Theme: Feminist Foreign Policy

Resistance to women’s, girls’ and young people’s access to sexual and reproductive health and rights has increased, write Margot Wallström, Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Isabella Lövin, Minister for International Development Cooperation and Climate.

At Sweden’s initiative, Johan Bävman’s photo exhibition Swedish Dads was on display at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris for several weeks in March and April. The exhibition shows 25 fathers on parental leave, and offers a snapshot of Swedish dads’ views on parental leave and gender equality. Some 10 000–15 000 people saw the exhibition at the OECD.

Today, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs (MFA) is presenting new country reports on human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The launch is part of the Government’s work to promote, prevent and influence developments in these areas.

Wikipedia is the world’s most used online encyclopaedia. Among the millions of articles there are four times as many articles about men as there are about women. Behind the scenes the figures are even worse: only nine per cent of editors are women and one per cent are transgender people; the rest are men. Moreover, the majority of those who edit articles are well-educated people from countries in the west.
But this can be changed. Sweden’s Embassy in New Delhi decided to help out.

Representatives of some 50 nations gathered in Brussels at the beginning of March to build a global financial and political partnership for the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of women and girls. The She Decides conference reverberated across the world and was able to raise a total of EUR 181 million to support organisations working on SRHR.

Women and young girls are the hardest hit by HIV. It is twice as common for girls and young women (15– 24 years old) to contract HIV as boys and men in the same age group. This was one of the issues raised recently during a panel discussion in Stockholm on women’s sexual and reproductive rights.

In March and April, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Palestine and Bangladesh will publish current gender statistics. This is the result of a Swedish development aid venture, in which Statistics Sweden has trained and provided support to statisticians and users of statistics during one year.

Sverige arbetar med att förbättra kvinnors resurser på en rad områden. Det handlar om allt från bistånd och hjälp till ekonomisk egenmakt till utbildningar i fackliga rättigheter.

Bekämpa våld mot kvinnor, reformera diskriminerande lagstiftning, och lyfta kvinnors och flickors särskilda utsatthet i migrationsströmmar. Det är några exempel på områden där Sverige gör insatser för att stärka kvinnors rättigheter.

On 2 March, an international conference entitled ‘She Decides’ will be held in Brussels. The conference is being co-organised by Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark.