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Commission on the Status of Women (CSW63) at the UN
Alain Berset leads the Swiss delegation to the 63rd session of the Commission on the Status of Women. The theme: social protection for women and girls, and their access to public services and infrastructure. Switzerland puts forward two priorities: equal pay and recognition of unpaid domestic and care work.
Before the plenary, he quotes Simone de Beauvoir and speaks “as minister for equality and as a man”. He recalls that no country has fully achieved equality, and that only 20% of permanent representatives to the UN are women. At the round table on women’s leadership, he recalls that Switzerland is a young democracy, “one of the youngest in the world”: women have voted at federal level only since 1971.
Switzerland organises an event on the pay gap with the ILO, with Icelandic Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir and UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Alain Berset gives a figure: in Switzerland, the average gap is 18%, and more than two fifths of this gap, in the private sector, cannot be explained by objective factors.
Sunday 10 March 2019 — New York
- Meeting with Swiss artists based in New York
- Reception for equality ministers at the invitation of Katrín Jakobsdóttir, Prime Minister of Iceland
Monday 11 March 2019 — New York
- Opening of the 63rd session of the CSW, with António Guterres
- Meeting with Taina Bofferding, Luxembourg Minister for Equality
- Press briefing
- Ministerial round table on social protection and unpaid work
- Meeting with Marius-Constantin Budai, Romanian Minister of Labour
- Meeting with Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women
- Event “Closing the Gender Pay Gap”, organised by Switzerland and the ILO
Tuesday 12 March 2019 — New York
- Opening of the “Women in Power” event of the President of the General Assembly
- Meeting with Juliane Bogner-Strauss, Austrian Minister for Women
- Round table “How women leaders change the world”
- Statement by Switzerland in the plenary
- Ministerial dialogue on alliances for social protection
Speeches on this site
- 63e session de la Commission de la condition de la femme (French-language page)
- CSW63 : table ronde ministérielle sur le travail domestique non rémunéré (French-language page)
- CSW63 : « Closing the Gender Pay Gap », événement parallèle (French-language page)
- CSW63 : table ronde « How women leaders change the world » (French-language page)
- CSW63 : dialogue ministériel sur les alliances pour la protection sociale (French-language page)
Sources