16 March 2016, New York) During a public conversation at UN Headquarters today, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka called on global leaders to do more to ensure gender equality and promote womenโs empowerment.
โFor me, itโs just really obvious. We should be standing up for womenโs rights and trying to create more equal societiesโduh!… I take the positive attention that weโre getting right now as an encouragement to be making sure that we are doing even more and indeed participating in a global movement to address this in every country around the world at the same time,โ said Prime Minister Trudeau. โThis needs to be seen not as a womenโs movement but as a global movementโฆ We need to challenge folks to step up.โ
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greets U.S. football icon Abby Wambach at UN Women’s High-Level Event on Gender Equality and Global Call to Action on Equal Pay. Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown
A self-proclaimed feminist, he gained global acclaim for his matter-of-fact response to a question about why he appointed a gender-equal Cabinet last year: โBecause itโs 2015.โ At the high-level event today, Prime Minister Trudeau explained that in order to be able to appoint such a cabinet, his team deliberately sought out women to come forward as candidates. He also stressed continued efforts to retain women in leadership and foster better work-life balance in the workplace.
โTo any world leader that tells me: โIโd love to, I just canโt do that with the current configurationโโฆ I say โWell, what are you doing to change that configuration and draw out those extraordinary women who canโt be the leaders we need them to beโ?โ said Prime Minister Trudeau. โThis is the way the world needs to go and this is the way weโre going make it goโtogether.โ
During the intimate and candid conversation, he said Canada still needs to do more to reduce wage inequality and confront violence against women, particularly against indigenous women. UN Womenโs Executive Director stressed the importance of national legislation to end discrimination, achieving the new Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, and strong leadership โto dramatically change the landscapeโ.
โWe insist in UN Women that the struggle for gender equality is not just for womenโit is for everybody, and those with authority and power, especially; they must lead from the front,โ said Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka. โThe Prime Minister had the authority to appoint a 50-50 cabinet. Leaders must use the authority that they have.โ
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau participates in an “Armchair Conversation on Gender Equality” on 16 March 2016. Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau participates in an “Armchair Conversation on Gender Equality” on 16 March 2016. Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown
Stressing the importance of engaging more men on gender equality, Prime Minister Trudeau said: โWhy is it that every time I say Iโm a feminist, Twitter explodes and news mediaโs feeds pick up? It shouldnโt be something that creates a reaction.โ
Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka thanked the Canadian Prime Minister for his feminist leadership and ceremoniously pinned him as the newest champion of UN Womenโs signature HeForShe campaign, which seeks to engage more men for gender equality. โThis fight is big; it needs to be diversified; and mobilizing and working with men and boys has been a critical strategy for UN Women,โ she said.
Moderated by Sade Baderinwa, Emmy Award-winning journalist of WABC Channel 7, the discussion was the first segment of a two-part high-level event on Gender Equality and Global Call to Action on Equal Pay organized by UN Women during the 60th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW60).
The second part featured video messages from Sigmundur Davรญรฐ Gunnlaugsson, Prime Minister of Iceland, and Stefan Lรถfven, Prime Minister of Sweden, and a lively discussion among panelists Renana Jhabvala, Self-Employed Womenโs Association (SEWA), Jill Shenker, International Organizing Director, National Domestic Workers Alliance, and Abby Wambach, Olympic gold medalist, Womenโs World Cup winner and U.S. football icon.
Echoing Prime Minister Trudeau and Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka on the need for joint efforts, Ms. Wambach said: โWe all just have to come together to fight this battle, to have one giant voice, and we can actually make more policy to make sure that none of these injustices continue to happen.โ
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greets U.S. football icon Abby Wambach at UN Women’s High-Level Event on Gender Equality and Global Call to Action on Equal Pay. Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown