World Humanitarian Day 2019: UN honors women aid workers across the world

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The global community on Monday commemorated the 2019 World Humanitarian Day. This year`s event is dedicated to recognizing the undying contribution of women aid workers who risk their lives to work on the front lines of emergencies in some of the most difficult places and darkest corners of the globe.

Every year, August 19 is globally observed as World Humanitarian Day; this day was designated by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in a resolution sponsored by Sweden in December 1991, and aims to globally recognize humanitarian aid workers, and particularly those who lost their lives in the cause of humanitarian services including conflicts, natural disasters, and epidemics.

“On [this] World Humanitarian Day 2019, we honor the work of women in crises throughout the world. [Today] we focus on the unsung heroes, who have long been working on the front lines in their own communities in some of the most difficult terrains, from the war-wounded in Afghanistan, to the food insecure in the Sahel, to those who have lost their homes and livelihoods in places such as Central African Republic, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen,” said a public statement published on the United Nations website, in commemoration of the 2019 World Humanitarian Day.

According to the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) – the UN agency responsible for coordinating and facilitating humanitarian assistance across the world – this year’s campaign is focused on women humanitarians and supports the recognition that women deserve in the strengthening of global humanitarian response as well as in protection efforts under the international law.

“Women make up a large number of those who risk their own lives to save others. They are often the first to respond and the last to leave. These women deserve to be celebrated. They are needed today as much as ever to strengthen the global humanitarian response. And world leaders as well as non-state actors must ensure that they – and all humanitarians – are guaranteed the protection afforded to them under international law,” added the statement.