Often viewing themselves as the natural heirs of Chinggiz Khan and lords of their homes, Mongolian men, rarely help with washing, shopping, cooking, cleaning, taking and collecting the children from school, and so on. Glaring gender inequality is one of the biggest problems in the country today. It is bad enough in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, and other towns – but in provinces, where nomadic traditions and values run deeper, it is a more complex issue.

The UN Women gender equality campaign ‘HeForShe’ was inaugurated in Ulaanbaatar in July, 2018. Now, the campaign is touring across the Mongolian provinces and it expected to be launched in South Gobi (Umnugobi) on 27 April.

Mongolia with 3 million people has been struggling to tackle gender issues since the 1990-democratic transition. The female working population generally spends double the amount of time than men household chores and family responsibilities; the problem is that this time burden does not decrease when women enter the workplace. In Mongolia, women are more employed in sectors that are commonly funded by state budgets and provided with low wages, such as health care, social services and education.

The UN campaign was originally launched in 2013. It is a global effort to engage men in removing the social and cultural barriers that prevent women and girls from achieving their full potential.