March 13, 2015

Day 1 of the Fifty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of Women

Two days ago I registered for the Fifty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of Women at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 9- 20 March. The focus of the sessions are on the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the current challenges affecting its implementation and the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women; the review of progress made in the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action; and opportunities for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women in the post-2015 development agenda.

Yesterday I attended my first couple of sessions on the Elimination of Harmful Practices against Women and Girls By 2030 - Advancing a Sustainable Framework; EQUALITY NOW, UN WOMEN Arts Advocacy Campaign to End Sex Discriminatory Laws; and a seminar by Live Action founder, Lila Rose, on her experiences in defending unborn life.

The sessions were quite insightful and interactive. It was a great opportunity for me to increase my understanding on a wide range of human rights issues; identify the role we as individuals and organisations could play in protecting and preventing human rights violations; and provided an opportunity for all participants to share best practice on human rights education, redress and stakeholder cooperation and coordination.

At the end of the sessions on 20 March, it is our hope that we could all come to a set of commitments which individual governments, stakeholders and civil society could endorse for the post-2015 agenda.

I look forward to sharing my experience of the sessions over the next week.