Women's Equality: Violence and International Law

At this week's 59th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, world leaders are pledging gender equality by 2030. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said there's been progress, but he conceded there's not been enough. It's been 20 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action established a plan for the global empowerment of women and, despite some progress against legal discrimination, more than a third of the world's women directly experience physical violence. Even where laws have been changed, implementation is lacking — and in some places, advances have been reversed. At this week's session of the Commission, we hear that the mood is one of impatience.