Women's Issues: UN official calls for agency devoted to women's rights

A top official at the United Nations has called for the creation of a multi-million dollar agency devoted to women's rights.

Stephen Lewis, the UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and former Canadian ambassador to the UN, said his travels around the world have led him to call for the new agency. He told Voice of America, "We have United Nation's agencies for everything from children, to health, to food, to education. We do not have a United Nation's agency to represent, and assist and liberate, and enhance the lives of more than half the world' people."

Lewis says the new agency would be constructed differently than other agencies in that it should be created with major input from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that were active in the various world conferences on women, particularly the Fourth World Conference for Women (Beijing, 1995).