Good morning.

I truly believe that the value of gender equality is an ethic that should be practiced in our daily life. I recently went to UN in New York and there it was mentioned that towards 2030 all countries should have gender equality, 50-50%.

This is a big homework for us to work towards. As a minister I am dealing with 250 Million people, 80% of whom are women and children, which is a big number. The ladies in this country should work together with me to fight for gender equality, women empowerment and child protection.

All countries have regulations, institutions and programs to ensure gender equality and women empowerment. Even gender equality and women empowerment have become one of the MDG’s and SDG’s agenda. 180 countries have ratified CEDOW - Convention of Elimination of Discrimination against Women and have committed to implement 12 critical areas such as Women and poverty, education and training of women, women and health, violence against women, women and armed conflict, women and economy, women in power and decision making, human rights of women, women and media, women and the environment and the girl child. However, women leadership in different levels is less than 10% globally. Hence, synergizing and collaboration across all government sectors, communities, private sector as well as media are crucial to be able to realize gender equality and women empowerment, in national, regional and international levels.

All of us here have a responsibility to change people’s minds to become gender sensitive, for strong ethics and leadership. This ethics and leadership is to be built from the beginning which starts from the family. There are 3 indicators we have to achieve gender mainstreaming (or gender equality), sustainable development and clean government. Core issue in achieving gender equality is changing the mindset. A mental revolution is required to change the mindset of men towards women. This is a big issue. We are working with many other ministries to implement gender budgeting as a part of development planning process.

Finally let me say that because of the butterfly effect we are all here as one to work together, share together and I am quite positive that without women this planet is nothing. That’s all I want to say thank you very much
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Om.