UNIS Geneva hosts youth seminar on women empowerment

Students from colleges throughout Switzerland participate in discussions with high level officials

The United Nations Information Service (UNIS) at Geneva hosted a thematic seminar from 4 – 5 October for university students entitled, “Women Empower- ment and Gender Equality: The Role of the United Nations”. This seminar is the first in a series on specialized topics addressed to young people during the Interna-tional Year of Youth and is intended to promote the activities of the UN and foster a better understanding of the challenges it will face in the coming decades.

The two-day program featured nearly a dozen experts from the United Nations, UN agencies, universities, and non-governmental organizations speaking on a variety of topics related to women’s empowerment and the United Nations role in the advancement of women’s rights.

The discussion on the first day of the seminar included: women and politics; promoting access to education for young girls; and women and decision-making. Day two of the seminar offered experts speaking on the subjects of women and migration, the integration of a gender perspective as key to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, women and trade, and gender and human rights.

The seminar took the form of an interactive dialogue, in which speakers gave brief presentations and then opened the floor to questions from students to facilitate spirited discussions about the opportunities and obstacles facing women and the work the UN is doing to meet those challenges and promote gender equality.

Sixty-eight students from colleges throughout Switzerland attended the event and participated in the discussions with high level officials from UNIS and many other UN agencies and organizations.

In addition to the high level meetings, students were also given a guided tour of the Palais des Nations, and learned more about the different functions of the UN human rights bodies. Conference attendees said they found the discussions to be “very interesting and a wonderful opportunity for students”, “great presentations with plenty of time for questions”, and “very interesting with different approaches on gender issues”.