CSW70

Seventy years ago, the fledging United Nations made a groundbreaking pledge to the world’s women and girls by establishing the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). Today, CSW remains the primary international body dedicated to women’s rights and empowerment, bringing global leaders together each March to discuss progress and challenges, and to renew their commitments to gender equality.

CSW70, which took place March 9-19, was focused on the critical issue of ensuring and strengthening women and girls’ access to justice—a key area of work for the Center for Reproductive Rights. As a leading legal advocacy organization, the Center advised Member States throughout the negotiation process, as well as hosted and participated in events that examined strategies for reforming laws and expanding access to justice in the context of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).

Center colleagues came from across the globe to lead these efforts, including Elsy Sainna, Associate Director for Advocacy and External Relations for Africa; Maria Cecilia Ibanez Garcia, Senior Advocacy Advisor for Latin America and the Caribbean, and Kiefer Kofman, Global Advocacy Advisor.

Below, Elsy, Maria Cecilia, and Kiefer share their thoughts on the importance of CSW in the fight for reproductive rights, the challenges facing us, and where we go from here.

Significance of CSW

What is the significance of CSW in the fight to secure sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) worldwide? 

Elsy: CSW provides a global platform to surface and interrogate emerging SRHR threats, and to contribute to legal and policy discourse intended to hold the line and push back against regression.

Maria Cecilia: It’s a key space to shape global norms on gender issues, including SRHR. At a time of growing backlash, it allows us not only to defend existing commitments, but to push forward new standards—creating new entry points to advance rights across contexts.

Kiefer: It also monitors progress and gaps in the implementation of the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BDPfA), a roadmap for advancing women’s rights which all countries have committed to. The adopted outcome at the end of annual CSW sessions represents a renewed agreement from every country to accelerate the implementation of the BDPfA and advance the human rights of all women and girls, including SRHR.

Threats to SRHR

How is SRHR being undermined worldwide?

Maria Cecilia: SRHR is being undermined through very tangible rollbacks, such as the criminalization of abortion, the prosecution of women and girls for obstetric emergencies, and increasing restrictions that make services harder to access in practice. We are also seeing attempts to reinterpret and weaken established standards in international human rights law. At the same time, anti-rights actors are actively working to influence laws, policies, and public discourse at the national level to roll back protections and limit autonomy.

Elsy: These are intentional attacks on constitutional and legal guarantees and safeguards, fueled by misinformation and disinformation attributed to conservative and religious ideologies.

Kiefer: Conservative states, with the support of anti-rights groups, are also attempting to undermine long-standing international commitments on gender equality and SRHR and to challenge long-accepted terminology and concepts. At the UN earlier this year, we saw attempts to entirely remove the phrase “sexual and reproductive health” from a resolution on children’s rights—a bid to erase a fundamental aspect of health and well-being to fit an extremist agenda. At CSW, the United States introduced unprecedented amendments and a last-minute resolution that would have weakened commitments on gender equality and human rights.

Moving forward

How do we move forward?

Kiefer: The Center has shown time and again that even in challenging environments, progress is possible–including at the UN. During this past CSW, as part of the Women’s Rights Caucus, we worked to ensure that Member States prioritized SRHR in the outcome document and to keep them from accepting the U.S.’s regressive amendments and resolution. The isolation of the U.S., the only Member State to vote against the adoption of the CSW outcome document, sent a strong signal that human rights and the multilateral system must prevail over extremism. We will continue to be relentless in ensuring SRHR are recognized as fundamental human rights across the UN system and that Member States at the UN respect, protect and fulfill them for all in line with their obligations under international human rights law.

Elsy: Through constructive engagements and dialogue, we intend to remind states of their obligations to protect, promote and fulfill the SRHR standards contained in international and regional human rights norms & standards to which the majority of states are party, including regional treaties like the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol).

Maria Cecilia: We move forward by combining strategies: holding states accountable to existing commitments, continuing our work to advance stronger legal standards through litigation and advocacy, and supporting local actors to use these tools in practice. Ultimately, it’s about remembering everything that the movement has achieved so far–gains that endure despite rollback attempts–and continuing to connect global norms with real change on the ground.

Until next year

Until next year

Despite the pushback, CSW70 was a timely reminder that the global community cares about sexual and reproductive health and rights—and it’s willing to fight for them. Other recent victories—from the groundbreaking Celia Ramos v. Peru decision recognizing reproductive violence as gender-based discrimination to the freeing of Violet Zulu, a single mother jailed for obtaining an abortion in Zambia—are more proof that progress is not only possible; it’s happening all the time.

We’ll see you next year at CSW71. In the meantime, read about more global wins for reproductive rights.