“The central question of gender equality is a question of power”, he stressed, noting that we continue to live in a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture.

 “Power is not given, power is taken”, he stressed, adding that “we have to push back” against the resistance to change “because people do not like power being taken”.

“We will only be successful if we are able to combine the institutional approaches, like the ones the UN develops, with the approaches at the civil society [level], the grassroots movements and the public opinion in general”, he elaborated.

In enumerating the UN’s internal priorities, he listed the first as parity, telling the meeting that at the senior Under-Secretary-General (USG) and Assistant-Secretary-General (ASG) levels, “we are now at 53 per cent men and 47 per cent women, which means that we are in line to the commitment I made to reach full parity in senior management in 2021”, he stated.

He added that while there are 26 women and 16 men in senior management, peacekeeping remains a male-dominated field. “We need to have probably a majority of women in headquarters” at the USG and ASG level, he said, “to compensate for what is still a minority in the field, but we are making progress very quickly”, he explained.

Notwithstanding the progress at the top levels, where he can personally appoint women, he said he was aware of a “pushback” moving down the ranks. To remedy this, Mr. Guterres said he was encouraging all Member States to include gender as a criteria and vowed to keep pushing, adding that “the battle is enormous”.  

Ending impunity

Turning to sexual harassment, he flagged that the victims are predominantly women and girls “because of the power relations”.

The Secretary-General said the main obstacle to introducing a zero-tolerance policy was the doubt people had over its effectiveness, pointing out that often “the victim becomes a double victim” instead of the perpetrators being punished.

To combat this, “we have done something revolutionary” he told the group: “We created a team of six women experts on sexual harassment investigations” where complaints bypass the old bureaucratic system and go straight to this team, “which might make some men think twice”. This second priority was greeted with a stirring round of applause.

Sexual exploitation perpetrated by UN staff against others, namely vulnerable populations, was the UN chief’s third priority.

While cases are reported in peacekeeping operations, they also come in from agencies working in humanitarian and development fields.

Combatting this violence, including in families, is what Mr. Guterres called his first “outside priority”.

He identified “a wide range” of ways to do this, from prevention to training and more effective court systems.

The second priority beyond the UN he said, concerned human rights violations, which he said was “very much linked to the pushback aspect.”

Mr. Guterres cited an uptick in the persecution of women human rights defenders, online hate speech, harassment and “vicious campaigns of the worse possible kind”.

“The hatred and prejudice” against “women emerging”, is also “a question of power”, he said, lamenting that legislation, reproductive rights and “even genital mutilation” are moving backwards.

In conjunction with governments and international organizations, civil society has an important role to play in shifting this.

“We need to push back against the pushback in relation to what is a difficult environment for the human rights universe related to the question of gender,” Mr. Guterres spelled out.

The human right agenda in several parts of the world is losing ground and “it is very important that we unite our efforts to reverse this trend”, concluded the Secretary-General.

An $8.8 billion funding appeal has been issued by the UN to help millions of Syrians who live a “razor-edge existence” inside and outside the war-torn country, along with the communities struggling to host them.

Eight years since the war began, 12 million Syrians are either refugees or displaced inside Syria; adding up to around half the pre-war population.

Violence has lessened in recent months but the “bombs are still falling”, the chair of a Human Rights Council-appointed probe, Paulo Pinheiro, told the forum on Tuesday, his comments coming amid airstrikes in opposition-held north-west Idlib governorate and reports that ISIL extremists are close to defeat in eastern Syria.

‘Agonizing choices’ for displaced families

“Around 70 per cent of Syrian refugees live a razor-edge existence below the poverty line,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi in a joint statement on Wednesday, who recently visited Syria and Lebanon, where refugees make up a quarter of the population.

“Reduced assistance due to funding cuts means that refugees are forced to make agonizing choices every day,” Mr. Grandi added, “such as taking children out of school to work, or reducing meals.”

Under the UN appeal, $3.3 billion is required for the response inside Syria, and $5.5 billion is needed for refugees and host communities in neighbouring countries.

Warning that “the crisis is not over”, UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said that without “immediate and substantial” funding, life-saving assistance would likely be affected.

“Every woman, man, girl and boy in Syria who need our help” should get it, Mr. Lowcock insisted.

Echoing that message, Mr. Grandi insisted that Syria’s neighbours “who have been sheltering millions of Syrian refugees for the past eight years” require “no less support”.

UN Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator, Achim Steiner, also warned of “soaring” poverty inside Syria, before highlighting the need to support Syria’s neighbours too.

“In Syria, poverty is soaring, basic service infrastructure is damaged or destroyed, and the social fabric is strained to the limit,” Mr Steiner said. “Host governments and communities in countries neighbouring Syria need our support to stay the course in extending their generosity to refugees while at the same time maintaining the momentum of their own development path.”

‘Bombs are still falling’, Human Rights Council hears

At the Human Rights Council, the head of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria spoke of the “staggering” number of desperate Syrians forced to flee violence.

“Bombs are still falling and civilians continue to pay with their lives for the objectives of the parties to the conflict”, Paulo Pinheiro said, noting that ongoing hostilities “threaten the lives and livelihoods of those daring to return”.

Insisting that the conflict – now in its ninth year – continues to cause scores of civilian casualties, Mr. Pinheiro said that Syria’s displaced population continues to face many other problems, including in areas retaken by Government forces.

“Persecution, discrimination, and other forms of ill-treatment continue in Idlib, Douma, Dara’a, and northern Homs,” he said. “Arbitrary arrests and detentions continue in Government-controlled areas, including eastern Ghouta, Dara’a, and northern Homs.”

Executions and deaths in detention have also continued, the Commission chair said on Tuesday, detailing “ad hoc and anti-terror courts of the Syrian Government”, along with “makeshift justice mechanisms” of armed groups and terrorist organisations.

Speaking as the concerned country, the Syrian delegation criticized what it called the politicized climate of the debate and insisted that its Government was simply trying to protect Syrian citizens from terrorism.

Sexual attacks in South Sudan are so common that mothers now teach their daughters how to survive the ordeal of being raped, in such a way as to minimize the violence. That’s according to Yasmin Sooka, chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights, who was speaking on Tuesday in front of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, during its latest session.

She said that “the protracted conflict in South Sudan has had the most profound impact on women and girls, who have suffered sexual violence, including multiple rapes, at the hands of both government forces and opposition forces.”

The Commission, she added, has documented countless incidents of “brutal rapes including multiple gang rapes, sexual slavery, abductions, forced marriage, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, and mutilation of sexual organs, as well as killing.”

The on-going culture of sexual violence on all sides, comes despite the signing of a Revitalized Agreement last September, which Ms. Sooka said had led to an “overall improvement” in peace and security, although fighting has continued in Yei state.

The world’s youngest country has become riven by civil conflict between forces loyal to the President and his former Vice-President, since 2013, leading to thousands of deaths, more than 2.2 million refugees who have fled across the border, famine in some areas, and a devastated economy.

‘Every societal norm’ being broken

“The Commission was outraged by the testimony of many South Sudanese women who said that the risk of rape is so high in going out of the Protection of Civilians sites to forage for food and collect wood”, said Ms. Sooka, “that they have had to teach their daughters how to respond to their rapists…to minimize the violence.”

The rights expert also noted that thousands of youngsters had been recruited by commanders who promised them that they could loot villages and rape women and girls, in lieu of payment.

“These are not random incidents of sexual violence but a systematic widespread pattern and characteristic of the conflict in South Sudan, where rape and sexual violence are used as a tactic of warfare against women and girls by all of the warring parties to sow terror and fear amongst the civilian population”, said the Commission Chairperson.

“No one is safe – not young boys, the elderly or the disabled, as the belligerents break every societal norm that has long held the people of South Sudan together.”

Responding to the claims, South Sudan’s Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Paulino Wanawilla Unango, insisted that sexual offences were punishable under national law.

Mr. Unango also told the Human Rights Council that there had been “no serious military engagement” between Government forces and any other armed group.

Ms. Mogherini said that the EU is investing in cooperation with the UN system as never before, and reminded the Security Council that EU Member States collectively contribute one-third of the UN peacekeeping budget, which is “more than any other global power.”

Explaining that EU cooperation with the UN and Africa goes well beyond peacekeeping, Ms. Mogherini said that the current approach of the EU is to act as a “partner of equals” with the continent, rather than simply as a donor, setting common priorities and collaborating closely with the African Union and United Nations. Working together in this way, the three organizations have helped some 30,000 African migrants, formerly held in Libyan detention centres, to voluntarily return home, or find international protection, she said.

She described the United Nations as the key partner for the EU on conflict resolution in Africa, and said that “wherever there is a peace process and a UN peacekeeping mission, the European Union is there to support politically, financially, and with our own missions.”

Examples of EU-UN cooperation: