A recent report published by UN Women on justice and equality, Progress of the World's Women: in Pursuit of Justice, highlights the many barriers women must overcome on a daily basis in order to access justice. The report comes hot on the heels of UN Women's first Annual Report. UN Women was established by the United Nations General Assembly as a UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. Both reports note the advances made by women over the past century, while also highlighting the need for further reform.
The report on justice and equality examines both legislation passed by governments protecting women's rights and the implementation of such legislation - or lack thereof. The report undertook a global survey to ascertain where progress is being made and in which areas. The report identified Rwanda as a progressive country with the highest share of women in parliament (51 percent) and the UK as one of the least with only 21 percent of female parliamentarians. It makes ten recommendations to enhance the functioning of justice systems for women, including support for women's legal organisations; using quotas to boost the number of female legislators; and investing in women's access to justice.
Meanwhile, in her speech at the AGM of the National Women's Council of Ireland, Irish Minister for Equality Kathleen Lynch TD asked "if the law is dominated by men, then how can we possibly hope to get equality before the law?". Click here to read the Minister's speech in full.
Click here to read about the work of the Irish Women's Lawyers' Association.