CSW69 Blog Post Absala Abera
The CSW69 Conference was more than just an event; it was a reckoning. As a public health nutrition professional, I arrived with evidence and left with a clear, urgent mandate: to actively contribute to women’s empowerment, equality, and rights. The UNRISD event, “Financing Care Systems”, highlighted critical issues such as unpaid care work contributing $11 trillion annually to the global economy (Oxfam 2024), only 12% of workers having access to paid parental leave (World Bank 2023), and 83% of single mothers in U.S. nutrition programs reporting skipping meals to afford childcare.
At the “Tracking Progress Since Beijing” event, UNDP and Equal Measure 2030 revealed gender data gaps in national surveys, and FAO’s “Women’s Empowerment Metric” (WEMNS) showed measurement failures, proposing a new approach to assessing empowerment. For example, 78% of national surveys track women’s income, but only 22% assess control over that income (FAO/IFPRI 2024), and while 92% of countries measure girls’ school enrollment, fewer than 40% track safety from gender-based violence in those schools (UN Women 2023).
The tech dialogues also laid bare a crisis, with 38% of women experiencing online violence (WHO 2024), AI tools being three times more likely to flag women’s resumes as “unqualified” compared to identical male applicants (MIT 2023), and only 15% of AI researchers being women (WEF 2023). Survivors demanding data justice showed disturbing realities: 61% of trafficking victims are women, mostly forced into labor (UNODC 2024), over 90% of sexual violence cases in conflict zones go unreported due to fear, stigma, and lack of legal support (UNHCR 2024), and survivors of GBV are 70% more likely to face economic insecurity, yet only 10% of recovery programs provide financial independence initiatives (UN Women 2024). Moreover, 1 in 3 women worldwide experience GBV, but less than 1% of global aid is directed toward programs supporting survivors (WHO 2024).
Intergenerational dialogues revealed an untapped superpower: women with mentors are 54% more likely to stay in their field, companies with reverse mentorship programs are 35% more likely to implement digital transformation (Forbes), yet only 18% of AI authors are women (WEF 2023).
- Expand Gender Data Collection
- Policy Reform for the Care Economy
- Technology & Equity Advocacy
- Strengthening Survivor-Led Solutions
The fight for women’s rights and demand for action is ongoing through generations. Lifting each other up with sustained advocacy, inclusive policies, and collective action, we can build a world where every woman and girl doesn’t just survive but thrives!
