Crown Princess Mette-Marit speaks at the United Nations General Assembly.

Photo: Justin Lane/EPA

Crown Princess Mette-Marit and Foreign Minister Brende spoke at a high-level meeting on human rights and development goals of the United Nations General Assembly today. This is the sixth and last high level meeting that is being held in conjunction with the UN's new sustainable development goals by 2015.
Crown Princess Mette-Marit held a speech at the high level meeting "Human Rights and the Rule of Law in the Post-2015 Development Agenda" for the opening of the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-mon and President John W. Ashe in the UN General Assembly.

"In my own work, I have focused Particularly on empowering young people and supporting the development of leadership skills. I am proud to say that over the past few years, we have seen an incredible expansion of the youth movement in the AIDS response."

Crown Princess raised the importance of a continued strong commitment towards spreading, stigma and discrimination also after 2015.

"Ending the AIDS epidemic is possible in the post-2015 era. And it is indeed an issue of human rights."

She completed her speech by quoting former U.S. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt:

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they can not be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person, the neighborhood he lives in, the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless those rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. "

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