Leaders lament slow progress on women's rights 30 years after Beijing milestone

By Doyinsola Oladipo

NEW YORK (Reuters) -"A wave of misogyny is rolling across the world," U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told world leaders who warned of a growing global backlash against women's rights on the 30th anniversary of a landmark conference.

A day before speeches are set to begin at the 80th session of the U.N. General Assembly, Guterres said that hard-won gains for women's rights are under attack and lamented the impact some technological advancements are having on women's rights.

The 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing is perhaps best known for the phrase "women's rights are human rights," spoken by then-U.S. first lady Hillary Clinton, later secretary of state.

At the Beijing conference 189 nations signed a document calling for the "full and equal participation of women in political, civil, economic, social and cultural life."

Guterres said the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action was the most ambitious global political commitment to women’s rights ever achieved. But "progress has been slow and uneven," he said. 

Many leaders recommitted to the 1995 Beijing declaration.

"We are meeting at a pivotal time for the empowerment of women and girls," said Sabine Monauni, deputy prime minister of Liechtenstein. "In recent years, we have witnessed a backlash to gender equality."

"It has manifested in various forms, such as legislative rollbacks, as well as the proliferation of misogynist and anti-gender rhetoric, including in parliaments and public office," she said. 

Other leaders decried a shortage of women in prominent U.N. positions, noting that no woman had ever served as secretary-general in the 80 years of the world body's existence.

Annalena Baerbock, president of the 80th General Assembly, said one in three women globally will experience sexual violence at some point during a lifetime.

"There's no country in the world where women's rights are purely equal to men, and they are still too many places where even speaking about women rights is a matter of life and death," she said.

Nearly 10% of women remain trapped in extreme poverty, said Huang Xiaowei, deputy head of the National Working Committee on Children and Women of the State Council of China.

Leaders said pressure on women's rights had been intensified by war and climate change.

About 676 million women and girls live within reach of deadly conflict, the highest recorded since the 1990s, said Sima Bahous, executive director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.

"Women and girls in crises suffer unspeakable atrocities, hunger and violence from Afghanistan, the DRC, Gaza, the Sudan, Ukraine to Yemen and beyond," Bahous said. "Women and girls bear the brunt of crises."

A number of leaders cited a new and unexpected hurdle in the fight for women's rights: the unsavory side of technological advancement.

"Technology is spreading hate like a virus," Guterres said on Monday. "Artificial intelligence is reshaping our world. But this transformation is unfolding in an industry dominated by men, shaped by biased data, and driven by algorithms that frequently reinforce discrimination."

"We also face new -- and have to address -- new challenges, like the negative influence of social media on the self-image," said Jennifer Geerlings-Simons, the first female president of Suriname.

(Doyinsola Oladipo in New York; Editing by Howard Goller)