Emily Courey Pryor

This was supposed to be a pivotal year in the fight for gender equality. Twenty-five years after world leaders gathered in Beijing — where they made groundbreaking commitments to advance women’s rights through the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action — this was a year to celebrate progress and engage a new generation of change-makers in the unfinished work ahead. Instead, the COVID-19 pandemic has reversed hard-won gains toward gender equality.

A new index brings us one step closer to measuring progress toward gender equality under the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, but ultimate success is hampered by a persistent problem: gaps in the relevant data.

Participants at the circle painting activity organized with the Vietnam Youth Union to end violence against women. Photo by: Krista Seddon / UN Women / CC BY-NC-ND In 2009, Vietnam learned about a pervasive problem they didn’t know they had. The established belief was that violence against women was simply not an issue in the country.