3 Problems with UN Women
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1
Elects abusers of women’s rights to leadership positions. For example, in January 2019, UN Women, the agency for the empowerment of women and gender equality, elected Yemen—ranked worst in the entire world on the gender equality index (149 out of 149)—to be Vice-President of its Executive Board.
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2
Collaborates with abusers of women’s rights.
• In September 2015, UN Women co-hosted a high-level meeting with China titled “Global Leaders’ Meeting on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment: A Commitment to Action,” even though China had just detained five women’s right activists who had campaigned against workplace discrimination and sexual harassment, and forced their NGO, Weizhiming, to shut down.
• In 2016, the Executive Director of UN Women went to the United Arab Emirates and signed a cooperation agreement with Islamic Relief Worldwide, an organization accused by Germany and other countries—Sweden, Tunisia, lawmakers in Italy—to be closely linked to the misogynistic Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization that includes as an offshoot the terrorist Hamas group.
• UN Women has participated in events with Alwaleed Philanthropies, an apologist group for Saudi misogyny that is headed by Saudi princess Lamia Bint Majed Al Saud, who claims that Saudi Arabia respects women’s rights even more than their Western counterparts, and that Saudi Arabia does not discriminate on gender.
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3
Politicization affects several areas of its work.
- The agency was silent for eight weeks on Hamas’s brutal rape and murder of Israeli women on October 7th, 2023, and only acknowledged this sexual violence after a pressure campaign by Israeli women’s rights activists.
- The agency’s Deputy Chief Sarah Douglas engaged in partisan political activity in violation of the UN Code of Conduct by endorsing 153 posts following October 7th that promoted anti-Zionism, accused Israel of “genocide,” and celebrated shutting down bridges and highways for campaigns opposing Israel.
- The agency’s “UN Women Palestine” division hired highly politicized and even racist staffers, including employees who previously worked for vehemently anti-Israel NGOs, advocated boycotts against Israel and no other country in the world, and posted antisemitic content on social media. It further supported a Palestinian Authority women’s center named for the terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, infamous for her part in hijacking an Israeli bus and massacring 38 civilians in 1978. The division has also supported several anti-Israel advocacy papers, including a report focused on strategies for using lawfare against Israel in the international arena.