The UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that gender equality is growing more distant. On the current track, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women) puts it 300 years away.

Guterres made the remarks while addressing the Commission on the Status of Women, in New York on Monday, March 6, ahead of International Women's Day on March 8.

Global progress on women's rights is "vanishing before our eyes," UN boss Antonio Guterres warned on Monday, March 6, saying the increasingly distant goal of gender equality will take another three centuries to achieve.

The session of the Commission on the Status of Women is one of the most important annual events at the United Nations. It takes on even greater significance at a time when women’s rights are being abused, threatened and violated around the world.

The session of the Commission on the Status of Women is one of the most important annual events at the United Nations. It takes on even greater significance at a time when women’s rights are being abused, threatened and violated around the world.

"Women's rights are being abused, threatened, and violated around the world," he added, as he ticked off a litany of crises: maternal mortality, girls ousted from school, caregivers denied work and children forced into early marriage. "Progress won over decades is vanishing before our eyes," Guterres said.

He noted that, "Women erased from public life,” and went on to highlight that the particularly dire conditions in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, where "women and girls have been erased from public life." He did not name other specific countries, but Guterres stressed that "in many places, women's sexual and reproductive rights are being rolled back (and) in some countries, girls going to school risk kidnapping and assault."

Also left unmentioned was Iran, which was expelled late last year from the Commission on the Status of Women due to the country's repression of a female-led revolt since last September. The Islamic Republic was ousted from the commission on December 14 by a US-led vote of the UN Economic and Social Council, or ECOSOC.

"Centuries of patriarchy, discrimination and harmful stereotypes have created a huge gender gap in science and technology," Guterres said, citing as an example how women represent only three percent of Nobel prize winners in the sectors.

He called for "collective action" worldwide by governments, civil society and the private sector to provide gender-responsive education, improve skills training and invest more in "bridging the digital gender divide."

"The patriarchy is fighting back. But so are we," Guterres added. "The United Nations stands with women and girls everywhere."