One of the most important annual global forums working to advance gender equality and women’s rights is this year controversially being chaired by Saudi Arabia.
The 69th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) commenced on Monday with representatives from each of the 45 Member States presiding at the UN Headquarters in New York to mark 30 years since the landmark adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.
It comes a year after the commission unanimously elected Saudi Arabia as chair after being the only candidate within the Asia group.
Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a non-profit dedicated to holding the UN accountable to its founding principles, described the country’s role as chair of the commission as “surreal” and likened the decision to “putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank.”
“As chair, Saudi Arabia is now in a key position to influence the planning and decisions of the world’s top women’s right body,” she said in a statement.
“Yet despite cosmetic reforms, Saudi Arabia continues to subject women to legal discrimination, where they are effectively enslaved under a male guardianship system that was enshrined into law three years ago, ironically on international women’s day.”
The forum, which lasts until March 21, aims to address the widespread inequalities, violence and discrimination women face around the world. This year’s commission will focus on reviewing the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, assessing the progress made so far and the challenges that remain with implementing the blueprint for advancing women’s rights.
But according to Neuer, Saudi Arabia’s role as chair contradicts the work of the commission, which describes itself on its website as the “principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.”
“One of the world’s most patriarchal and misogynistic regimes now chairs the Commission on the Status of Women,” Neuer said.
“Saudi Arabia’s persecution of women is gross and systematic, both in law and in practice.”
Despite recent reforms, Neuer noted the extensive discrimination women continue to face under the guardianship system, and referred to the June 2022 personal status law, which codifies discrimination against women in family life and requires male approval for women to conduct basic activities, among other rules.
“Women’s rights activists are currently being arbitrarily detained by Saudi Arabia for criticising the government and advocating for greater freedoms for women, including on social media,” Neuer said, adding a list of examples of women who in recent years have been prosecuted for exercising their basic universal rights.
They include academic Salma al-Shehab, who in 2023 was sentenced to 27 years in prison and a 27-year travel ban for her social media activism; Nourah al-Qahtani, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison for “using the internet to tear the social fabric” and “violating public order by using social media; and Manahel al-Otaibi, a young fitness instructor who was held incommunicado for five months after being detained in November 2023. Recently, she was convicted of terrorism crimes by Saudi Arabia’s notorious counter-terrorism court, the Specialized Criminal Court and sentenced to 11 years in jail for “posting photos of herself without an abaya and advocating to end the guardianship system.”
“Why, then, did the UN name Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s worst oppressors of women, as a world judge and guardian of gender equality and the empowerment of women?” Neuer asked.
“By elevating a misogynistic regime to its highest women’s rights body, the UN is sending a message that women’s rights can be sold out for backroom political deals…it betrays millions of female victims in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere who look to the world body for protection.”
“We call on the EU states and all other democracies who cheered yesterday’s adoption of a meaningless political declaration to end their silence and state for the record that this is absurd, morally reprehensible, and an insult to the oppressed women of Saudi Arabis,” she concluded. “This is a dark day for women’s rights, and for all human rights.”
This year’s forum takes place amid global backlash against women’s rights, from the Taliban’s gender apartheid in Afghanistan, Iraq’s lowering of the age of consent to nine, Trump’s second term in office, and cuts to funding for gender equality across several countries.
At the opening of the annual session on Monday, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said, “The poison of patriarchy is back and is back with a vengeance.”
“A surge in misogyny, and a furious kickback against equality threaten to slam on the brakes, and push progress into reverse,” he said. “Let me be clear: This is unacceptable, immoral, and self-defeating. We must stop it – and we must stop it together.”
Sima Bahous, Under Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women, echoed the Secretary-General’s sentiments, adding: “At a time when hard-fought gains for gender equality are under attack the global community has come together in a show of unity for all women and girls, everywhere”.
“Misogyny is on the rise, and so, violence and discrimination. Domestic and ODA [official development assistance] allocations to gender equality remain woefully inadequate and, in some cases, are being cut altogether”.
During her address, Bahous praised the 159 member states that have confirmed their support for the Beijing Declaration in national reports, noting: “Today, more girls are in school. More women are in parliaments, in boardrooms, in the judiciary. Maternal mortality has fallen. Legal barriers have been dismantled. Policies to protect and advance women’s rights are advancing. Violence against women and girls is widely recognised as a global scourge.”
“We, the champions of gender equality, are not afraid of the pushback. We have faced it before. We have not backed down. And we will not back down.”