Ms Mary Van Lieshout:

I thank the committee for this opportunity for members of Dóchas, the Irish network of international, development and humanitarian organisations, to brief members on the impact the Covid-19 crisis has had on progress towards gender equality globally. The last time a representative of Dóchas appeared before the committee, in October 2020, there was a discussion on the implementation of the sustainable development goals, both in Ireland and overseas. SDG 5, achieving gender equality, means we commit to ending all forms of discrimination, violence and harmful practices against women and girls everywhere. It means recognising the value of unpaid care and domestic work. It means ensuring women's full and effective participation, and equal opportunities for leadership, at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life. It means ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health, reproductive rights and economic rights and resources. Above all, SDG 5 means that governments must adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls at all levels.

I am particularly pleased to be appearing before the committee this month as it coincides with a number of global events on gender equality. The 65th sessions of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, the UN's largest annual gathering on gender equality and women's empowerment, is taking place currently.

The Generation Equality Forum, organised by UN women and co-hosted by France and Mexico, will begin at the end of March having been delayed by a year because of Covid-19. It is timely also that we discuss this issue today as the Citizens' Assembly in Ireland resumes its work exploring recommendations to advance gender equality. Our efforts at home are inextricably linked with efforts at the EU, regionally and internationally to ensure women's rights.

It is more than 25 years since the landmark Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action were agreed at the Fourth World Conference on Women when 189 states, including Ireland, declared their determination to advance the goals of equality, development and peace for all women everywhere in the interest of all humanity. Since then, we know that progress on gender equality has seen some positive steps forward but progress has been all too slow. Not a single country today can claim to have achieved gender equality, nor can any country claim to be one where women feel completely safe on our streets, as the recent tragic death of Sarah Everard while walking home in London demonstrates. This must change.

Today, however, we wish to focus on the specific impacts Covid-19 has had on women and girls across the world and we ask this committee to become a champion for them. The UN Secretary General, Mr. António Guterres, recently said that gender equality was the world's biggest human rights scourge and the Covid-19 crisis has a woman’s face. He said, “Violence against women and girls in all forms has skyrocketed, from online abuse to domestic violence, trafficking, sexual exploitation and child marriage.”

Goal is very conscious of the impact of Covid-19 on achieving gender equality and our teams are seeing first-hand how violence against women and girls in all forms has escalated. In response, we are integrating gender-based violence and child protection messaging into our Covid-19 awareness campaigns. In Zimbabwe, for example, Goal is including gender-based violence, GBV, protection messaging into its Covid-19 campaign, which to date has reached 2.8 million people. We know also that women's jobs are two times more vulnerable than men's and, indeed, we are currently seeing large volumes of women leaving the workforce as a result of the pandemic.

To speak to these issues in more detail, I am delighted to be accompanied today by colleagues from Plan International in Jordan, Christian Aid Ireland's partner, ABColombia, and the Irish Family Planning Association, IFPS, who will speak of the impact of the pandemic on girls' education, displacement, conflict and reproductive health. What each theme has in common is that there must be a renewed urgency to finding gender transformative policy responses that not only build back better, but in a more equal way. We need to ensure that Ireland, in every facet of its foreign policy, positions gender equality at the centre of its approach towards a healthy and peaceful world. In effect, Ireland must develop on goal 5 of the sustainable development goals by 2030.

Today we have four specific asks of the committee. Our first ask is that the committee assists us in ensuring there is a more robust tracking of Ireland's progress in furthering the SDG agenda in its partner countries and internationally, including tracking data on marginalised groups which include women and girls and people living with disabilities.

We ask the committee also to support the EU's Gender Action Plan and call on the Irish Government to swiftly operationalise it, including the commitment to allocate 85% of overseas development aid, ODA, to programmes which have gender equality as their principle objective, and to support the implementation of a gender responsive recovery plan from Covid-19.

Third, we ask that the committee support Ireland's international commitment in its A Better World policy to addressing girls' education as a priority. We need a clear roadmap that outlines how Irish Aid intends to commit to and spend at least €250 million over five years on global education.

Finally, we ask the committee to work with the Irish Government to ensure it uses its voice on the UN Security Council to encourage all countries to fully implement the commitments in the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, better known as CEDAW.

Ireland has been a champion for women, peace and security and we want to see that champion work on gender equality more broadly. I thank the committee for its support for these asks. I will now hand over to Ms Muna Abbas, head of mission and country director with Plan International in Jordan, who will speak to the committee about the situation in Jordan with respect to girls' education, Covid-19 and displacement.