No country is on target for gender equality—and that’s hurting mothers, especially
"Gender equality is under attack," says Canadian Prime minister Justin Trudeau.

Thousands of people are gathered right now in Vancouver, Canada for the world's largest conference on gender equality and the health and wellbeing of girls and women.
It's called Women Deliver 2019 and organizers say if nations want to achieve gender equality they're going to need to listen to the voices of the 8,000 people who are at the conference.
Actually, the experts speaking here say we're going to need the voices of everyone who isn't in attendance too, because right now, no country in the world is on track to eliminate gender inequality by 2030, one of the
Sustainable Development Goals adopted by 193 United Nations member countries back in 2015.
The need for progress is reflected everywhere from
global maternal health statistics (830 women still die every day from causes related to pregnancy) to the bank accounts of the mothers who are paid less for their work before returning home to work that second, unpaid shift.
This tracks with Motherly's 2019 State of Motherhood survey, which found 85% of moms don't think society understands or supports them (that's nearly a 10% increase over last year's survey). Simply put, the situation is getting worse, in America and around the world.
According to Katja Iversen, president and CEO of Women Deliver, "we are in a time in the world when there is pushback against women's right across the globe," but a
massive body of data and research indicates that when nations invest in girls and women there is a ripple effect and everybody wins.
The head of state of the conference's host country, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agrees. "Progress can backslide. We're seeing it happen. Gender equality is under attack," he said as he took the stage at Women Deliver amid criticism of Canada's treatment of indigenous women and girls, something a national inquiry
found amounts to genocide.
It is very clear that America, Canada and the other United Nations member states have a lot of work to do if they hope to meet the 2030 target for gender equality.
Right now, Denmark is the closest, with a score of 89.3, which puts its ranking at good, but not excellent. The host country for Women Deliver 2019, Canada, comes in 8th with a score of 85.8, and the United States is in 28th place, with a score of 77.6.