Avijeet Rabindranath Das
Nov 6 · 2 min read

“Gender Equality”

Not many people will think about this issue! But this is an issue that needs to be discussed and made a reality. We have to make gender equality pervasive in all parts of our society.

According to UNICEF gender equality: "means that women and men, and girls and boys, enjoy the same rights, resources, opportunities and protections. It does not require that girls and boys, or women and men, be the same, or that they be treated exactly alike."

What is imperative is to achieve gender equality in all parts and spheres of society. Gender equality is of utmost importance in all societies, regardless of whether the society is a developed or a developing one! To achieve gender equality in most societies there has to be an elimination of pernicious practices against women and girls. These activities include sex trafficking, femicide, wartime sexual violence, and many other oppressive behaviour on women.

The world has achieved great progress in several fields, yet this basic requirement of women has not been either achieved or practiced. UNFPA asserts that, "despite many international agreements affirming their human rights, women are still much more likely than men to be poor and illiterate. They have less access to property ownership, credit, training and employment. They are far less likely than men to be politically active and far more likely to be victims of domestic violence."

In fact by the end of 2017, gender equality is the fifth of seventeen sustainable development goals of the United Nations. The United Nations cannot achieve any plausible goals on this issue without active involvement of all the nations of the world. We have to empower more women to usher in an era of gender equality pervasive in all parts of our society.

- Avijeet Das