Arab Women Report from Beijing+30
The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) was established by the United Nations Economic and Social Council in 1946 with the aim of promoting gender equality and empowering women. It remains the only United Nations body dedicated to improving the status of women worldwide. CSW has prepared several international conferences and studies addressing women’s political, civil, social, and economic status, as well as programs for integrating women into development. It was through its initiatives that 1975 was declared the International Year of Women, and the UN World Conference on the International Women’s Decade was held in Mexico City, followed by serial World Conferences at Copenhagen (1980), Nairobi (1985) and Beijing (1995).
This year, a special coalition led by the Jordanian Women`s Union reports from Beijing+30 in the context of CSW’s 69th session. Their participation and analytical report are part of a broader commitment of feminist movements across the Arab region and the Global South to amplify the importance of addressing global shifts and the challenges that women face today, three decades after the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. They also aimed to reflect the concerns of feminist groups in these regions about ongoing erosion in the effectiveness of international mechanisms addressing women`s rights, particularly those established through the outcomes of the Fourth World Conference on Women.
These concerns are especially focused on the challenges of implementing these mechanisms on the ground, and whether the tools and frameworks of the United Nations genuinely express the priorities and lived experiences of women as they define them. A critical examination of many existing international mechanisms reveals a prevailing issue: These mechanisms often present a homogenized and limited approach that struggles to impose an overarching Western-centric framework. This perspective tends to generalize women`s issues based on priorities established in Western contexts, which frequently fails to fully capture the unique, intersectional challenges faced by women in other regions.
Instead of developing a human rights perspective to deal with rights from the perspective of justice and taking into account political and economic contexts, the Arab women find in their report that the UN bodies have reduced social justice to a set of personal rights separate from the contexts in which violations of rights occur, and have given a significant role to culture without linking them to the political dimension. Talking about women`s rights has become an indicator of the level of “progress” of women as individuals and not through confronting the structural dimensions that hinder women and limit progress to reach equality and justice for all.
The report of Arab women from Beijing+30 examines the global political and economic changes and their impact, first, on the outcomes of the Beijing Conference and the transformations feminists from the Global South have prioritized. The report then seeks to analyze the relevance of the Beijing outcomes in light of subsequent global shifts, making it imperative—30 years on—to re-interpret these outcomes.
This re-reading must account for global transformations, changes in how women’s issues are addressed within United Nations frameworks, and the varying national and regional contexts. As part of this re-evaluation of the Beijing Framework and the call to rethink the global feminist agenda, it is equally important to assess the realities under which feminist organizations operate in each region. This requires identifying the specific challenges they face, engaging in self-criticism, and acknowledging the responsibilities borne by feminist movements. Such an approach is essential to ensure a more-inclusive, contextually relevant, and transformative feminist agenda that aligns with contemporary global realities.
The spaces available for feminist movements and civil society organizations within the framework of the United Nations face several structural and ideological challenges that limit their effectiveness in achieving radical change. This is linked to the founding of the United Nations in the aftermath of World War II, when the organization was established with the aim of maintaining peace, operationalizing human rights and promoting ‘forward development,” especially through trade. However, goals related to peace, human rights and independence (self-determination) became secondary to the development agenda, particularly subordinating independence of countries in Africa and Asia from colonialism.
Inequality among states persists, with some countries enjoying privileges through their permanent membership in the Security Council. These privileges allow them and their allies to escape accountability for gross violations of individual and collective rights, even in cases of crimes against humanity, as witnessed in Iraq. Similarly, the permanent protection provided by the United States to the colonial-settler state in Palestine exacerbates this disparity, as is currently evident in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The unequal relationship among states is further evident in the perspective of certain member states, particularly the United States, which views many developed countries as providers of ’aid‘ to developing nations, rather than as equals in addressing shared global Charter-based objectives. This distortion deepens the divide among nations and frames their relations on hierarchical grounds. Consequently, the development discourse reflects a neo-liberal and neo-colonial stance, manifesting in the structure of the Security Council, the veto power granted to the victors of World War II, and the United Nations’ developmental language that classifies nations based on their economic development levels and the narrow perception of economic growth, as an alternative to distributive justice.
For women, this system adds another layer of discrimination. Even within the framework of citizenship, women’s rights are impacted by gender-based hierarchies. Women, even when they are citizens, are often deprived of full rights due to institutional discrimination that reinforces gender inequality, whether through discriminatory laws or cultural and social practices that limit their access to resources and opportunities. For non-citizen women, the discrimination is twofold: First, based on their gender and, second, based on their legal status.
Moreover, these issues are further compounded when viewed through the lens of the global political and economic system. In the context of globalization and free-market policies, states have become increasingly dependent on major economic powers and multinational corporations, reducing their ability to respect, protect and fulfill the rights of their citizens or residents. Women, especially in the Global South, bear the brunt of these policies, finding themselves excluded from the legal and social-protection networks offered by the modern human rights system.
The assessment of the status of the CSW in the Arab Women’s Network report is similar to that pertaining to all UN human rights bodies, which calls for consideration of needed changes to the structure and framework of the Commission`s work. More importantly, these correctives must be independent of the currently dominant political forces that are pushing for limiting rights to specific groups and impeding such bodies’ effectiveness and ability to achieve stated objectives. Reforming these aspects is vital to ensure real and tangible progress on women`s issues, both regionally and internationally.
Download the full report in English and Arabic.
Watch the Arab Women’s Network’s oral intervention at CSW69 here.
Photo: Arab Women’s Network representative delivers her oral intervention at CSW69. Source: UN Web TV.
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