Around the world， women make up 70 per cent of people in poverty and 60 million girls have no access to education.

The figures are staggering. The leading cause of death for women aged between 16 and 44 is violence. Women make up 70 per cent of the world’s poor. Thirty-five per cent of women globally have experienced violence， either at the hands of a partner or someone else.

The task that a Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka， the new executive director of UN women， has inherited is an onerous one.

\"The fact that one out of three women will experience violence， physical or sexual， that takes us to about one billion women in the world，\" Dr Mlambo-Ngcuka says. \"That's a pandemic by any description.\"

\"Can you imagine if there was any disease that affected so many people in the world？ So many people would be running around trying to address it， from scientists to people in the community. And yet when it comes to the issues of violence against women， it just tends to be women trying to support women， and this is not a sustainable solution.\"

The former South African deputy president and anti-apartheid campaigner has thrown her weight behind the He for She campaign， which aims to get men and boys to speak up for the rights of women and girls.

\"Women have fathers， they have brothers， they have partners and so on，\"says Dr Mlambo-Ngcuka. \"So in all of those roles， they probably would like those significant others to have a much better life.\"

\"I don't think that men in general want girls to be paid less for equal work to that of men， they do not want women to be poor and to transmit poverty to the next generation in their offspring and so on.\"