Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has told women’s rights advocates across the world that gender equality will continue to be a cornerstone of the country’s leadership while promising to remain a strident proponent of the principle.
“We’ll be that strong voice, your steadfast ally, not just when it’s popular but always unconditionally,” said Trudeau while inaugurating the largest conference on gender equality, Women Deliver Conference 2019, in Vancouver on Monday.
The conference on gender equality and health, rights, and wellbeing of girls and women, kicked off on Monday with more than 8,000 world leaders, influencers, advocates, academics, activists, and journalists gathered in Vancouver, and more than 100,000 participating in a global dialogue around the world through satellite events and WDLive, the virtual conference.
About 1,400 youth delegates from 139 countries are attending the conference, where every plenary programme and most concurrents feature a young person.
The conference is focusing on power, and how it can drive – or hinder – progress and change as well as how societies must redefine the concept of ‘power’ to use it as a force for good.
The last Women Deliver Conference was held in 2016 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Canada was chosen for this year’s conference because of its reputation as ‘one of the countries in the world that steps up for girls and women’.
“We know we can’t take our foot off the pedal, not even for a moment,” Trudeau said, adding that his government will always be a partner of the gender equality campaign.
“We are here in Women Deliver because we believe in a better future.”
The conference is about harnessing the power that girls and women have – the structural power that blocks them from expressing their power and how advocates for a better and equal world can come together and turn the power we have into a movement.
“It is happening at an opportune moment for Bangladesh as a newly-elected government is in power. The country’s 8th five-year plan is shaping up and the 4th health sector plan is reaching its mid-year review stage,” Chief of Health of UNFPA Bangladesh, Sathya Doraiswamy, who is in Vancouver, told bdnews24.com.
“This is a time to recognise the power of girls and women in Bangladesh who are mothers, sisters, daughters, nurse, midwives, doctors, engineers, lawyers, pilots, garment workers, parliamentarians, ministers and what not?” he said.
The conference will examine the operation of ‘power’ at three levels — the individual’s power, structural power in which the Conference will explore and challenge systems, barriers, and opportunities for progress in power relations, including political, economic, and social structures, and the power of movements.
“The Women Deliver 2019 Conference is much more than a conference, it is one important step on the march towards gender equality,” said Katja Iversen, Women Deliver President/CEO at the opening press conference.
“We all have power to contribute to a more gender equal world. If we use our individual and collective power – boldly, smartly and collaboratively — progress will follow.”
“This conference is also a chance to mobilize against those who reinforce patriarchal power structures, reject multilateralism and push-back against gender equality and women’s empowerment,” said UN Women’s Executive Director, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.
“It’s a place where advocates from all sectors of society can unite to push back against the push-back.”
The conference will end on June 6.
Women Deliver is a leading global advocate that champions gender equality and the health and rights of girls and women.
