16 Mar 2025
Why every woman leader should read this UN Human Rights Council report
Bangkok — International Women’s Day was celebrated with much fanfare on March 8. Widespread speeches and proclamations celebrated the exemplary roles of women leaders in growing their companies and the Travel & Tourism industry.
All well and good. But if the same women leaders wish to expand their horizons to far bigger challenges at a global level, I would recommend they read this heart-breaking report issued on March 13, just a few days after International Women’s Day, by the UN Human Rights Council.
Here are just the first four paragraphs of its chilling conclusions:
What, you may ask, has this got to do with Travel & Tourism?
Directly, probably nothing. Indirectly, just about everything.
The Israel-Palestine conflict is set to have a long-standing and far-reaching impact on global Travel & Tourism. The most recent conflict in Gaza, the first genocide to be livestreamed by the victims, the perpetrators and witnesses, will have a direct bearing on the future of justice, human rights, privacy, freedom and the rule of law.
More conflict is a certainty not just in political and diplomatic meetings but between peoples — at destinations, educational institutions, at MICE events, workplaces restaurants, hotels, any and all public venues.
CEOs, be they men or women, have to be prepared for How, When and Where the impact will be felt.
They can, of course, just shrug and move on. Some shallow thinkers will do just that. But a small handful will think a little deeper and reflect on the conclusions of the report.
Drafted in the diplomatically and politically correct language of UN documentation, the 49-page report is visually boring and makes for bland, tedious reading. Read slowly and carefully, however, it is a mind-numbing compilation of testimonies and eyewitness accounts of atrocities at their worst.
Here are just a few excerpts:
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued this statement in response to the report.
Click here to download the full report.
To help readers save time, I have cropped some of the relevant sections from the UNHRC report. Read them and then let your conscience be your guide.
