The Young Women’s Caucus

“The young women did not only work diligently on their contribution to the revisions to the draft which was agreed upon on February 22, but they also reached a consensus on an oral statement regarding the priority theme of CSW. Completing the task in two hours, that we cheekily noted the UN is taking two weeks to deliver, we have every confidence that these young women are not simply the leaders of tomorrow; they are the leaders of today!” sais Raechel.

Oral Statement by the Young Women's Caucus on the CSW priority theme 2011:

The Young Women's Caucus at the UN CSW convened for the third year here at the United Nations to bring together the voices of girls and young women around the world. The caucus supports young NGO representatives and representatives from NGOs working on issues related to girls and young women to coordinate advocacy efforts and policy statements.

We, as members of the young women's caucus, call on governments and the international community to ensure equal access and participation of girls and young women to education, training, science and technology, including young women's equal access to full employment and decent work by:

• Meaningfully engaging girls and young women in policy dialogues on education to create safe, reliable and inclusive educational approaches that will empower young women and create equal learning opportunities;
• Facilitating access to technical training, mentoring programmes and job markets in science and technology;
• Increasing investment in formal and non-formal education and training for girls and young women, especially comprehensive sexuality education, as key to addressing poverty and gender  inequality  and promoting the social, political, cultural and economic empowerment of women;
• Recognising and allocating budgets to NGOs that deliver vocational and non-formal education programmes for girls and young women, especially in the development of educational and economic policies at the local and national levels.
• Including a rights based approach to  education policies to address the gender and socio-economic inequality in a learning environment;
• Creating a safe environment for girls and young women;
• Demanding the right to full and productive employment and equal access to decent work for young women and recognising this right in economic growth policies, occupational legislation and poverty reduction strategies at local, national, regional and global levels;
• Promoting vocational and non-formal education programmes that reach out-of-school girls in a safe and inclusive environment and include their right to comprehensive sexuality education and information on HIV;
• And reaffirming education as a Human Right, which allows girls and young women to claim the full enjoyment of all Human Rights.

 Many thanks for your attention.