Students urged to join mass lobby to protect UN Women

03/02/2011 12:21:00

Leading international development charity VSO is calling on students to support women’s rights around the world, by joining ‘The Godmothers’ campaign and attending a Mass Lobby at Westminster on the 16th February in support of UN Women.

Established on 1 January, UN Women is an unprecedented opportunity to lift millions of women out of poverty, by holding governments to account, holding key position on global decision making bodies and delivering programmes on the ground.

However, VSO is concerned that slow commitment of substantial funds from world leaders, including the UK Government, will reduce UN Women’s ineffectiveness. ‘The Godmothers’ campaign urges the UK Government to commit to an annual contribution of £21m for UN Women. By matching its previous funding to UNICEF, this would allow UN Women to start delivering programmes on the ground that will achieve real change for the world’s most discriminated and oppressed women.

Oxford student, Selali Fiamanya, 19, spent six months volunteering in both the UK and Nigeria with VSO’s Global Xchange and is attending the Mass Lobby:

“In Nigeria I was surprised to be surrounded by some women who were, albeit not fully equal to men in every respect; strong, relatively free and respected. My experience taught me that many cultures have different views on the position of women and that the job of UN Women is to ensure that these views are not ones which are oppressive, and in which women can choose who and what they want to be. I do believe change is possible: it's not an outrageous goal.”

Head of External Affairs at VSO UK, Kathy Peach, warns that without adequate funding UN Women could have a similar fate to previous UN efforts to improve women’s lives: sabotaged by insufficient funds, lack of expertise and a narrow mandate focused on small-scale pilot projects. She said:

“UN Women’s success is, in part, dependent on strong and immediate financial support from the UK Government. So far the Government has played a critical role in creating the agency and has publicly stated it will ensure more aid money directly helps women and girls. We need them to now back up their comments by committing funding to ensure that UN Women is the success millions of women around the world need it to be.”

‘The Godmothers’ campaign launched in January and has already recruited more than 2,000 Godmothers to watch over the agency and hold it to account. In the centenary year of International Women’s Day, VSO’s Godmothers are joining together for a Mass Lobby event and meet with their MPs afterwards to ensure the UK Government’s supportive words are turned into concrete actions.

Editor's notes

Mass Lobby details

• On Wednesday February 16th at 10.30am, VSO UK will be holding a Mass Lobby in Westminster to highlight the campaign and get MPs showing their support for UN Women.

• It will begin with high-profile political speakers from 11am - 12.30pm.

• After a quick photo-call, at 1pm we will descend on Parliament en-masse to meet with our MPs and explain face-to-face why UN Women is important to us.

Campaign statistics

• Among women aged between 15 and 44, acts of violence cause more death and disability than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war combined.

• Despite doing two-thirds of the work, women earn just 10 per cent of the world’s income. Evidence shows that when women earn and manage their own money they are more likely than men to spend it on educating and feeding their children.

• Rural women already play a major role in agriculture but receive less than one per cent of the credit. If they had the same access as men to resources such as land, seed and fertiliser, agricultural productivity would increase by 20 per cent.

• Just 19.1 per cent of the world’s parliamentary seats are held by women. Research shows that peace agreements and post-conflict reconstruction do better when women are involved, and that there is less corruption when women are more active in politics.

Editor’s notes

For more information please contact Rachel Trayner on rachel.trayner@vso.org.uk, 0208 780 7265, 077 3898 2122.

VSO is an international development charity that works through volunteers. Since 1958 more than 44,000 volunteers have worked in more than 120 countries. Today there are over 1600 international volunteers working in 42 countries around the world.