Women seeking to participate in shaping and building peace and defending human rights face a “vastly worse” situation now than they did before the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Nations human rights chief said Tuesday.
Michelle Bachelet told the U.N. Security Council that in 2020 her office verified 35 killings of women human rights defenders, journalists and trade union members in seven conflict-affected countries where data is available.
“This number, which is certainly an undercount, surpassed the confirmed number of killings in 2018 and 2019,” she said in a virtual briefing.
