Saudi Arabia to lead UN forum for women's rights

Saudi Arabia is poised on Wednesday to be appointed chair of the Commission on the Status of Women, or CSW, placing a nation routinely criticized for restricting women’s rights at the head of the United Nations principal forum for promoting gender equality. The appointment comes just days after governments concluded an often contentious negotiation on a declaration aimed at reaffirming women’s rights enshrined in a landmark conference on women’s rights 29 years ago in Beijing. This month’s talks exposed the deep cultural and religious divisions between conservative and progressive nations over sexual and reproductive rights, and LGBTQ+ protections, with countries such as Belarus, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, and Saudi Arabia striving to promote the virtues of a nuclear family, headed by a man and a woman. “The patriarchy is far from vanquished,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said at the opening of the commission session at U.N. headquarters on March 11. “It is regaining ground. Autocrats and populists are attacking women’s freedoms and their sexual rights. They promote what they call ‘traditional’ values.’” The goal of the 68th session of the commission was aimed at “accelerating the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of all girls by addressing poverty and strengthening institutions and financing with a gender perspective.” The theme reflected concern that U.N. goals for eradicating poverty among women and girls by 2030 are increasingly out of reach. Some 10.3% percent of all women live in extreme poverty, and women earn only about 51 cents for each dollar earned by men, according to a recent report issued by Guterres’ office. About $360 billion a year is required to achieve gender equality targets outlined in the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, including endearing poverty and hunger by 2030. But the negotiations were marked by bitter clashes over a host of religious, political, cultural, and financial matters from abortion to the treatment of members of the LGBQTI+ community and the role of private and public financing to advance gender equality. It pitted the United States and its progressive allies against a coalition of some 28 countries caucusing under the banner of the Group of Friends of the Family. Still, the U.N. women’s rights agency, UN Women, saw a lot to like in the outcome document, citing the commission’s recognition that greater financial resources need to be directed toward the global challenge of reducing girls’ and women’s poverty, through creative private sector financing, increased development assistance and debt relief. The commission “recognizes that women and girls living in poverty become ‘shock absorbers’ in times of crisis, and further efforts are needed to increase resources to address women’s and girls’ poverty,” UN Women said in a press release. “These measures include debt relief and progressive taxation and ensuring that public resources are allocated to address the needs and rights of women and girls.” One delegate said there was also strong language highlighting the importance of gender equality in promoting poverty eradication, as well as the need for governments to adopt social and economic policies that are responsive to the needs of women and girls. There was also a provision condemning economic abuse of women, including the denial of access to property or financing. But the negotiations made little progress in strengthening a provision for women’s sexual and reproductive rights. Western governments also failed to secure language explicitly promoting the protection of members of the LGBQTI+ community. At best, according to rights advocates, the final document didn’t constitute a retreat. “Not a lot of ground was lost, but not a lot of progress,” Amina Hersi, the head of gender rights and justice at Oxfam, told Devex. Nigeria threatened late Friday to block the final agreement over so-called sensitive issues, an apparent reference to the inclusion of language promoting women’s sexual reproductive health rights. Such language had been reflected in previous agreements, according to two delegates. In the end, Nigeria acquiesced, allowing the declaration to be adopted by consensus. Saudi Arabia’s elevation to the commission post is the result of a quirky U.N. selection process, which often spares controversial candidates from having to run for open election. The CSW chair is a rotating position, given every two years by a candidate picked by the U.N.’s powerful regional groups, often in closed-door negotiations. The Asia-Pacific Group, which holds the chair for 2023 and 2024, initially selected Afghanistan to serve as chair, but the Taliban takeover scuttled that. The group then decided to split the two-year chair between two countries, including the Philippines, which held the chair in 2023. Saudi Arabia emerged in recent weeks as the group’s favored candidate. In an address to address concerns about its record, Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry issued a message for International Women’s Day, acknowledging that while reforms aimed at broadening women’s rights are “still slow, Saudi women are achieving major accomplishments in spite of all challenges. It cited “positive change in health care, education choices and employment opportunities,” and listed the names of Saudi women who have excelled in film, law, journalism, sciences, and alpine mountaineering, including Raha Moharrak Moharran, the first Saudi woman to climb Mount Everest. “Saudi Arabia is tiptoeing on women’s progress, but the road is still long,” it stated. But human rights groups voiced alarm over its imminent selection. “Saudi Arabia systematically discriminates against women and persecutes women’s rights activists,” Louis Charbonneau said in a recent statement. But legislation Riyadh touts as “progressive,” according to Charbonneau, “formally enshrines male guardianship over women and includes provisions that facilitate domestic violence and sexual abuse in marriage.” Charbonneau indicated that Western governments have acknowledged problems with Saudi’s selection, but said they would not take steps to block it, saying they did not want to create a precedent. Saudi Arabia’s selection is particularly sensitive, given that it will preside over the commission as it prepares a political declaration marking the 30th anniversary of the 1995 Beijing conference on women’s rights, the landmark declaration elevating the cause of women’s rights around the globe. Though some delegates noted that the chair position is largely ceremonial and that most of the actual negotiations will be led by two facilitators. One unexpected boon was the U.N. current liquidity crisis, the result of late U.S. dues payments to the U.N.’s administrative budget. To control spending, the U.N. imposed a hard 6 p.m. deadline on access to the negotiating conference rooms, which prevented delegations from dragging the final day of talks into the wee hours. “If there was more time or more space for negotiations, you know, the outcome could have been … worse to be honest,” Hersi said. “It meant there was no backtracking on a lot of things that were already agreed.”