Next year will mark the 30th anniversary of the Beijing declaration, a landmark blueprint for advancing women’s rights. It marked the mainstreaming of feminist concerns, with 189 states signing up to the text at a conference in China, where Hillary Clinton, then first lady of the US, declared that “women’s rights are human rights”.
Yet when the United Nations celebrates that achievement, its commission for promoting and evaluating progress on gender equality will be steered by Saudi Arabia. A country known for its abysmal record on women’s rights was chosen unopposed this week to chair the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). Even the personal status law it brandishes as a sign of progress in fact enshrines discrimination including male guardianship over women, and gives immunity to perpetrators of “honour crimes”. Women’s rights advocates have been jailed and there are multiple allegations of their torture.
This moment reflects a broader global regression in gender equality. China has rolled back women’s rights, told women to “uphold family values” and cracked down on feminist campaigners. In the US, which championed decisive action at the Beijing meeting, the overturning of Roe v Wade after almost half a century removed women’s constitutional right to an abortion.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban has just announced that it will resume publicly stoning women to death. It had already restricted the access of women and girls to education, employment and public spaces. Politicians in the Gambia are seeking to overturn a ban on female genital mutilation. South Korea’s “anti-feminist” president has pledged to abolish its gender equality ministry after winning a 2022 election fuelled by a backlash to the #MeToo movement.
Women and girls have been harder hit by the global hunger crisis, which has also increased sexual violence, exploitation and child marriage. They are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis. According to UN Women, at the current rate of progress it will take almost three centuries just to close the gaps in legal protections and remove discriminatory laws – never mind achieving equality in practice. Not all female leaders promote women’s rights. But poor representation at the UN and domestically is not a discrete issue; it also contributes to other inequities.
The rise of misogynistic, authoritarian leaders has set women back. But UN Women is clear that the broader issue of a “lacklustre” commitment to equality lies behind the slow pace of change. Too many governments seem to have forgotten the message from the Beijing conference: that women’s needs are not a nice optional extra, but a fundamental component of human rights. Reproductive and sexual rights and freedom of movement are frequently a matter of life and death.
The dissonance of letting Saudi Arabia take the CSW’s chair is obvious. But if other member states such as Japan, Spain and the Netherlands truly prioritise women’s rights they should not have stood by. Reportedly, western nations were concerned about creating a precedent for challenging candidates. That is not good enough. Women and men around the world continue to battle for the girls and women of today and the future, often at personal risk. It may be hard to channel the hope felt in 1995, but these campaigners must be supported.
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