Foreign
GERMAN Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock says improving women’s rights is a central pillar of international policy.
“Feminist foreign policy is not a European or Western concept. It is a universal human rights concept,” she said at a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
Baerbock said women’s health and reproductive rights are issues of global importance.
She chaired a panel discussion and was joined by the foreign ministers of Sweden and Canada, Ann Linde and Melanie Joly, as well as their Dutch, Chilean, Liberian and Mongolian counterparts.
The German Foreign minister, a mother of two girls and a first female to run the office said countries are lagging behind when it comes to women’s health and reproductive rights.
She pointed to violations of women’s human rights, saying there would be a global outcry if national or European regulations and laws curtailed men’s decisions about their bodies.
“If women are safe, everyone in society is safe.
“If women are not safe, no one in a country is safe,” she said, pointing to the situation in Iran, which is currently rocked by protests after the death of a woman in custody.
Baerbock wants feminist foreign policy to be a central part of driving human rights, democracy and the rule of law around the world.
She said women’s rights are an indicator of the free and democratic state of societies. (dpa/NAN)
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