The Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry said Saturday that a South Korean diplomat was elected chairperson of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women.

The ministry said in a news release that Kang Kyong-hwa, 48, a minister-councilor at the Korean representative to the United Nations, was unanimously selected to lead the U.N. commission for the next two years at a meeting in New York Thursday.

She has been serving at the Korean representative since 2001.

The commission was established in 1946 under the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific to promote women's rights.