L’Express: You spoke at the opening of the Trouville Geopolitical Meetings, whose theme this year is “women and power”, a power that is often denied to them in many places on the planet. How can we promote women’s access to different forms of power?
Audrey Azoulay – The number of women heads of state or government has almost doubled in ten years. However, there are only about thirty of them worldwide today! This situation applies to all forms of power: from management positions in companies to those in administrations, including the place given to women in the media. At UNESCO, we also see this in the field of science: today, only a quarter of high-level scientific positions in Europe are occupied by women.
To address this, concrete measures are needed, such as the political parity measures implemented in more than ninety countries around the world to ensure an equal number of women candidates or elected officials. But these measures are not enough to change mentalities, which Gisèle Halimi described as the “great battle” in an interview at UNESCO in 1975. Education, one of the pillars of our Organization’s mandate, is able to do this.
What are the points of attention in the field of education?
Since 2013, the proportion of girls in school at the end of high school is now the same as that of boys in the world. Girls are also studying for longer and longer. Today, 90% of them complete primary school compared to 86% ten years earlier, 79% complete middle school and 61% high school. But many disparities still persist today. Two-thirds of the 754 million illiterate adults in the world are women. In Africa, 4 out of 10 women cannot read or write.
And while more and more girls are attending school, they still do not have the same opportunities as boys. Many are still held back by prejudices, norms and social expectations. While they perform as well as boys in mathematics, women represent only 35% of university graduates in science fields according to UNESCO data – a figure that has not changed in the last ten years. And, as a result, they are also significantly underrepresented in the professions that follow.
This is particularly concerning as digital platforms have become a new space of power. Women represent only 13% of authors of scientific articles on AI and are three to one outnumbered by men in artificial intelligence companies. If we do not redress the balance, we will continue to reproduce online the same biases that already exist in real life, and even amplify them.
Does the situation of young women in Afghanistan particularly concern you?
This is a situation that must challenge us all and for me it is an essential fight. For three years, Afghanistan has been facing a brutal regression that seeks to erase girls and women from the public space. Today, it is the only country in the world to deny them access to education beyond the age of twelve. An entire generation is being sacrificed, while we have made considerable progress over the last twenty years. This is unacceptable and UNESCO calls on the international community not to compromise on this fundamental right.
UNESCO is mobilizing to support alternative learning methods. We work directly with local communities to provide literacy classes. We also support Afghan media to broadcast educational programs. This is the case of the Begum Organization for Women, which founded a radio station in March 2021, then a cable channel in March 2024.
This content, broadcast by UNESCO’s Afghan media partners, has already reached nearly 17 million Afghans, the vast majority of whom are girls and women.
But nothing can replace the lessons taught in a classroom. That is why, in my role as Director-General of UNESCO, I continue to call on the international community to maintain its mobilization for the full and unconditional restoration of Afghan women’s right to education.
Women and Power”, from September 19 to 22, 2024, Governors’ Lounge of the Casino Barrière. Find the debates online.