Pressing issues in the women’s rights agenda, challenges, and criticisms as UN Women turns 10

Written by Sara Rivera

UN Women was created in 2010 resulting from the merger between four UN entities: the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW), the Office of the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women (OSAGI), the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). UN Women promotes women’s empowerment, rights and gender equality globally, as well as within and among individual countries.

Women’s rights agenda

Numerous concerns affecting women worldwide, which result in the violation of basic human rights, are linked to the simple fact of being female. The following are some of the most pressing issues in the women’s rights agenda.

About 37,000 girls are forced into marriage every day. In Africa alone, 125 million girls and women alive today were married before their 18th birthday. Globally, 200 million girls alive today have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM). Femicide, rape (including rape as a weapon of war), and violence against women in general, are among the most serious issues affecting girls and women. Domestic violence is particularly worrisome as the number of women affected by it has dramatically increased worldwide during the Covid-19 pandemic. In general, the lockdown has exacerbated gender inequalities and it has threatened to reverse much of the progress that has been made in recent years.

Access to maternal health, which includes the pregnancy, childbirth and postnatal periods, is still an issue. In 2017 alone, 295,000 women died during and following pregnancy and childbirth. Developing countries account for 99% of maternal mortality, with more than half in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, hundreds of million women still do not have access to abortion and contraceptives.

The list of pending achievements is long and it also includes access to sanitation and to education, as well as equal pay and balanced representation in politics, business, media, and in virtually every other area. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action was adopted in 1995, and it promulgated a set of principles concerning the equality of men and women. However, 25 years later, progress has stalled and has even reversed in some areas, and not a single country has achieved gender equality. Women lag behind on nearly every Sustainable Development Goal and target. The gap is even greater for women in rural areas, indigenous women, women with disabilities and older women.

Challenges

Women’s rights activists have acknowledged that UN Women has faced numerous obstacles over the years. Given the intersectionality between women’s rights and development, as well as the complexity of the UN System, some issues that are critical to women fall under the jurisdiction of other branches within the UN. This could be a concern as projects might not be planned or implemented using a comprehensive gender-based analysis.

In some countries, UN Women’s efforts to advance the women’s rights agenda are challenged by the entrenched power of religious and state institutions that do not support gender equality. In Chile, for example, progress on abortion rights has been slowed down by the Catholic Church and a very conservative political elite. In the United States, the government’s coalitions with the Catholic Church have been an obstacle for UN agencies addressing sexual and reproductive rights. Abortion laws and other women’s rights issues proposed at the UN headquarters in New York face immediate pushback by right wing religious organizations.

Another important challenge identified by women’s rights activists is that UN Women is under-resourced. It is a very new agency and it is still trying to establish itself politically. Most of its country teams are small and cannot meet operational expectations.

Criticisms

Ten years after its inception, UN Women faces criticisms from women’s rights organizations that do not consider the agency to be a grassroots ally. It is perceived to be too focused on lobbying the government instead of helping women’s organizations which are more optimally placed to effect change.

Critics believe UN Women, and the UN in general, only create reports about information that has already been written. They think the entity needs to work on more controversial topics, and to challenge these issues more aggressively. They say Un Women still has not become a true voice for women’s rights.

At the end of last year, UN Women was criticized for appearing to fail to remain neutral on the topic of decriminalizing sex work. Some civil society organizations alerted UN Women that decriminalizing and branding prostitution as ‘sex work’ could lead to more violence against the most vulnerable girls and women, and they alleged that many voices against decriminalization have been shut out of discussions.

Learning how UN Women is perceived by different actors helps to get a broader understanding of the intricacy around women’s rights issues. It also helps to identify the underlying reasons why progress has not been as fast or as comprehensive as it was hoped. Such reasons can include traditions, culture, politics, and bureaucracy.