the main UN General Assembly Hall with hundreds of participants.
In retrospect, I realize I came to CSW with an unconscious question to answer: Is the UN worth it? Given that the UN has no enforcement powers, is the collective time and money that is spent on the UN worth it?
To explore my own answer to that question, I’d like to share images from two of those sessions.
The first shows a youth delegate from the Philippines, dressed in red, speaking during a session. It was only after I looked at the image after I came home that I noticed her two colleagues, one in tan in the upper left and one in blue in the upper right, taking videos of her as she was speaking.
The second photo shows a speaker from Mexico while two of her Mexican colleagues look on on either side of her.
When a delegation comes to the UN, only one member can speak at a time. As they are speaking, my sense is that their fellow delegates know they are speaking not only for them, but on behalf of everyone of their identity group in their country.
If you grow up in a culture where you are told that your voice doesn’t matter, and one day you are able to come to the UN and use it, you get a taste of believing that your voice does matter, that everyone like you matters. And when you and your colleagues come home, my guess would be that that feeling, once tasted, would be hard to forget.
So maybe, one day, that person might speak their truth at home, too.
And that possibility strikes me as worth it.
CSW sessions I attended, with their hosting organization/country:
Monday, March 11
American Medical Women’s Association: “Women Physicians Working to Prioritize Gender Equality to Promote Sustainable Development Goals”
Global Girl Leaders’ Advisory Group, UNICEF: “What Adolescent Girls Want: Priorities and Solutions”
Nordic Council of Ministers (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Greenland, Faroe Islands): “A Gender-Equal Future for Financial Freedom”
CSW68 General Meeting, General Assembly Hall: General Discussion
MenEngage Alliance: “Intergenerational Dialogue: Getting Men and Boys to Care about Feminist Systems Change and Intersectional Youth Leadership”
Tuesday, March 12
Inter-Parliamentary Union and UN Women: “Gender-Sensitive Parliaments: Advancing Gender Equality to End Poverty”
Italy, Burkina Faso, UK, World Bank, UNICEF: “Financing the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation”
The African Women’s Organization: “Functional Literacy as an Opportunity for Women’s Empowerment”
Equimundo, MenEngage Alliance, Azad Foundation: “Engaging Men in Challenging Social Norms/Systems for Gender Justice”
Wednesday, March 13
Czechia, Australia, Mexico and Alternative to Violence: “Boys Don’t Cry: The Role of Men and Masculinity in Prevention of Gender-Based Violence”
The US Mission to the UN, White House Gender Policy Council: “Strengthening Women Workers’ Voices in the Workplace and Beyond as Core to Poverty Reduction and Gender Equality”
Thursday, March 14
FAWCO, One Love Foundation: “Empower Youth: See the Signs of Healthy and Unhealthy Relationships”
UN Commission on the Status of Women: Youth Forum
Qatar with UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed: “Closing the Gap: Women’s Empowerment in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Region” (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates)