Gender backlash reaching extreme proportions, warns UN body

Women still lag behind on virtually every Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). Credit. UN Women, India

Penang, 9 Jul (Kanaga Raja) — The backlash against women’s and girls’ human rights is intensifying and has reached extreme proportions in certain countries, the UN Working Group on discrimination against women and girls has observed.

In a report (A/HRC/56/51) to the 56th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council, the Working Group said that despite some advancements, no country has achieved gender equality and women and girls continue to face discrimination in all spheres of their lives, frequently starting within their families and communities.

“Retrogressive movements are jeopardising women’s and girls’ human rights, as well as the progress achieved in advancing gender equality in all regions of the world,” it said.

“As a result, the world is witnessing an escalating backlash against sexual and reproductive health rights, ever- present misogynistic statements in the media and the rise of public anti-gender discourse, as well as attacks on women and girl human rights defenders.”

The Working Group is comprised of Dorothy Estrada Tanck (Chair), Laura Nyirinkindi (Vice-Chair), Claudia Flores, Ivana Krstic, and Haina Lu.

In its report, the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls defines gender backlash as denial of the recognition, enforcement and realization of women’s and girls’ rights or retrogression in that regard.

It emphasizes that the gender backlash not only destabilizes and undermines the foundation of the human rights system by denying equal rights to half of the world’s population, but also makes impossible any prospect of just, inclusive, peaceful and sustainable societies.

It said that the need to reaffirm and recommit to the universality of women’s and girls’ rights, as well as the inalienable, indivisible, interdependent and inter-related nature of all human rights, is paramount and requires coherent, systematic, comprehensive and coordinated efforts by all.

Retrogressive movements are jeopardizing women’s and girls’ human rights, as well as the progress achieved in advancing gender equality in all regions of the world, said the Working Group.

Active resistance to gender equality has been identified as among the key factors explaining the slow progress and, in some cases, reversals of gains made in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, with no indicator under Goal 5 on gender equality having reached the “target met or almost met” level globally, it noted.

In their responses to the questionnaire circulated by the Working Group, States indicated that constitutional amendments, legislation and policies directed at eliminating discrimination against women and girls have continued to be adopted in a number of countries, including in areas such as sexual and reproductive health rights, prevention of gender-based violence, labour inclusion, economic empowerment, public and political participation and the valuation and redistribution of unpaid care and domestic work.

“The institutional framework to oversee the implementation of such measures has been strengthened in some countries.”

The Working Group noted that, in the past decade alone, more than 40 countries have amended and rewritten their constitutions to incorporate provisions advancing women’s and girls’ rights.

However, also acknowledged in the responses were the growth of anti-rights movements, attacks on women’s and girls’ equal rights and the persistent challenge of political violence against women, it said.

The report said some countries face obstacles in adopting, regulating and disseminating laws to advance gender equality, as well as gaps in both the adoption and the implementation of relevant public policies, including due to the non-allocation of the necessary funds.

The Working Group has similarly observed that, even when progressive language to advance women’s and girls’ rights is introduced into national constitutions and legislation, including the prohibition of harmful practices, implementation often remains a challenge, as women’s and girls’ issues continue to be sidelined or minimized, and the social transformation required to remedy gender inequalities is frequently met with strong resistance.

In some cases, such resistance has fuelled attempts to withdraw existing guarantees, including the prohibition of harmful practices, it said.

“The gender backlash has been driven by nationalist, fundamentalist and conservative political, cultural and religious movements, encompassing governmental, religious and civil society actors,” said the Working Group.

The report said these movements have formed various national and transnational alliances aimed at promoting stereotypical attitudes about the roles of women and men in the family and society that restrict women’s and girls’ choices and potential in many aspects of their lives.

They have attacked the term “gender”, seeing it as a tool of “ideological colonization” that aims to destroy the “traditional family” and “family values”.

These alliances have succeeded in influencing legislation, policy and practice, as well as, in some cases, in altering public opinion, said the Working Group.

“As a result, the world is witnessing a growing backlash against sexual and reproductive health rights, including comprehensive education on sexual and reproductive health, ever-present misogynistic statements in the media and the rise of anti-gender discourse in the public domain, even by high-ranking politicians, as well as attacks on women and girl human rights defenders.”

The Working Group said the backlash has become evident in extreme manifestations of gender inequality that fail to generate a proportionate response from the global community.

A devastating expression of the roll-back of gender equality is gender apartheid, understood as inhumane acts committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic discrimination, oppression and domination by one group against another group or groups, based on gender, and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime, it added.

The Working Group considers that the case of Afghanistan, and the predominantly muted State reaction, is a concerning example of gender backlash.

It said the pattern of large-scale systematic violations of women’s and girls’ fundamental rights in Afghanistan by the discriminatory and misogynistic edicts, policies and harsh enforcement methods of the Taliban, all in the service of the political goals of an extremist regime, constitutes an institutionalized framework of apartheid based on gender, and merits an unequivocal response.

Over the past six years, the Working Group said that it has strived to identify progress towards achieving gender equality and promising practices, in a global context marked by a mounting gender backlash.

It has continued to document the main challenges to eliminating discrimination against women and girls in all their diversity.

In this regard, the Working Group said that there has been some progress, but gender equality is not nearly a reality.

It said even when legal and policy advancements are achieved, implementation gaps are often alarmingly wide, impeding substantive progress, and they do not benefit all women and girls equally.

Thus, women and girls continue to face discrimination in all spheres of their lives, frequently starting within their families and communities, while the gender backlash undermines current achievements and prospects for further progress, it noted.

The Working Group also found that women and girls are disproportionately represented among the world’s poor.

Global projections show that an estimated 388 million women and girls were living in extreme poverty in 2022 (compared with 372 million men and boys).

The current situation is the result of historical and continuing economic policy choices that have been developed within patriarchal political, legal and socioeconomic systems and institutions, ignoring the specific experiences and rights of girls and women, it said.

“Predominant approaches to women’s poverty concentrate on increasing the economic productivity of individual women, rather than analysing the systems of power that generate and reproduce unequal gender relations within families, communities, institutions and markets.”

Dedicating special attention to the world of work, the Working Group said that globally, women’s labour force participation rate stood at 47.4 per cent in 2022, compared with 72.3 per cent for men.

Women remain concentrated in the lowest-paid jobs and in vulnerable forms of employment, including in the informal sector, it said.

“The global gender pay gap stands at 20 per cent and is even wider for women who experience multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination.”

It said mothers face a larger pay gap and dramatically lower retirement savings or pension contributions (the “motherhood penalty”).

Furthermore, it said despite the growing number of laws addressing it, sexual harassment at work continues to be pervasive and dramatically unreported.

The report said that the major trends affecting the world of work and shaping its future risk aggravating gender inequality and exacerbating the labour discrimination that women currently face, unless a gender perspective is adopted when examining and addressing them.

Realizing women’s human rights in the changing world of work requires a fundamental transformation of the structure of work and the economy: current economic models exploit and thrive on women’s unpaid care and domestic work, while depleting their time and economic security.

However, there are policy alternatives, which require re-imagining the economy to focus on redistributing power and resources, generating decent work and placing value on the well-being and care of people and the planet, the Working Group emphasized.

It also found that an estimated 810 maternal deaths occur each day globally, and 25 million unsafe abortions take place annually, resulting in approximately 47,000 deaths, primarily in developing countries and among members of socioeconomically disadvantaged and marginalized populations. Every 16 seconds, there is a stillbirth.

More than 200 million women who want to avoid pregnancy are not using modern contraception, due to a range of barriers.

It said millions of women and girls are denied the ability to manage their monthly menstrual cycle safely and with dignity, and that those outcomes and barriers increase significantly in times of crisis.

The Working Group has drawn attention to the failure of States to adequately recognize, respect, protect and fulfil the sexual and reproductive health rights of women and girls, both before and during times of crisis.

It has also highlighted the frequent lack of attention to the key underlying factors that make a given situation “critical” for various populations, especially women and girls.

Many situations of crisis are predetermined by cumulative layers of pre-existing inequalities and discrimination, which may be starkly exposed and deeply exacerbated by a specific event, it said.

“During crises, States often divert financial and human resources from sexual and reproductive health care and impose restrictions on services, thereby deeming them non-essential, which amounts in practice to a retrogression incompatible with States’ human rights obligations.”

Such restrictions often continue to undermine access to sexual and reproductive health care after a crisis has ended, and, in the majority of cases, reconstruction programmes and recovery plans fail to prioritize sexual and reproductive health, said the Working Group.

Furthermore, it said gender equality does not always figure among the priorities of donors, which often drive interventions in situations of humanitarian crisis.

Sexual and reproductive health services are typically not considered essential or urgent, despite the specific risks and vulnerabilities faced by women and girls, it noted.

In some cases, even maternity care is reportedly not adequately funded or prioritized because it is not perceived as a “humanitarian” concern.

The Working Group said as it embarks on a new six-year mandate, it will continue to focus on counteracting the escalating gender backlash through all its working methods.

At the same time, the Working Group said that as an overarching framework, it will develop an understanding of substantive equality for women and girls and the concrete implications that it holds for States and other actors in the face of contemporary challenges.

“Substantive equality requires not only ensuring de facto equality between women and men and girls and boys, but also committing to a conception of transformative equality, in other words, the transformation of elements of society, culture, politics and the economy that create barriers to equality.”

In conclusion, the Working Group pointed out that despite some advancements, no country has achieved gender equality.

Humanity is in the midst of a backlash aimed at curtailing the equal enjoyment by women and girls of their rights in all major areas of life, it said.

“The backlash is escalating and undermining current achievements and prospects for further progress, reaching extreme proportions in certain countries, including the regime of gender apartheid imposed by the Taliban in Afghanistan.”

However, the Working Group said it cannot overemphasize the transformative force of millions of women and girls worldwide and of their movements and allies that strive to advance women’s and girls’ rights, resist push-backs and build just, inclusive, peaceful and sustainable societies for all, despite, and often in reaction to, the many barriers that they continue to face.

They are an inspiration to everyone and the main reason for hope and optimism for the future, it concluded.

- Third World Network