The past year marked the 30th anniversary of the United Nations Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the world’s most comprehensive plan to achieve the equal rights of women and girls.
Adopted in 1995, it called on governments to fight for gender equality, to protect women’s rights and to rebalance power structures so that everyone has an equitable chance in the world.
Thirty years later, Canada is still falling short. One of Beijing’s core commitments was for governments to create permanent, well-resourced institutions dedicated to advancing gender equality. Yet across Canada, some provinces still lack full, stand-alone ministries of Women and Gender Equality (WAGE), and the federal ministry of WAGE has been deprioritized.
