“Equality Is Not a Dream. It Is a Decision”: UN Chief Warns of Global Setbacks for Women and Girls

By: Ebenezer Adugyamfi & Emmanuel Ayiku
GhanaianNewsCanada | September 29, 2026

NEW YORK — United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has used the United Nations General Assembly to highlight what he described as a major achievement inside the world body — the attainment of gender parity — while warning that millions of women and girls around the world continue to face discrimination, violence, exclusion and restrictions on their fundamental rights.

Speaking during this week’s high-level General Assembly discussions, Guterres said the United Nations had reached gender parity for the first time in its history after years of efforts to remove institutional barriers, challenge assumptions and change practices that had limited women’s participation.

“Equality is not a dream. It is a decision,” Guterres said.

His comments placed two contrasting realities at the centre of the international debate over women’s rights.

On one hand, the United Nations says it has made significant progress in ensuring women are represented equally within its workforce and leadership structures.

On the other, Guterres warned that progress cannot be measured only by what happens inside international institutions.

Across different parts of the world, women and girls continue to experience discrimination and violence, while access to education, employment, political participation, healthcare and other opportunities remains unequal.

UN reaches gender parity

Guterres presented the achievement of gender parity at the United Nations as evidence that institutional change is possible when governments and organisations deliberately remove barriers.

Rather than treating equality as an abstract aspiration, he argued that organisations can make concrete decisions to create greater opportunities for women.

The UN’s progress has come after years of initiatives aimed at improving the representation of women across the organisation.

The issue has been particularly significant because the United Nations was created to promote equality, human rights and international cooperation, while its own institutions historically reflected many of the gender inequalities present in wider society.

 

For Guterres, reaching parity demonstrates that those inequalities are not necessarily permanent.

He argued that progress became possible because barriers were identified and challenged rather than accepted as part of the normal way institutions operate.

But global progress remains uneven

The Secretary-General immediately placed the UN’s achievement within a much larger global context.

According to Guterres, the progress made within the United Nations should not obscure the challenges facing women and girls outside the organisation.

“Women and girls continue to face discrimination, violence, exclusion and abuse,” he warned.

He also said that women’s rights are being rolled back in some parts of the world.

The warning reflects concerns raised by international organisations about setbacks affecting women’s access to education, political participation, economic opportunities and reproductive and other rights.

The scale and nature of these challenges differ significantly from country to country.

In some places, women have gained greater political representation and access to education and employment.

In others, legal restrictions, cultural practices, armed conflict, poverty and political instability continue to limit women’s opportunities.

Guterres warns against treating equality as optional

One of the central messages of Guterres’s speech was that gender equality should not depend on political convenience.

He warned that women’s rights are sometimes treated as issues that can be negotiated away during political or social disputes.

“Their rights are being rolled back. Their voices silenced. Their bodies turned into battlegrounds. And their freedoms treated as bargaining chips,” he said.

The statement reflects a broader concern within the United Nations about the impact of conflict and political instability on women.

Women and girls are frequently among the civilian populations most affected by armed conflicts.

They can face displacement, sexual violence, loss of access to education and healthcare, economic insecurity and separation from families.

In conflict zones, women may also face heightened risks of exploitation and abuse.

Guterres therefore connected the question of gender equality to the wider international agenda on peace, security and human rights.

Women and girls in conflict zones

The Secretary-General’s warning comes as the international community continues to confront multiple armed conflicts and humanitarian crises.

In many conflicts, women and children make up a significant proportion of displaced populations.

The consequences can extend far beyond the immediate violence.

When schools close, girls may lose access to education.

When healthcare systems collapse, women can face greater difficulty accessing maternal and reproductive healthcare.

When economies are disrupted, women who depend on informal employment or family businesses can lose their sources of income.

And when communities are displaced, women and girls can face additional risks of trafficking, sexual violence and exploitation.

These conditions can reverse years of development progress.

Political representation remains a major issue

Guterres’s remarks also draw attention to women’s participation in political decision-making.

Although women have made significant gains in political representation in many countries, they remain underrepresented in national governments, legislatures and other positions of political power globally.

Greater participation does not automatically eliminate discrimination, but advocates of gender equality argue that women’s presence in decision-making institutions is important because policies can have very different effects on men and women.

The United Nations has therefore promoted women’s participation in politics as part of its broader gender-equality agenda.

Guterres’s message suggests that achieving equality requires deliberate institutional decisions rather than waiting for social change to occur automatically.

Economic inequality remains another barrier

Gender equality is also closely connected to economic opportunity.

Women around the world continue to face barriers in accessing employment, financial services, property ownership, education and leadership positions.

Even where women participate extensively in the workforce, differences in pay, access to senior positions and responsibility for unpaid care work can affect their economic independence.

Women are also disproportionately represented in some forms of informal and precarious employment.

For developing economies, these inequalities can have wider consequences because limiting women’s economic participation can reduce the productive capacity of entire communities.

The argument that gender equality is an economic issue as well as a human-rights issue has therefore become increasingly prominent in international development discussions.

Education remains critical

Education is another major component of the global gender-equality debate.

Millions of girls have gained access to education over the past several decades, contributing to improvements in literacy, employment and health outcomes.

However, access remains uneven.

Conflict, poverty, early marriage, discrimination and restrictions imposed by governments or communities can prevent girls from attending school.

When girls lose access to education, the consequences can extend into adulthood.

Education can influence employment opportunities, household income, health decisions and participation in public life.

For this reason, international organisations have repeatedly identified girls’ education as one of the most important areas for investment.

The UN’s own achievement carries symbolic importance

The UN’s announcement of gender parity is significant partly because of the symbolic role the organisation plays internationally.

The United Nations regularly calls on governments to respect equality and human rights.

Achieving gender parity within its own institution allows the organisation to point to a concrete example of internal reform.

Guterres’s argument is that institutional change can happen when leaders deliberately decide to change recruitment, promotion and representation practices.

The achievement does not mean that every gender-related inequality has disappeared within the UN.

Rather, it represents progress in the representation of women across the organisation and demonstrates what targeted policies can accomplish.

“Equality is not a dream”

Guterres’s statement that equality is a decision was intended to emphasise the role of political will.

For decades, gender equality has been discussed as a long-term social objective.

But the Secretary-General’s message was that institutions do not necessarily have to wait for society to change before taking action.

Governments, international organisations, businesses and other institutions can introduce policies that remove discriminatory barriers.

That can include recruitment and promotion policies, protection against workplace harassment, equal access to education, political participation and measures designed to address violence against women.

The approach places responsibility on decision-makers to create conditions in which equality becomes achievable.

A warning against complacency

The UN chief also warned against assuming that progress is irreversible.

The phrase “Their rights are being rolled back” reflects concern that advances achieved over decades can be weakened when political priorities change.

Women’s rights advocates have raised similar concerns about restrictions on reproductive rights, access to education, political participation and protections against gender-based violence in different parts of the world.

The situations vary significantly between countries, and the legal and political context is different in each case.

Nevertheless, the broader concern is that progress can be lost if institutions fail to protect existing rights.

Gender equality and the future of humanity

Guterres described discrimination against women and girls as not only a human-rights problem but also a loss for humanity.

He called the continuing discrimination and exclusion an “outrage” and “a profound waste for humanity.”

The argument is based on the idea that societies cannot fully benefit from their populations when large numbers of people are prevented from contributing equally.

Women make up roughly half of the world’s population.

Excluding women from education, employment, political decision-making and leadership therefore limits the pool of talent and ideas available to societies.

Greater equality can affect economic development, public policy, family wellbeing and social stability.

The challenge beyond the UN

The UN’s achievement in reaching gender parity provides an example, but Guterres’s broader message is that institutional success must be matched by progress in communities around the world.

The challenges facing women and girls are not identical everywhere.

In some countries, the focus may be political representation.

In others, it may be violence against women, access to education, economic opportunity or legal discrimination.

In conflict-affected countries, immediate priorities may include protection from violence and access to humanitarian assistance.

The global challenge is therefore not simply to adopt one policy but to address the different barriers preventing women and girls from participating equally in society.

A continuing international priority

Gender equality remains one of the central objectives of the United Nations’ development agenda.

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals include Goal 5, which calls for achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls.

The goal covers issues including discrimination, violence, harmful practices, unpaid care work, political participation, reproductive rights and equal economic opportunities.

Progress toward those objectives has been uneven.

Guterres’s remarks at the General Assembly therefore come as both a celebration of progress within the UN and a warning about the scale of work still required globally.

What Guterres’s message means

The Secretary-General’s message ultimately rests on a contrast.

The United Nations has demonstrated that an institution can change its own practices and achieve greater gender balance.

But the wider world continues to confront discrimination, violence and exclusion affecting women and girls.

Guterres is calling for governments and institutions to treat gender equality as an active responsibility rather than an aspiration that can simply be postponed.

“Equality is not a dream. It is a decision,” he said.

For the United Nations, reaching gender parity represents a milestone.

For the millions of women and girls still facing discrimination, violence and exclusion, however, the broader goal remains unfinished.

The challenge now is whether the progress achieved within international institutions can be translated into lasting improvements in the daily lives, rights and opportunities of women and girls around the world.