New York: Rapporteurs at the 70th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) reported that conflict-related sexual violence against women, as documented in their recent findings, increased by 87 per cent between 2022 and 2024.
At the opening of CSW on Monday at UN Headquarters in New York, the rapporteurs focused on rights, justice, and action for all women and girls, setting the tone for the session.
They also noted that roughly 70 per cent of countries reported greater justice barriers for women, while 54 per cent lack consent-based rape laws.
“The measures we have taken to ensure justice are grossly insufficient,” Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences, said.
“This has become particularly clear following the partial release of the information on the atrocities committed by the Epstein criminal enterprise,” she added.
“They have been committed across the globe for decades, while flaunting nauseating levels of impunity.”
These crimes may amount to crimes against humanity, and the failure of many governments to initiate investigations into crimes within their jurisdiction is one example of “our collective failure to achieve justice”.
“I dwell on this because this is just the tip of the iceberg of a wider, systematic and disturbing trend,” she said.
According to her, women and girls are also amongst the first to be killed in illegal acts of aggression, as we have seen recently in Iran and the long-standing attacks on Lebanon.
“Both factors I have just mentioned have one thing in common,” she said, adding: “They tell a story of absolutely alarming levels of impunity and sky-high barriers to obtaining accountability”.
Further, she said that the dilution of agreed-on language and terminology that erased women, girls and female-specific needs in law and in practice is a form of regression.
“Since you cannot protect what you cannot define, you cannot, by extension, advocate for the rights of a group you cannot define,” she concluded.
Claudia Flores, Chair of the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls, noted a shared concern from civil society partners across regions about the lack of implementation of commitments and the gap between feminist expectations and institutional offerings.
She said the group shared concern from civil society partners: frustration not only with the continued lack of implementation of agreed commitments, but also with the persistent gap between “feminist expectations and institutional offerings”.
“This observation is sobering. But we have the knowledge, tools, and experience needed to move forward. The task before us is to translate that knowledge into action,” she said.
The Group’s most recent thematic report examines the gendered dimensions of care and support systems and highlights the direct connection between rights in the care sector and access to justice.
Flores highlighted two guidance documents – one on substantive gender equality and one on the rights of women and girls in family life.
She said they offered frameworks to support States and other actors in achieving measurable progress on gender equality across sectors, while promoting inclusive, rights-based approaches to family life.
The Working Group’s forthcoming annual thematic report will focus on women’s and girls’ rights in the context of digital technologies and artificial intelligence.
“If our institutions are to remain credible, they must deliver tangible change where justice is lived – in everyday realities and in the systems that shape them. Now is the time to demand and create justice and equality,” she emphasised.
In this context, CSW remains the United Nations’ principal global body dedicated to promoting gender equality and the rights and empowerment of women.
Established in 1946 by the UN Economic and Social Council, the Commission plays a central role in setting global standards on women’s rights and reviewing progress on gender equality.
