Women’s Commission Annual Session Begins with Contentio…

The General Assembly hall filled with feminists from around the world as the Commission on the Status of Women began its annual two-week gathering with a contentious recorded vote to adopt its outcome document.

The General Assembly hall filled with feminists from around the world as the Commission on the Status of Women began its annual two-week gathering with a contentious recorded vote to adopt its outcome document. By a recorded vote of 37 in favour to 1 against (United States), with 6 abstentions, the Commission adopted its Agreed Conclusions (document E/CN.6/2026/L.2), a document that has traditionally been adopted by consensus.

 This year’s Conclusions pertains to the theme of this seventieth session:  “Ensuring and strengthening access to justice for all women and girls, including by promoting inclusive and equitable legal systems, eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices, and addressing structural barriers”. Prior to the adoption, the representative of the United States first proposed that its consideration be deferred, then that the text be withdrawn and then proposed eight amendments to the text.

“There is no Agreed Conclusions at this point”, he said, opposing “ambiguous language promoting gender ideology”, vague unqualified commitments to sexual and reproductive health that can be interpreted as implying abortion rights, and censorship language on regulating artificial intelligence.  His country recently withdrew from UN-Women because it recklessly promoted gender ideology and abortion, he said.  “How do we entrust the women and girls of the world to an agency that denies the biological realities of a woman?” he asked.

 Among the amendments he proposed was the inclusion of a definition of “gender” in paragraph 1.  The term “gender” should refer “only to men and women on the basis of biological sex, and not to subjective notions of gender identity”, he said. However, Commission Chair Maritza Chan Valverde (Costa Rica) pointed out that “every effort has been made to listen to delegations and to reflect the diversity of views expressed”.

 “We are convinced that the text represents the most balanced outcome achievable at this stage,” she said, adding that her Bureau has decided to put the text to vote. Several speakers, such as Egypt’s representative and Nigeria’s delegate, stressed that the outcome document should be adopted by consensus and called for additional time for consultations.  Others expressed support for the text as proposed — the representative of the Netherlands, speaking for the European Union, said each individual paragraph of the text is crucial and called on delegates to vote against the United States’ amendments in one vote.

 Pakistan’s delegate said each amendment is specific and must be voted on separately.  By a recorded vote of 26 in favour to 11 against, with 5 abstentions, the Commission decided to consider the amendments as one package and then rejected them by a recorded vote of 1 in favour (United States) to 26 against, with 14 abstentions. “No country has full legal equality — and women globally still hold only two thirds of the legal rights that men enjoy,” the Chair pointed out in her opening remarks this morning, prior to the adoption.

 The Agreed Conclusions will help break new normative ground on this.  Highlighting some concrete gains, she pointed to new commitments to formally recognize community justice actors, integrate gender-responsive access to justice across sectors and introduce new language on digital justice and AI governance.  The text also advances participatory and co-created research approaches, strengthens standardized systems for gender-based violence data and promotes a whole-of-society approach that recognizes civil society’s role.

She stressed that hard-won progress on gender equality must not be reversed.  “We owe it to the trailblazers who charted the path for us, and to those who shall follow in our footsteps.  To our mothers, grandmothers, daughters, and sisters,” she said. The Member States and partners assembled here represent “the most powerful of constituencies”, Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN-Women, pointed out, adding:  “That power is more than sufficient to make a difference, more than sufficient to transform lives.”  Globally, she noted, women have only 64 per cent of the legal rights of men.

 The Agreed Conclusions seek to create justice systems that work for everyone equally.  Noting that this year, delegates will be electing a new Secretary-General, she said that she and her team at UN-Women will “be proud to serve and work with a Madam Secretary-General”. General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock (Germany) pointed out:  “I am only the fifth female President of the General Assembly.”  In 80 years, a woman has never been Secretary-General.  “This is an active choice,” she said, adding:  “If we do not address the fact that three quarters of parliamentarians worldwide are men, and 103 countries have never had a female Head of State, then we will hardly deliver on justice.”  “And here we cannot ignore the millions of files, now disclosed for the whole world to see — so staying silent would mean complicity,” she added.

The lack of accountability is especially evident “following the partial release of the information on the atrocities committed by the Epstein criminal enterprise”, Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences pointed out. “They have been committed across the globe for decades, while flaunting nauseating levels of impunity,” she added. These crimes may amount to crimes against humanity, she said, condemning the failure of many Governments to still initiate investigations into crimes for which they have jurisdiction.

 “I dwell on this because this is just the tip of the iceberg of a wider, systematic and disturbing trend,” she added.  Women and girls are also amongst the first to be killed in illegal acts of aggression, as seen recently in Iran and the long-standing attacks on Lebanon, she said.  “Both factors I have just mentioned have one thing in common,” she said, adding: “They tell a story of absolute alarming levels of impunity and sky-high barriers to obtaining accountability.” She also warned against the regression posed by the dilution of agreed language erases women, girls and female-specific needs.  “You cannot, by extension, advocate for the rights of a group you cannot define,” she concluded.  Ljubica Fuentes, a youth representative, stressed the importance of abortion rights as well as the rights of trans women and deaf women.

 Recalling her own experience of gender-based violence, she said that in Ecuador, this type of violence is still not fully codified in law.  “We have a right to education, but who takes care of us when we go to school?” she asked, as she underscored the pain and horror of the mothers of the Iranian girls recently killed in their school.  “I speak with the voice of the world’s citizens of the world, from villages and cities, from conflict zones and classrooms, from ancestral lands and digital spaces,” civil society representative Eunice Musiime, Executive Director of Akina Mama wa Afrika, said.

 She also pointed out that many women cannot be at this gathering because of war and conflict, visa exclusions and “because their countries are not allowing them to leave”.  Patriarchal and plural legal systems still treat women as minors, denying them inheritance, property, and dignity.  Women walk 200 kilometres to reach a police station, and transport costs, legal fees, and unsafe environments force them to withdraw cases.

 Rape is used deliberately as a weapon of war.  She also highlighted digital violence — girls are harassed, their images stolen, their voices erased online.  “We know that you can move beyond tokenism,” she told Government representatives, adding:  “You can choose to fund feminist priorities and movements”, allocate gender-responsive budgets, tax the rich and stem the surge of corporates and multinationals fuelling injustice.

“We are witnessing a well-orchestrated backlash against gender equality across regions:  The erosion of sexual and reproductive health rights, shrinking civic space, attacks on women human rights defenders, and rising levels of gender-based violence — both offline and online,” said Nahla Haidar, Chair of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.  Claudia Flores, Chair of the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls, said that across regions, its civil society partners express a shared concern:  Frustration not only with the continued lack of implementation of commitments, but also with the “persistent gap between feminist expectations and institutional offerings”.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres reminded the Commission that not a single step forward for women’s rights has ever been given.  It has been won “by generations of women and girls, advocates and activists, community leaders and justice seekers”, he said.  He also noted the long shadow of patriarchy in the Silicon Valleys of the world.  When women are absent from the design of digital systems, male chauvinism fills the gap, and online platforms can serve as megaphones for misogyny.

 Lok Bahadur Thapa (Nepal), President of the Economic and Social Council, pointed out that the outcome of this session will ensure that gender equality remains at the heart of the global development agenda. Also this morning, the Commission appointed Samah Dbouk of Lebanon to serve as Vice-Chair-cum-Rapporteur of the seventieth session.  It appointed South Africa and Chile as members of the Working Group on Communications for the seventieth session and Spain as a member of the Working Group on Communications for the seventieth and seventy-first sessions.

 The Commission also adopted its provisional agenda for the session (document E/CN.6/2026/1) and its proposed organization of work (document E/CN.6/2026/1/Add.1).

Summary

This report covers the latest developments in artificial intelligence. The information presented highlights key changes and updates that are relevant to those following this topic.

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