In New York, I will join in the March for Gender Equality and Women’s Rights.  It is  being organized by UN Women in collaboration with the City of New York, NGO-CSW, the Working Group on Girls, the Man Up Campaign and the UN Women for Peace Association.

The march will take place on International Women’s Day (March 8) and commemorate the 20-year anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. This event will celebrate the achievements women and girls have made around the world since 1995. It will also be an opportunity to underscore the need for political commitment to accelerate action to achieve gender equality by 2030.

The 12 section of the outcome document will be displayed – I will be with ‘The Girl-Child.”  The march will start at the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza (47th street and 2nd avenue) at 2:30 pm and end at Times Square (42nd street and 7th avenue) at 5:00 p.m.

Extensive outreach and mobilization is underway with an intention to bring between 10,000 and 20,000 people to march for gender equality. The last march of this magnitude for gender equality in New York City took place in the 1970s.

We invite you to join the march and to spread the word far and wide using the hashtags #Beijing20 and #genderequalitymarch. You can also go to @UN_Women for coverage of the march. Please disseminate the attached flyer widely through your networks and social media.    Flyer for the march. Click here!

The 12 critical areas of concern are as follows:

1. Women and the environment

2. Women in power and decision-making

3. The girl child

4. Women and the economy

5. Women and poverty

6. Violence against women

7. Human rights of women

8. Education and training of women

9. Institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women

10. Women and health

11. Women and the media

12. Women and armed conflict