Women Empowerment and Gender Equality is still a distant dream for women in many parts of the world. During a webinar on Interreligious Dialogue and Gender Equality, organized by Kenu Agarwal, speakers from different communities and religions expressed their concerns over the discriminatory attitude of society towards many women and girls. 

Dr. Kanchan Mehra from Punjab province of India talked about how female fetuses are killed while still in the womb of the mother, as people prefer boys over girls. This happens more often in affluent families than the poor ones because rich people have the means to find out the sex of their child before birth and get the abortion done in case the child to be born is a girl. Although the government in many provinces of India has banned sex determination while in the womb but still people find ways to do it.

Ms. Kamilia Hamidah from Indonasia talked about the discrimination faced by women at home, in their place of work and within educational institutions. She emphasized the need to amplify the work done on women empowerment and equality by women religious and traditional actors. She says that religious and traditional actors understand their community's social dynamics and the way people think. 

Although equal rights are given by law to both men and women in many countries, it is not sufficient. There is a need to change people’s attitude towards women and girls. 

Ms. Annie Thomas from the Women Commission Archdiocese of Delhi talked about the immense impact of the social welfare work that women do in churches in spite of patriarchal attitudes still dominating. She appreciated the women's commission or cells, that most Catholic Churches in India have, which work for the welfare of women and girls

Ms. Kenu Agarwal emphasized the need for more women leaders in the society as well as giving a just and equal status to women. Better mentorship is also needed, especially for the younger generation. Women's participation in peace and harmony initiatives is required as they are often the most effected people during conflicts.  

Despite decades of campaigns on women, peace and security by agencies like the United Nation (see for example the UN Security Council resolution 1325 on women and peace and security, 2000) women are still largely not able to find a space in the task of peace-building in conflict zones across the world. While there continues to be multilateral and multinational efforts that are targeted at conflict resolution and peacebuilding, minimal space has been yielded to women to lead peace processes.

The session was moderated Dr. Swati Chakraborty and co-sponsored by the KAICIID Fellows Network, Communities in Transition and Webplatform4dialogue with the hope of organizing more such webinars as there is still a long way to go before we achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal related to gender equality and women empowerment.