United Nations officials today marked Human Rights Day by declaring that everyone has the right to be heard and to shape the decisions that affect their lives and communities.

“International law is clear: No matter who you are, or where you live, your voice counts,”Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his message for the Day, observed annually on 10 December. “On this Day, let us unite to defend your right to make it heard.”

This year’s theme for the Day, which is being observed through numerous events around the world, is ‘Inclusion and the Right to Participate in Public Life.’

The General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on 10 December 1948 – and the date has since served to mark Human Rights Day worldwide. The UDHR sets out a broad range of fundamental human rights and freedoms to which all men and women, everywhere in the world, are entitled, without any distinction.

In his message, Ban noted that there has been “undeniable” progress over the past century along the path of inclusion. However, far too many groups and individuals face obstacles, including women, indigenous peoples, religious and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities or those with a different sexual orientation or political opinion.

“These are not just nice ideas,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, stated in her remarks to a Human Rights Day event in Geneva, referring to this year’s theme.

“Millions of people have gone on to the streets over the past few years, some demanding civil and political rights, others demanding economic, social and cultural rights,” she said. “This groundswell is not simply a question of people demanding freedom to say what they think.

“They have been asking for much more than that. They have been asking for their right to participate fully in the important decisions and policies affecting their daily lives. That means not only the democratic processes, but also the key economic decisions that can have such a huge impact on individuals, families, and even entire groups and nations.”

In a separate statement for the Day, Pillay saluted all those who have suffered so much seeking what is rightfully theirs, saying that “we have a voice, we have our rights and we want to participate in the way our societies and economies are run.”

The voices of too many women and girls, in particular, continue to be stifled through discrimination, threats and violence, the Executive Director of the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), Michelle Bachelet, said in her message for the Day.

“This is holding back progress for women and for all members of society,” she stated. “Women’s participation is fundamental for sustainable development, peace and democracy. It is time to remove the barriers to women’s full and equal participation in the economy, in politics and in all aspects of public life.”

As part of today’s celebration, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is holding a high-level event at its Paris headquarters in support of girls’ education, with a special tribute to Malala Yousafzai, a 15-year-old girl who was shot by the Taliban in October for her efforts to defend the education of girls in her native Pakistan.

‘Stand up for Malala – Girls’ education is a right’ aims to accelerate political action to ensure every girl’s right to go to school, and to advance girls’ education as an urgent priority. Speakers include UNESCO’s Director-General, Irina Bokova, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and the UN Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown.

“Whenever and wherever a young girl is forbidden from going to school, it’s an attack against all girls, against the right to learn, the right to live life to the full; and it is unacceptable,” Bokova stated last month in support for Malala, who is recovering in a hospital in the United Kingdom.

Observances for Human Rights Day also include a special event at UN Headquarters in New York on Tuesday on the role of leadership in the fight against homophobia, which is organized by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and a number of permanent missions to the UN as well as international human rights organizations.

Human Rights Watch sent a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in which it advocates the necessity to publicly announce a strategy to protect women’s rights in Afghanistan before she leaves office in 2013.

Women’s rights are increasingly at risk in the run-up to the scheduled US draw-down of international troops at the end of 2014, and decreasing funding and attention to Afghanistan.

Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, stated that “The US and other countries have worked hard to create a security strategy for Afghanistan and have made plans to support the country’s soldiers and police after the 2014 draw-down, but eleven years after the end of Taliban rule, women have no such commitment. Afghan women need and deserve a strategy of their own for the protection of their rights in the perilous years ahead.”

On May 2, 2012, the US government signed a strategic partnership agreement with the Afghan government that emphasizes Afghanistan’s commitment to “ensure and advance the essential role of women in society, so that they may fully enjoy their economic, social, political, civil, and cultural rights,” said Adams. “Now Secretary Clinton has a chance to leave a long-term legacy by turning the many commitments the US has made to women’s rights into a clear and viable strategy that is taken as seriously as military strategy.”

Afghanistan presents a challenging and critical test of US efforts to support gender equality around the world. The December 2011 US “National Action Plan on Women Peace and Security,” the March 2012 Department of State guidance on “Promoting Gender Equality to Achieve our National Security and Foreign Policy Objectives,” and the new US “Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence Globally” chart an ambitious and important path for the US in supporting women’s empowerment globally.

As Human Rights Watch stated in the letter, nowhere will any efforts meet greater obstacles than in Afghanistan. The last 10 years have brought some significant advances for Afghan women and girls, including education, access to health care, freedom of movement, employment, and participation in public life. However, Afghanistan maintains a dismal women’s rights record on many fronts, remaining one of the worst countries in the world to be a woman. Recent WHO, UNICEF, and World Bank reports and the Afghanistan Mortality Survey of 2010 show that maternal and infant mortality remain among the highest in the world. The Afghan government estimates that half of all girls still do not go to school and that very few complete high school. In many parts of the country, Human Rights Watch has found that many women and girls are not even free to leave their homes.

Afghan women and girls endure high levels of violence, both within and outside their homes. A 2008 Global Rights study found that over 87 percent of Afghan women experience at least one form of abuse in their lifetime. Forced marriage and under age marriage are endemic: a recent UNICEF study found that 20 percent of girls aged 15-19 were married, 46 percent of women aged 15-49 had married before age 18. Human Rights Watch research has determined that several hundred women and girls have been imprisoned for “moral crimes,” often simply for the act of fleeing domestic abuse.

A combination of different factors has resulted in enormous and increasing anxiety for Afghan women and girls. These include: transition of full security responsibilities to the Afghan government as international troops draw down; pressure to reach an agreement with the Taliban; fatigue with Afghanistan and the Afghan war among the US public; sharp reductions in the amount of US development assistance; and attempts by conservative politicians and other powerful opponents of women’s rights in Afghanistan to roll back progress already achieved.

In the letter, Human Rights Watch urges the US government to continue to press the Afghan government at the highest political levels to protect women’s rights and use women’s rights as a key indicator for measuring development and security; to issue prompt public responses to Afghan government actions that violate Afghanistan’s domestic and international obligations to the rights of women and girls; to ensure a central role for women in all Afghan peace-building processes; and to make basic human rights for women a key US funding priority in Afghanistan.

Afghan women and girls need a strategic partnership agreement of their own that focuses specifically on the promotion and protection of their rights. It is going to be interesting to see if US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will use her remaining time in office to formulate such a strategy, and work to set US policy on a strong course for future years.

Many of us might find these details not extraordinary, but in reality they are. Female athletes were not accepted at the Games for a long time; it was a boys’ game. There have been The Women’s Olympic Games, of course, but those games seem to be completely forgotten.

The woman who envisioned the Games was Alice Milliat, founder and president of La Fédération Sportive Féminine Internationale (FSFI); and she created them as her response to the refusal of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) to put women’s track and field on the program of the Olympic Games.

The Women’s Olympic Games took place in the 1920s and 1930s, and gave women an opportunity to improve their sporting performances by competing against each other. The first Games were held in Paris, France, in 1922. They included 11 events, and the participation of female athletes from 6 countries. Eighteen athletes broke world records and were cheered by more than 20,000 spectators. Four years later, the Games were held in Gothenberg, Sweden; 10 nations were represented, including Japan.

As ‘Milliat’s women’ broke new records, and their prestige rose, the IAAF started to push for more and more women in the IOC’s games. However, at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, Netherlands, women competed only in 5 events, when they were promised 10. The response was immediate and severe: the British Women’s Athletics Association refused to take part in the Games as a protest against the false promise given by the IOC. It was the first, and only, Olympic Games that recorded a feminist boycott.

The last Women’s Olympic Games took place in London, in 1934. These Olympics Games are especially significant for the female 800m race that took place – banned till then due to the physical strength it requires. It might be worth noting that at Summer Olympic Games women were allowed to compete in this kind of race only in 1966.

Time seems to bring transformation, evolution. The status of women in the sports is improving with every new gathering, every Summer and Winter Olympic Games. However, some Arab countries find the idea of sending female athletes to compete in games still very problematic, and they justify it taking into the equation issues apparently related to their culture. As a result, several Muslim countries did not send any female athletes to the IOC’s games till now.

It so happened then, that when Khadija Mohammed qualified for the Olympics at the Al Shabab stadium in Dubai (United Arab Emirates), and was announced as the first Emirati to participate, the news reached the press at God’s speed.

When Qatar and Brunei announced they would send female athletes to attend the Games for the first time, a feeling that something important was happening spread among journalists. When it was confirmed that Bahiya al-Hamad will carry the Qatari flag at the opening ceremony, the world knew it’s going to be a truly historic moment.

As we learned that Brunei’s Maziah Mahusin will compete in the athletics; Qatar’s Nada Arkaji will compete in swimming, Noor al-Malki in athletics, Aya Magdy in table tennis, and Bahiya al-Hamad in shooting, we knew. For the first time, it seemed possible to have female athletes in every one of the 205 National Olympic Committees that were about to participate in the London’s games. The Olympics could suddenly change, and they would not be the same ever again.

It was a domino effect. Saudi Arabia also announce it would send women athletes to the Olympics for the first time. The excitement remained contained, though. In fact, the government had chosen two athletes, runner Sarah Attar from Pepperdine University in California (800-meter) and Wodjan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani (judo) who were either living outside the country, or carried almost no influence as sports’ figures inside Saudi Arabia. Therefore, the government’s decision seemed a clever attempt to quiet the international pressure, and essentially have an all-male Olympic team.

Nevertheless, Minky Worden of the New York-based Human Rights Watch states that this Olympic Games are truly important for Saudi women: “It’s an important precedent that will create space for women to get rights, and it will be hard for Saudi hardliners to roll back.”

Much more could have been done, but as Sarah Attar said from her training base in the US: “It’s such a huge honor and I hope that it can really make some big strides for women over there to get more involved in sport.”

It seems the London’s games will go down in history as important for women’s rights, and as a real step towards the day the Games will be completely gender equal. In the meantime, we will have the honor to admire the strength and the resilience of many women, several of them fantastic Muslim athletes: Hayat Lambarki (athletics) from Morocco, Amina Ferguen (athletics,) from Algeria, and Nisrine Dandan (basketball) from Lebanon, only to name a few.

Let us enjoy some great Olympic Games this summer, and many formidable performances by the most committed female athletes on the planet!

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) meeting comes as Saudi Arabia’s National Olympic Committee has failed to confirm the participation of women on its national team for the London Games. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, only Qatar, Brunei, and Saudi Arabia fielded all-male teams. This year, Qatar and Brunei have confirmed they will send female athletes as part of their teams for the first time, according to HRW.

“Saudi Arabia is the last holdout denying women and girls the ability to take part in sports,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The clock is running out for Saudi women to join the Games, and for the international community to insist that the Saudi government allow women to participate.”

Speaking at a news conference in Jeddah in April, Prince Nawwaf al-Faisal, the Saudi sports minister and head of the Saudi National Olympic Committee, said: “Female sports activity has not existed in Saudi Arabia and there is no move thereto in this regard. At present, we are not embracing any female Saudi participation in the Olympics.”

“This statement violates the Olympic Charter’s 6th Fundamental Principle of Olympism, that any form of discrimination on the basis of gender is incompatible with the Olympic movement”, Human Rights Watch said.

In February, Human Rights Watch released a report,”Steps of the Devil”: Denial of Women’s and Girls’ Rights to Sport in Saudi Arabia, which sets out how the Saudi government systematically discriminates against women seeking to practice sports such as the ban millions of Saudi girls from participating in physical education classes in state schools.

Saudi government officials have written to Human Rights Watch that the country is evaluating girls’ physical education in schools. Some girls’ schools are allowing sports in defiance of the government ban, and there is a vigorous debate about the subject underway in the country.