Humanists International supports UN report on gender backlash

In a statement made to the 56th session of the UN Human Rights Council, Humanists International has spoken out in support of a report by the UN Working Group on discrimination against women and girls, which details the global escalating backlash against gender equality. A backlash which, according to the report, “is intensifying and has reached extreme proportions in certain countries.”

Humanists International’s Director of Advocacy, Elizabeth O’Casey, delivered the statement which highlighted some different manifestations of the backlash. These include regimes of gender apartheid; the use of language around ‘religious liberty’ and conscience, child protection and so-called parental rights, to subvert gender equality and reproductive health and rights; and the destabilization of the multilateral system.

She said, “the gender backlash destabilizes and undermines the foundation of the human rights system by denying equal rights to half of the world’s population; but that system is also destabilized by coordinated challenges to the institutions designed to uphold it.”

The statement comes after a number of previous statements made by Humanists International highlighting the backlash against gender equality and human rights in general. These include: a warning to the UN of a coordinated attack on gender equality and reproductive rights by some states at the UN; highlighting attacks on Comprehensive Sexuality Education; attacks on UN Special Procedures; disinformation around UNESCO and other UN agencies; and the roll-back of rights and gender equality in the OSCE region).

The report by the Working Group at the 56th session detailed a far reaching and diverse movement that constitutes the anti-gender equality backlash, areas such as reproductive rights, civil and political rights, economic and social rights, and health and safety.

The report sees the gender backlash as the “denial of the recognition, enforcement and realization of women’s and girls’ rights or retrogression in that regard.” It goes on to say 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. The need to reaffirm and recommit to the universality of women’s and girls’ rights, as well as the inalienable, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated nature of all human rights, is paramount and requires coherent, systematic, comprehensive and coordinated efforts by all.”

The report also recommended that gender apartheid be recognised as a crime against humanity.

Featured image by Lauren Mitchell on Unsplash.