Women's Rights: A Giant Leap?

The United Nations General Assembly voted Monday to create a new, more powerful agency for women, in a move supporters hailed as a breakthrough for women’s equality and rights. An Assembly resolution called for the amalgamation of four existing United Nations offices dealing with women’s affairs into a single body to be headed by an under secretary general. The unanimous vote followed three years of negotiations

via World Briefing – United Nations – New U.N. Agency for Women’s Rights – NYTimes.com

This has the potential to change the face of negotiations in the realm of women’s rights. This consolidation could (theoretically) cut back on the bureaucracy that has many UN initiatives at a standstill. With one agency more the debate and negotiations concerning specifics in resolutions could be done prior to open floor debate allowing for more real diplomacy to happen. In addition this could mean actually progress in the fight for women’s rights all around the world. Gareth Thomas, the British Development Minister claimed that, “a single agency for woman in the UN would be a far more powerful voice fighting for the rights of women – many of whom suffer appalling levels of violence and ill-treatment on a daily basis," Here is that article.