The Executive Director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, stressed that many women all around the world face serious difficulties such as absolute poverty, child marriage and intimate partner violence due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She also said that insufficiency of women’s representation prevents the progress of gender equality, calling the UN members for efforts to increase the participation of women in decision-making. Munir Akram,  the President of the UN Economic and Social Council and Volkan Bozkir, the President of the General Assembly, referred to the fact that women are still politically, economically and socially excluded from decision-making processes and they called on UN Members to take concrete measures such as strengthening legislation against gender-based violence; establish reporting and redress mechanisms for victims; and committing for violence monitoring.

Source: https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/03/1087392