5th Annual Women's Empowerment Principles Event: Equality Means Business
Good morning, Excellencies, honoured guests, colleagues and friends, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to thank Deloitte and Mr. Georg Kell, Executive Director of the UN Global Compact Office, for hosting us today.
I am delighted to join you this morning as we kick off the 5th Annual Women’s Empowerment Principles Event: Equality Means Business. Each year, this event takes place during the celebrations of International Women’s Day, which is Friday.
During this time, women…and men…around the globe participate in events that honour women’s gifts and talents, our energy and experience, our strength and our spirit. And our continued struggle for full and complete human rights.
From Costa Rica to the Czech Republic, from Afghanistan to Australia, and from Germany to Great Britain, all around the world, women are gathering. They are hosting plays and poetry readings, blog contests and dance-a-thons, concerts and discussions. They are standing up for peace, walking for equality and running marathons for empowerment.
In Johannesburg this Friday, hundreds of drummers will meet on the Rissik Street Bridge to boldly proclaim their message: “The Only Thing You Should Beat is a Drum.” Passersby will be invited to drum their outrage and activism against violence toward women and children.
(pause)
We are doing great things…and we are not alone.
Just east of where we are meeting today, the United Nations, as part of the 57th Commission on the Status of Women, is conducting similar conversations about action to end violence against women.
I like to emphasize the word “action”, and I like to highlight the absolutely essential role of civil society organizations around the world that have taken action to drive violence against women to the very top of the agenda.
We have broken the silence. And we realize, at the last, that a violation of one person’s human rights, of women’s rights, is a violation for all.
So, more and more we —men and women— are
I am delighted to join you this morning as we kick off the 5th Annual Women’s Empowerment Principles Event: Equality Means Business. Each year, this event takes place during the celebrations of International Women’s Day, which is Friday.
During this time, women…and men…around the globe participate in events that honour women’s gifts and talents, our energy and experience, our strength and our spirit. And our continued struggle for full and complete human rights.
From Costa Rica to the Czech Republic, from Afghanistan to Australia, and from Germany to Great Britain, all around the world, women are gathering. They are hosting plays and poetry readings, blog contests and dance-a-thons, concerts and discussions. They are standing up for peace, walking for equality and running marathons for empowerment.
In Johannesburg this Friday, hundreds of drummers will meet on the Rissik Street Bridge to boldly proclaim their message: “The Only Thing You Should Beat is a Drum.” Passersby will be invited to drum their outrage and activism against violence toward women and children.
(pause)
We are doing great things…and we are not alone.
Just east of where we are meeting today, the United Nations, as part of the 57th Commission on the Status of Women, is conducting similar conversations about action to end violence against women.
I like to emphasize the word “action”, and I like to highlight the absolutely essential role of civil society organizations around the world that have taken action to drive violence against women to the very top of the agenda.
We have broken the silence. And we realize, at the last, that a violation of one person’s human rights, of women’s rights, is a violation for all.
So, more and more we —men and women— are