Honourable senators, it’s March 17, and for years, I would find myself on the streets of New York and in the UN General Assembly for the Commission on the Status of Women’s annual conference, the largest annual conference on women’s rights in the world. But it’s a different time, and there are none of us in New York who typically would be there. I was there usually with students, and there were many events and learning opportunities, primarily because, in addition to the special session of the United Nations General Assembly run to focus on women’s rights, across the street and scattered all around New York City were the many venues related to the Commission on the Status of Women’s civil society parallel events.

But this year, instead of roughly 8,000 people — mostly women — in New York for the conference, 25,000 were registered on the new online platform for the NGO CSW/NY host.

Yesterday, it was an honour and a thrill to be part of a panel that was co-hosted by the Canadian Association of Feminist Parliamentarians and also the host of these 25,000 registered for the conference. We had a panel entitled “Why Violence Against Women Parliamentarians Concerns Us All.” We had parliamentarians from Canada, such as the Honourable Rosa Galvez; from South Sudan, the Honorable Elizabeth (Betty) Achan Ogwaro, who is known for many things, including for standing up to the Kony tyrant when he was invading her country; from the Philippines, the Honourable Sarah Jane Elago, the youngest parliamentarian in that country when elected; and from Armenia, a disability rights defender, a former cabinet minister and also a former deputy minister, the Honourable Zaruhi Batoyan. They were joined by the woman running the new conference that is going to happen in just a couple of days in Mexico City, the Generation Equality Forum, Lopa Banerjee from UN Women.

Together, they addressed the issue of violence against women parliamentarians.

Very quickly, there were two main takeaways. Violence against women parliamentarians has many forms, including harassment inside parliaments, and it undermines democracy. Violence against women parliamentarians dissuades younger women from thinking it is something they want to do, and that’s what we all agreed together that we would change.

Thank you very much. Meegwetch.