A two-week United Nations meeting on gender equality, female empowerment and “women’s issues” was cut Monday due to the coronavirus outbreak.

This sparked an outcry from 12,000 disappointed delegates, diplomats and non-government organizations scheduled to fly into New York for the event and work towards ending “default male thinking” across the globalist organization.

The annual U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) meeting promoting “equality and women’s empowerment” was scaled back to just one-day next week due the global viral outbreak.

In its abbreviated version, the CSW will hold a procedural meeting on March 9 – the day after International Women’s Day – to adopt a draft political declaration marking 25 years since the women’s rights declaration was signed in Beijing.

Critics say the conference cancellation is a “blow to progress in women’s rights” and needs to be immediately rescheduled to include “more diverse voices” than those of diplomats already based in New York.

Ma.Victoria (Mavic) Cabrera Balleza, Chief Executive Officer, Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, said the session should not be cancelled because of the outbreak of coronavirus disease — but its methodology should be modified.

“It is a very important event that brings a big momentum to our advocacy for women’s rights and gender equality, especially this year as we are commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the most comprehensive global women’s rights agenda,” she pointed out.

On Twitter, We Effect, a Swedish development group, concurred, saying: “In solidarity with women’s movements across the globe We Effect joins the demand to #postponeCSW. #CSW64 on #genderequality can’t be held without safe, meaningful and informed participation of women.”

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called women’s inequality “stupid” and a cause for global shame, personally pledging to press governments to end discriminatory laws in the face of a “strong and relentless pushback” against women’s rights.

Speaking last week ahead of the now canceled meeting, Guterres warned the state of women’s rights was “dire” and said he would back efforts to end “default male thinking” across the United Nations.

“Just as slavery and colonialism were a stain on previous centuries, women’s inequality should shame us all in the 21st. Because it is not only unacceptable; it is stupid,” Guterres said in a speech to the New School in New York.

He said legal protections against rape and domestic violence were being diluted or rolled back and that in 34 countries rape within marriage was still legal.

“There is a strong and relentless pushback against women’s rights,” Guterres warned the world. “Women’s sexual and reproductive rights are under threat from different sides.”

AFP contributed to this story