LocationsPhoto: Leli Blagonravova/UNDP
- On behalf of the entire United Nations family in Georgia, it’s a true honor to be sharing the stage tonight with our award winners Ida Bakhturidze and Nata Talikishvili, and to recognize all the other smart, articulate and accomplished women’s rights activists who were nominated this year.
- Human rights is an area where progress seldom comes from government or other institutions.
- On the contrary, institutions tend to move only when pushed from outside.
- And even when they do move, they tend yield only slowly and grudgingly to outside pressure.
- This process can be particularly painful and laborious when it comes to equal rights for women, or for others who find themselves on the minus side of the power equation, such as LGBTI persons.
- That is why we owe such a debt to activists like the young women we are saluting tonight.
- Here in Georgia as elsewhere in the world, we have civil society activists to thank for challenging prejudices, for changing minds, and for building momentum for more just policies.
- What civil society activists do is never easy, and it often comes with risks.
- But despite the risks, activists make their voices heard, and they stand their ground.
- So tonight is an opportunity to salute their remarkable courage in standing up for equal rights.
- Their successes send a message that progress towards gender equality is possible.
- But there are still many daunting challenges ahead.
- The country may have just elected its first woman president, but women remain a marginal force in politics.
- They control only 15 percent of the Parliament, and only 13 percent of municipal assemblies.
- Only one of 64 mayors is a woman, and only three of 19 government ministers.
- Women on average earn 35 percent less than men.
- And at least one in five women has been a victim of sexual harassment.
- So there are plenty of reasons to keep on fighting.
- The Kato Mikeladze award is our way of saying: we see you, we hear you and we want to help.
- We thank our partners in the Women’s Fund of Georgia for helping to establish this tradition, which is now in its sixth year of recognizing the remarkable work done by women activists.
- And as a UN family we commit ourselves to working by your side in our shared quest for equality.
- Thank you for joining us tonight, and congratulations to our award winners!
