There are three fundamental issues of gender inequality that must be urgently addressed in the policies of each country: sexual harassment, particularly in school settings; gender bias in economic policies; and inequality in various social and cultural areas that affect the security and development of women and girls around the world.
Hi, my name is Olla Muheenat Temilola
Gender Equality, Sexual Harassment and Gender bias in Economic Policy have been my main areas of concentration over the weeks that I have attended CSW sessions.
By collecting some data from the presentations of the previous Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), we have identified the most relevant problems faced by women and girls around the world. These difficulties prevent them from developing to their full potential and they lack the economic support necessary to access the resources they need to carry out their projects and support their families. This situation contributes to a significant increase in the gender inequality gap.
One of the recurring issues in Nigerian classrooms is the subjection of female students to psychological, emotional and harassment abuse, with teachers imposing their authority over women and abusing them to the point of threatening them with failure if they do not agree to the harassment. When a female student does not conform to situations of mistreatment and abuse or questions educational methods, teachers reject and mistreat female students who do not comply with their threats.
In these cases, I believe that professors and instructors should be trained so that they can understand that students have the freedom to refuse harassment without fear of being failed by the professor.
It is also important to provide students with proper guidance on gender equality and sexual harassment, as many of them do not even understand what sexual harassment means.
I believe that it is urgent to create a gender center as an effective strategy for female students, this will help to have a safe space where they can report situations of abuse and harassment and share their experience that can contribute to the care of other women.
Another issue that needs to be urgently addressed is that of economic policies at the global level. The debate frames the strategies involved to ameliorate the gender bias in global policies that limit women's full economic participation.
How to support women's financial empowerment? Discussions focused on the need to achieve structural changes in the economic policies of each country, and emphasized the importance of inclusive dialogues to transform attitudes towards different genders and generations, because women represent 55% of the world's unbanked, only 18.7% of board members are women and 2% of CEOs of financial companies, meaning that women are underrepresented in decision-making positions.
To accelerate action, I believe it is necessary to facilitate women business owners' access to banking, lending and financing on an equal basis, as well as to ensure that policy makers are aware of the diverse needs of women and that they cannot continue to be underrepresented in financial groups and entities.
Another important challenge in relation in the topic, is to overcome the silence or reluctance of men in discussions about feminism and gender equality, I believe it can be solved if education about gender equality starts at a very early age, encompassing both men's and women's views, and also by holding discussions in smaller gatherings about gender equality.
Article by Olla Muheenat Temilola
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