Why gender equality is still '300 years away', according to the United Nations

Afghanistan's treatment of women as they are "erased from public life" is one of several examples around the world that gender equality is far from becoming a reality, the UN chief warned.

Women in Kabul protested against a new Taliban ban on women accessing university education in December. Source: Getty / Getty Images/Getty Images

Key Points

• Progress on women's rights around the world is "vanishing" according to the United Nations security-general.
• The dire warning comes from Antonio Guterres in a speech ahead of International Women's Day.
• Issues around women's access to education and abortion, as well as gaps in science and technology, were highlighted.

Global progress on women's rights is "vanishing before our eyes," the United Nations boss warned, saying the increasingly distant goal of gender equality will take another three centuries to achieve.

"Gender equality is growing more distant. On the current track, UN Women puts it 300 years away," secretary-general Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday in a General Assembly speech ahead of International Women's Day.

Mr Guterres' comments come as he launched two weeks of discussions led by the Commission on the Status of Women.

Antonio Guterres, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General warned that gender equality is three centuries away. Source: Getty / Amanuel Sileshi

"Women's rights are being abused, threatened, and violated around the world," he added, as he ticked off a litany of crises: maternal mortality, girls ousted from school, caregivers denied work and children forced into early marriage.

"Progress won over decades is vanishing before our eyes," Mr Guterres said.

He highlighted the particularly dire conditions in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, where "women and girls have been erased from public life."

He did not name other specific countries, but Mr Guterres stressed that "in many places, women's sexual and reproductive rights are being rolled back [and] in some countries, girls going to school risk kidnapping and assault."

Also left unmentioned was Iran, which was expelled late last year from the Commission on the Status of Women due to the country's repression of a female-led revolt since last September.

The Islamic Republic was ousted from the commission on 14 December by a US-led vote of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

"Centuries of patriarchy, discrimination and harmful stereotypes have created a huge gender gap in science and technology," Mr Guterres said, citing as an example how women represent only three per cent of Nobel prize winners in the sectors.

He called for "collective action" worldwide by governments, civil society and the private sector to provide gender-responsive education, improve skills training and invest more in "bridging the digital gender divide."

"The patriarchy is fighting back. But so are we," Mr Guterres added.

"The United Nations stands with women and girls everywhere."