"To evaluate the human rights situation, let women speak for themselves, for example, let us create a global web-map of human rights. If we have web-maps portraying global income inequality, why not to have one showing gender inequality? We invite citizens to report cases of bribery online, why not create a space online to report cases of gender discrimination? And I say it with no illusion to quick-fixes. It is just a tool, one among many to investigate real situation using modern technologies," she said.
The amount of documents already adopted and policies already enforced do not do the job alone, the President has noted. There is a need for innovative, outside-the-box thinking. She also stressed that given hundreds of international and national declarations and regulations on human rights and gender equality issues it was necessary to focus on their actual implementation rather than pass another one.
According to the president, political will, constructive work of institutions cannot be really successful without a powerful engine - non-governmental women's organizations. For actual implementation of gender equality it is important to have effective interaction of governmental and non-governmental organizations, in particular when addressing such concerns as human trafficking or other issues that transcend national borders.
Grybauskaitė has also mentioned that in 2013 Lithuania will hold the EU presidency and that one of the targets will be to monitor mechanisms how gender issues are solved in Europe.
Joint declaration "The future women want: A call to action", urging to take responsible action in implementing women's rights, was endorsed at the event.
The event was also attended by other members of the Council of Women World Leaders: President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff, President of Argentina Christina Fernandez de Kirchner, President of Costa Rica Laura Chinchilla Miranda, President of the Swiss Confederation Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, Prime Minister of Jamaica Portia Simpson-Miller, Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard, Prime Minister of Denmark Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Head of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde, and former President of Finland Tarja Halonen.
2012 06 22
Lithuanian president suggests creating global human rights map
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė, currently attending the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, delivered a speech at the Women World Leaders' event. The president underlined that official statistics was not enough to evaluate the human rights situation across the world and suggested creating a web-map of human rights, the Press Service of the President said.
Dalia Grybauskaitė / AFP/„Scanpix“ nuotr.
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