The Anglican Communion website has announced that 20 Anglican women from around the world will engage with the United Nations’ 56th Commission on the Status of Women, to be held next month.
This year’s priority theme is ‘The empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development and current challenges’.
“Members of the Anglican Communion have always been involved with speaking out for and with those suffering injustice and the effects of poverty,” said Rachel Chardon, Special Assistant at the Anglican United Nations Office. “Increasingly Anglicans around the world are recognising that they share particular issues common to all their Provinces: promoting birth registration, the impact of climate change and environmental degradation, the abuse of women and girls.
“One key Communion-wide initiative that has been endorsed by a range of Primates and bishops—including the Archbishop of Canterbury—is the campaign to end sexual violence. Anglicans and Episcopalians worldwide are already working with other Christian traditions and the World Council of Churches address violence against women.“