Gender equality

Definition

Gen­der equal­ity is a human right. Gen­der equal­ity means that women are enti­tled to live with dig­nity and free­dom from fear. Gen­der has been iden­ti­fied as a crit­i­cal com­po­nent of HIV related pro­grams. Evi­dence indi­cates that the patri­ar­chal soci­etal struc­ture has cre­ated deep gen­der divides. This gen­der divide is then strongly asso­ci­ated with HIV infec­tions and sta­tus. This can man­i­fest as, for instance, gen­dered vio­lence lead­ing to higher risk to acquire HIV or dis­clo­sure of HIV sta­tus lead­ing to vio­lence and per­sis­tent vio­lence can lead to poor adher­ence to anti­retro­vi­ral treat­ment. Peo­ple capa­ble of giv­ing birth that also have HIV sta­tus and over­lap­ping vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties can have higher propen­sity to face dis­crim­i­na­tion from health­care work­ers.

Address­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties dri­ven by gen­der requires an under­stand­ing of their added risks and clear artic­u­la­tion of the need for gen­der-cen­tric leg­is­la­tions and poli­cies. Inter­na­tional res­o­lu­tions and other doc­u­ments reflected in the Lan­guage Com­pendium high­light the need for those leg­is­la­tions and poli­cies. These prece­dents urge States “to pre­vent and respond to gen­der-related killing of women and girls,” in accor­dance with their com­mit­ments and oblig­a­tions under inter­na­tional law. Inter­na­tional prece­dents have also under­lined inter­sec­tion­al­i­ties that cre­ate over­lap­ping vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties for women that, for instance, have HIV sta­tus or are migrant work­ers.

Precedents

2022 Resolution on Violence Against Women Migrant Workers

• “Urges States to adopt or develop and imple­ment leg­is­la­tion and poli­cies, in accor­dance with their com­mit­ments and oblig­a­tions under inter­na­tional law, to pre­vent and respond to gen­der-related killing of women and girls, includ­ing femi­cide, while tak­ing into account the par­tic­u­lar dif­fi­cul­ties faced by women migrant work­ers in access­ing jus­tice.” (para­graph 12)

• “Calls upon States to address the struc­tural and under­ly­ing causes of all forms of vio­lence against women migrant work­ers, includ­ing through edu­ca­tion and the dis­sem­i­na­tion of infor­ma­tion and by rais­ing aware­ness of gen­der equal­ity issues, pro­mot­ing their eco­nomic empow­er­ment and access to decent work and, where rel­e­vant, their inte­gra­tion into the for­mal econ­omy, in par­tic­u­lar in eco­nomic deci­sion-mak­ing, and pro­mot­ing their par­tic­i­pa­tion in pub­lic life, as appro­pri­ate.” (para­graph 20)

• “Urges Mem­ber States to estab­lish an inclu­sive and gen­der-respon­sive pub­lic health response to the COVID-19 pan­demic that addresses the spe­cific needs of migrant women and pro­vides equi­table access to com­pre­hen­sive health-care ser­vices for women migrant work­ers, includ­ing men­tal health and psy­choso­cial sup­port, pal­lia­tive care and access to safe, qual­ity, effec­tive and afford­able vac­ci­na­tion.” (para­graph 24)

2021 Global AIDS Strategy 2021-2026

• “Less than 10% of women, girls, peo­ple liv­ing with HIV and key pop­u­la­tions expe­ri­ence gen­der inequal­ity and vio­lence;
  (i) Less than 10% of women and girls expe­ri­ence phys­i­cal or sex­ual vio­lence from an inti­mate part­ner by 2025;
  Less than 10% of key pop­u­la­tions (i.e., gay men and other men who have sex with men, sex work­ers, trans­gen­der peo­ple and peo­ple who inject drugs) expe­ri­ence phys­i­cal or sex­ual vio­lence by 2025;
  (ii) Less than 10% of peo­ple liv­ing with HIV expe­ri­ence phys­i­cal or sex­ual vio­lence by 2025;
  (iii) Less than 10% of peo­ple sup­port inequitable gen­der norms by 2025;
  (iv) Greater than 90% of HIV ser­vices are gen­der-respon­sive by 2025.” (annex 1, 2025 tar­gets)

• “80% ser­vices for women, includ­ing pre­ven­tion ser­vices for women at increased risk to acquire HIV, as well as pro­grammes and ser­vices for access to HIV test­ing, link­age to treat­ment (ART), adher­ence and reten­tion sup­port, reduc­tion/elim­i­na­tion of vio­lence against women, reduc­tion/elim­i­na­tion of HIV related stigma and dis­crim­i­na­tion among women, legal lit­er­acy and legal ser­vices spe­cific for women- related issues, to be deliv­ered by com­mu­nity-led orga­ni­za­tions that are women-led” (annex 2, 2025 tar­gets)

• “Rec­og­niz­ing the equal worth and dig­nity of every per­son is not only an eth­i­cal imper­a­tive and an oblig­a­tion aris­ing from inter­na­tional human rights instru­ments, it is cen­tral for end­ing AIDS as a pub­lic health threat. SDG 3 can­not be achieved if stigma, dis­crim­i­na­tion, crim­i­nal­iza­tion of key pop­u­la­tions, vio­lence, social exclu­sion and other human rights vio­la­tions in the con­text of HIV are allowed to con­tinue and if HIV-related inequal­i­ties per­sist. The evi­dence con­sis­tently shows that the crim­i­nal­iza­tion of peo­ple liv­ing with HIV and key pop­u­la­tions reduces ser­vice uptake and increases HIV inci­dence. Gen­der inequal­i­ties also increase the HIV vul­ner­a­bil­ity of women and girls, with women who expe­ri­ence inti­mate part­ner vio­lence in high-preva­lence set­tings more than 50% more likely to be liv­ing with HIV.” (para­graph 129)

• “Gen­der inequal­ity is a key dri­ver of the AIDS epi­demic. Unequal power dynam­ics between men and women and harm­ful gen­der norms increase the HIV vul­ner­a­bil­ity of women and girls in all their diver­sity, deprive them of voice and the abil­ity to make deci­sions regard­ing their lives, reduce their abil­ity to access ser­vices that meet their needs, increase their risks of vio­lence or other harms, and ham­per their abil­ity to mit­i­gate the impact of AIDS.” (para­graph 145)

• “Pol­icy bar­ri­ers, such as age-of-con­sent laws for access­ing HIV test­ing or sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health ser­vices, as well as the social stigma asso­ci­ated with using those ser­vices, hin­der ado­les­cent girls from mak­ing deci­sions about their own sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health. Dis­crim­i­na­tory laws and prac­tices should be repealed, using the Con­ven­tion on Elim­i­na­tion of All Forms of Dis­crim­i­na­tion Against Women as a mon­i­tor­ing tool to high­light vio­la­tions of the rights of women liv­ing with and affected by HIV.” (para­graph 148)

• “A lack of edu­ca­tion and eco­nomic oppor­tu­ni­ties and insuf­fi­cient or nonex­is­tent access to com­pre­hen­sive sex­u­al­ity edu­ca­tion also increase women and girls’ vul­ner­a­bil­ity to HIV. Research evi­dence con­firms that com­ple­tion of sec­ondary edu­ca­tion can help pro­tect girls against HIV acqui­si­tion, while also yield­ing broader social and eco­nomic ben­e­fits. Com­pre­hen­sive sex­u­al­ity edu­ca­tion helps improve young peo­ple’s knowl­edge about HIV and coun­ters mis­in­for­ma­tion about sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health. A grow­ing body of data has val­i­dated numer­ous, inter­sec­toral, gen­der-trans­for­ma­tive inter­ven­tions. Impor­tant, though still inad­e­quate, invest­ments by the Global Fund, the United States Pres­i­dent’s Emer­gency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEP­FAR), UN Women, UNICEF and other part­ners are sup­port­ing the empow­er­ment, mobi­liza­tion and lead­er­ship of women liv­ing with HIV, women from key pop­u­la­tions, and ado­les­cent girls and young women.” (para­graph 150)

• “Pri­or­i­tize peo­ple who are left behind due to their gen­der, age, sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion or gen­der iden­tity or occu­pa­tion. Ensure that women and girls who face inter­sect­ing forms of dis­crim­i­na­tion and vio­lence (e.g. indige­nous women, women with dis­abil­i­ties, women who use drugs, women in prison, female sex work­ers and trans­gen­der women) receive the tai­lored ser­vices and sup­port they need, and ensure that they are mean­ing­fully engaged in HIV-related deci­sion-mak­ing. Ensure access to rights lit­er­acy and mean­ing­ful com­plaint and redress mech­a­nisms for vio­la­tions of their human rights in the con­text of HIV.” (para­graph 153(f))

• “Repeal dis­crim­i­na­tory laws and poli­cies that increase women and girls’ vul­ner­a­bil­ity to HIV and address vio­la­tions of their sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health and rights.” (para­graph 153(h))

• “Invest in women-led responses to HIV and in ini­tia­tives to sup­port and build women’s lead­er­ship––par­tic­u­larly net­works of women and girls liv­ing with HIV, and women in key pop­u­la­tions––in the design, bud­get­ing, imple­men­ta­tion and mon­i­tor­ing of the HIV response at regional, national, sub­na­tional and com­mu­nity lev­els.” (para­graph 153(i))

2021 Political declaration on HIV and AIDS

• “Note with con­cern that inequal­i­ties across mul­ti­ple forms and dimen­sions, whilst dif­fer­ent in dif­fer­ent national con­texts, can include those based on HIV sta­tus, gen­der, race, eth­nic­ity, dis­abil­ity, age, income level, edu­ca­tion, occu­pa­tion, geo­graphic dis­par­i­ties, migra­tory sta­tus and incar­cer­a­tion and these often over­lap to com­pound each other, and have con­trib­uted to the fail­ure to reach the 2020 global HIV tar­gets.” (para­graph 22)

• “Rec­og­nize that sex­ual and gen­der-based vio­lence, includ­ing inti­mate part­ner vio­lence, the unequal socioe­co­nomic sta­tus of women, struc­tural bar­ri­ers to women’s eco­nomic empow­er­ment and insuf­fi­cient pro­tec­tion of the sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health and repro­duc­tive rights, in accor­dance with the Pro­gramme of Action of the Inter­na­tional Con­fer­ence on Pop­u­la­tion and Devel­op­ment, the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the out­come doc­u­ments of their review con­fer­ences, of women and girls com­pro­mise their abil­ity to pro­tect them­selves from HIV infec­tion and aggra­vate the impact of AIDS.” (para­graph 29)

• “

  Com­mit to put gen­der equal­ity and the human rights of all women and girls in diverse sit­u­a­tions and con­di­tions at the fore­front of efforts to mit­i­gate the risk and impact of HIV by:

  (a) Ensur­ing the estab­lish­ment, financ­ing and imple­men­ta­tion of national gen­der equal­ity strate­gies that chal­lenge and address the impact of sex­ual and gen­der-based vio­lence, harm­ful prac­tices such as child, early and forced mar­riage and female gen­i­tal muti­la­tion, neg­a­tive social norms and gen­der stereo­types, and that increase the voice, auton­omy, agency and lead­er­ship of women and girls;
  (b) Ful­fill­ing the right to edu­ca­tion of all girls and young women, eco­nom­i­cally empow­er­ing women by pro­vid­ing them with job skills, employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, finan­cial lit­er­acy and access to finan­cial ser­vices, scal­ing up social pro­tec­tion inter­ven­tions for girls and young women, and engag­ing men and boys as agents of change in inten­si­fied efforts to trans­form neg­a­tive social norms and gen­der stereo­types;
  (d) Elim­i­nat­ing all forms of sex­ual and gen­der-based vio­lence, includ­ing inti­mate part­ner vio­lence, by adopt­ing and enforc­ing laws, chang­ing harm­ful gen­der stereo­types and neg­a­tive social norms, per­cep­tions and prac­tices, and pro­vid­ing tai­lored ser­vices that address mul­ti­ple and inter­sect­ing forms of dis­crim­i­na­tion and vio­lence faced by women liv­ing with, at risk of and affected by HIV;
  (e) Reduc­ing to no more than 10 per cent the num­ber of women, girls and peo­ple liv­ing with, at risk of and affected by HIV who expe­ri­ence gen­der-based inequal­i­ties and sex­ual and gen­der-based vio­lence by 2025;
  (f) Ensur­ing by 2025 that 95 per cent of women and girls of repro­duc­tive age have their HIV and sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health-care ser­vice needs met, includ­ing ante­na­tal and mater­nal care, infor­ma­tion and coun­sell­ing;
  (g) Reduc­ing the num­ber of new HIV infec­tions among ado­les­cent girls and young women to below 50,000 by 2025.

  ” (para­graph 63)

• “Request­ing the Joint Pro­gramme to con­tinue to sup­port Mem­ber States, within its man­date, in address­ing the social, eco­nomic, polit­i­cal and struc­tural dri­vers of the AIDS epi­demic, includ­ing through the pro­mo­tion of gen­der equal­ity and the empow­er­ment of women, and human rights, by strength­en­ing the capac­i­ties of national Gov­ern­ments to develop com­pre­hen­sive national strate­gies to end AIDS and by advo­cat­ing for greater global polit­i­cal com­mit­ment in respond­ing to the epi­demic.” (para­graph 70(b))

2021 CSW Report on women and HIV/AIDS

• “Stigma (includ­ing in health-care set­tings), gen­der inequal­i­ties, inti­mate part­ner vio­lence, poverty and dis­crim­i­na­tory laws and prac­tices con­tinue to limit access and the abil­ity or will­ing­ness of women, and espe­cially ado­les­cent girls, to test, seek treat­ment or remain engaged in care. As of 2020, 108 coun­tries report­ing to the UNAIDS National Com­mit­ments and Pol­icy Instru­ment required parental or guardian con­sent for HIV tests for ado­les­cents and 48 required such con­sent for HIV treat­ment.” (para­graph 22)

• “The Com­mis­sion may wish to encour­age Mem­ber States to give mean­ing­ful sup­port to the voices, par­tic­i­pa­tion and deci­sion-mak­ing of women, par­tic­u­larly young women and ado­les­cent girls, in all their diver­sity, includ­ing women liv­ing with HIV and women in key pop­u­la­tions, as inte­gral part­ners in national HIV coor­di­nat­ing bod­ies, national dia­logue and com­mu­nity-led processes, includ­ing by strength­en­ing the capac­i­ties of their orga­ni­za­tions and by ensur­ing for­mal par­tic­i­pa­tion in the design, deliv­ery and mon­i­tor­ing of all strate­gies, pro­grammes and inter­ven­tions that affect them.” (para­graph 57(b))

• “The Com­mis­sion may wish to encour­age Mem­ber States to reform laws that directly or indi­rectly dis­crim­i­nate against women and girls, includ­ing those affect­ing women liv­ing with and affected by HIV and women in key pop­u­la­tions, and to adopt appro­pri­ate leg­isla­tive, admin­is­tra­tive, bud­getary, judi­cial and other mea­sures to ensure the full real­iza­tion of women’s sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health and rights.” (para­graph 57(c))

• “The Com­mis­sion may wish to encour­age the United Nations sys­tem and other inter­na­tional actors to scale up fund­ing and tech­ni­cal resources for evi­dence-based inter­ven­tions that address the gen­der-based struc­tural, social and eco­nomic inequal­i­ties that fuel the HIV epi­demic.” (para­graph 58(a))

• “The unequal sta­tus of women and girls across polit­i­cal, social, eco­nomic and cul­tural domains con­tinue to put women at greater risk of HIV infec­tion and affects access to and uptake of HIV ser­vices. Fac­tors that increase the risk of HIV infec­tion, such as poverty, food inse­cu­rity, gen­der-based vio­lence, stigma and dis­crim­i­na­tion, child and forced age-dis­parate mar­riage, low edu­ca­tional com­ple­tion rates and lim­ited access to qual­ity unbi­ased infor­ma­tion, dis­pro­por­tion­ately affect women and girls. These fac­tors have been exac­er­bated by the COVID-19 pan­demic. Social norms and con­trol­ling behav­iours by men still pre­vent many women and ado­les­cent girls from using con­tra­cep­tion, refus­ing unwanted sex and mak­ing their own deci­sions about their health care.” (para­graph 6)

2021 UNESC Resolution on UNAIDS

• “Calls for rein­vig­o­rated efforts to pro­tect human rights and pro­mote gen­der equal­ity in the con­text of HIV and to address social risk fac­tors, includ­ing gen­der-based vio­lence and domes­tic vio­lence, includ­ing inti­mate part­ner vio­lence, which can be under­stood dif­fer­ently in dif­fer­ent con­texts, as well as social and eco­nomic deter­mi­nants of health, with the aim of reduc­ing health inequities within and among coun­tries.” (para­graph 6)

2020 Resolution on violence against women migrant workers

• “Urges States to adopt or develop and imple­ment leg­is­la­tion and poli­cies, in accor­dance with their com­mit­ments and oblig­a­tions under inter­na­tional law, to pre­vent and respond to gen­der-related killing of women and girls, includ­ing femi­cide, while tak­ing into account the par­tic­u­lar dif­fi­cul­ties faced by women migrant work­ers in access­ing jus­tice.” (para­graph 12)

• “Urges Gov­ern­ments to enhance bilat­eral, regional, inter­re­gional and inter­na­tional coop­er­a­tion to address vio­lence against women migrant work­ers, fully respect­ing inter­na­tional law, includ­ing inter­na­tional human rights law, as well as to strengthen efforts to reduce the vul­ner­a­bil­ity of women migrant work­ers by pro­mot­ing decent work, by, inter alia, adopt­ing min­i­mum wage poli­cies and employ­ment con­tracts in accor­dance with applic­a­ble laws and reg­u­la­tions, facil­i­tat­ing effec­tive access to jus­tice and effec­tive action in the areas of law enforce­ment, pros­e­cu­tion, pre­ven­tion, capac­ity-build­ing and vic­tim pro­tec­tion and sup­port, exchang­ing infor­ma­tion and good prac­tices in com­bat­ing vio­lence and dis­crim­i­na­tion against women migrant work­ers and fos­ter­ing sus­tain­able devel­op­ment alter­na­tives to migra­tion in coun­tries of ori­gin.” (para­graph 14)

• “Also urges Gov­ern­ments to take into account the best inter­ests of the child by adopt­ing or strength­en­ing mea­sures to respect, pro­mote and pro­tect the human rights of migrant chil­dren, espe­cially girls, includ­ing unac­com­pa­nied girls, regard­less of their migra­tory sta­tus, so as to pre­vent traf­fick­ing in per­sons, labour and eco­nomic exploita­tion, dis­crim­i­na­tion, all forms of sex­ual exploita­tion, sex­ual harass­ment, vio­lence and sex­ual abuse of migrant chil­dren, includ­ing in online and dig­i­tal con­text.” (para­graph 15)

• “Fur­ther urges Gov­ern­ments to strongly encour­age all stake­hold­ers, espe­cially the pri­vate sec­tor, includ­ing employ­ment agen­cies involved in recruit­ing women migrant work­ers, to strengthen the focus on and fund­ing sup­port for the pre­ven­tion of vio­lence against women migrant work­ers, in par­tic­u­lar by pro­mot­ing the access of women to mean­ing­ful and gen­der-sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion and edu­ca­tion on, inter alia, the costs and ben­e­fits of migra­tion, rights and ben­e­fits to which they are enti­tled in the coun­tries of ori­gin and employ­ment, over­all con­di­tions in coun­tries of employ­ment and pro­ce­dures for legal migra­tion, as well as to ensure that laws and poli­cies gov­ern­ing recruiters, employ­ers and inter­me­di­aries pro­mote adher­ence to and respect for the human rights and, where applic­a­ble, labour rights of migrant work­ers, par­tic­u­larly women.” (para­graph 16)

• “Calls upon States to address the struc­tural and under­ly­ing causes of vio­lence against women migrant work­ers, includ­ing through edu­ca­tion and dis­sem­i­na­tion of infor­ma­tion and by rais­ing aware­ness of gen­der-equal­ity issues, pro­mot­ing their eco­nomic empow­er­ment and access to decent work and, where rel­e­vant, their inte­gra­tion into the for­mal econ­omy, in par­tic­u­lar in eco­nomic deci­sion-mak­ing, and pro­mot­ing their par­tic­i­pa­tion in pub­lic life, as appro­pri­ate.” (para­graph 20)

• “Urges States that have not yet done so to adopt and imple­ment leg­is­la­tion and poli­cies that pro­tect all women migrant work­ers, includ­ing those in domes­tic work, to include therein, and improve where nec­es­sary, rel­e­vant mon­i­tor­ing and inspec­tion mea­sures, in line with applic­a­ble Inter­na­tional Labour Orga­ni­za­tion con­ven­tions and other instru­ments to ensure com­pli­ance with inter­na­tional oblig­a­tions and to grant women migrant work­ers in domes­tic ser­vice access to gen­der-sen­si­tive, trans­par­ent mech­a­nisms for bring­ing com­plaints against recruit­ment agen­cies and employ­ers, includ­ing ter­mi­nat­ing their con­tracts in the event of labour and eco­nomic exploita­tion, dis­crim­i­na­tion, sex­ual harass­ment, vio­lence and sex­ual abuse in the work­place, while stress­ing that such instru­ments should not pun­ish women migrant work­ers, and calls upon States to promptly inves­ti­gate and pun­ish all vio­la­tions of their rights.” (para­graph 26)

• “Urges States to adopt national gen­der-respon­sive migra­tion poli­cies and leg­is­la­tion, in line with rel­e­vant oblig­a­tions under inter­na­tional law, to pro­tect the human rights of all migrant women and girls, regard­less of migra­tion sta­tus; rec­og­nize the skills and edu­ca­tion of women migrant work­ers to pro­mote their eco­nomic empow­er­ment in all sec­tors and, as appro­pri­ate, facil­i­tate their pro­duc­tive employ­ment, decent work and inte­gra­tion into the labour force, includ­ing in the fields of edu­ca­tion and sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy; rec­og­nize the impor­tance of pro­tect­ing labour rights and a safe envi­ron­ment for women migrant work­ers and those in pre­car­i­ous employ­ment, includ­ing pre­vent­ing and address­ing abuse and exploita­tion, pro­tect­ing women migrant work­ers in all sec­tors and pro­mot­ing labour mobil­ity; pro­vide newly arrived migrant women with tar­geted, gen­der-respon­sive, child-sen­si­tive, acces­si­ble and com­pre­hen­sive infor­ma­tion and legal guid­ance on their rights and oblig­a­tions, includ­ing on com­pli­ance with national and local laws, obtain­ing work and res­i­dent per­mits, sta­tus adjust­ments, reg­is­tra­tion with author­i­ties, access to jus­tice to file com­plaints about rights vio­la­tions, as well as access to basic ser­vices; encour­age coop­er­a­tion among var­i­ous stake­hold­ers, includ­ing coun­tries of ori­gin, tran­sit and des­ti­na­tion, in ensur­ing that migrant women and girls have ade­quate iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and the pro­vi­sion of rel­e­vant doc­u­ments to facil­i­tate access to social pro­tec­tion mech­a­nisms; and facil­i­tate the sus­tain­able rein­te­gra­tion of return­ing migrant women and girls by pro­vid­ing them with equal access to social pro­tec­tion and ser­vices.” (para­graph 29)

• “Calls upon all Gov­ern­ments to incor­po­rate a human rights, gen­der-respon­sive and peo­ple-cen­tred per­spec­tive in leg­is­la­tion, poli­cies and pro­grammes on inter­na­tional migra­tion and on labour and employ­ment, con­sis­tent with their human rights oblig­a­tions and com­mit­ments under human rights instru­ments, for the pre­ven­tion of and pro­tec­tion of migrant women against vio­lence and dis­crimin ation, traf­fick­ing in per­sons, exploita­tion and abuse, to take effec­tive mea­sures to ensure that such migra­tion and labour poli­cies do not rein­force dis­crim­i­na­tion, and, where nec­es­sary, to con­duct impact assess­ment stud­ies of such leg­is­la­tion, poli­cies and pro­grammes, and to take into account the need for effec­tive and mean­ing­ful par­tic­i­pa­tion of women migrant work­ers and rel­e­vant civil soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions, as appro­pri­ate, in the for­mu­la­tion of such poli­cies and pro­grammes.” (para­graph 7)

• “Calls upon Gov­ern­ments to adopt or strengthen mea­sures to pro­tect the human rights of women migrant work­ers, includ­ing domes­tic work­ers, regard­less of their migra­tory sta­tus, includ­ing in poli­cies that reg­u­late the recruit­ment and deploy­ment of women migrant work­ers, to con­sider expand­ing dia­logue among States on devis­ing inno­v­a­tive meth­ods to pro­mote legal chan­nels of migra­tion in order to deter irreg­u­lar migra­tion, to con­sider incor­po­rat­ing a gen­der per­spec­tive into immi­gra­tion laws in order to pre­vent dis­crim­i­na­tion and vio­lence against women, includ­ing in inde­pen­dent, cir­cu­lar and tem­po­rary migra­tion, and to con­sider per­mit­ting, in accor­dance with national leg­is­la­tion, women migrant work­ers who are vic­tims of vio­lence, traf­fick­ing in per­sons or other forms of exploita­tion or abuse to apply for res­i­dency per­mits inde­pen­dently of abu­sive employ­ers or spouses, and to elim­i­nate abu­sive spon­sor­ship sys­tems.” (para­graph 8)

2019 UNESC Resolution on UNAIDS

• “Calls for urgent action and part­ner­ship by Mem­ber States, the United Nations sys­tem, civil soci­ety, local com­mu­ni­ties, the pri­vate sec­tor and other stake­hold­ers to scale up evi­dence-based HIV pre­ven­tion, test­ing, treat­ment, care and reten­tion, includ­ing access to safe, effec­tive, qual­ity and afford­able med­i­cines, includ­ing gener­ics, viral load test­ing in pur­suit of achiev­ing viral load sup­pres­sion, and tuber­cu­lo­sis pre­ven­ta­tive treat­ment, to ensure that those ser­vices reach the peo­ple who need them the most, includ­ing key pop­u­la­tions that epi­demi­o­log­i­cal evi­dence shows to be glob­ally at higher risk of HIV infec­tion, ado­les­cent girls and young women, and calls for rein­vig­o­rated efforts to pro­tect human rights and pro­mote gen­der equal­ity and to address social risk fac­tors, includ­ing gen­der-based vio­lence, as well as social and eco­nomic deter­mi­nants of health.” (para­graph 4)

2019 Political declaration of the HLM on UHC

• “Pro­vide bet­ter oppor­tu­ni­ties and work­ing envi­ron­ments for women to ensure their role and lead­er­ship in the health sec­tor, with a view to increas­ing the mean­ing­ful rep­re­sen­ta­tion, engage­ment, par­tic­i­pa­tion and empow­er­ment of all women in the work­force, address­ing inequal­i­ties and elim­i­nat­ing biases against women, includ­ing unequal remu­ner­a­tion, while not­ing that women, who cur­rently form 70 per cent of the health and social work­force, still often face sig­nif­i­cant bar­ri­ers in tak­ing lead­er­ship and deci­sion-mak­ing roles.” (para­graph 63)

• “Main­stream a gen­der per­spec­tive on a sys­tems-wide basis when design­ing, imple­ment­ing and mon­i­tor­ing health poli­cies, tak­ing into account the spe­cific needs of all women and girls, with a view to achiev­ing gen­der equal­ity and the empow­er­ment of women in health poli­cies and health sys­tems deliv­ery.” (para­graph 69)

2018 Political declaration of the third HLM on NCDs

• “Acknowl­edge that main­stream­ing a gen­der per­spec­tive into the pre­ven­tion and con­trol of non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases is cru­cial to under­stand­ing and address­ing the health risks and needs of women and men of all ages, giv­ing par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to the impact of non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases on women in all set­tings.” (para­graph 14)

2017 Resolution on international cooperation to address and counter the world drug problem

• “Reit­er­ates its call to main­stream a gen­der per­spec­tive into and ensure the involve­ment of women in all stages of the devel­op­ment, imple­men­ta­tion, mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion of drug poli­cies and pro­grammes, to develop and dis­sem­i­nate gen­der-sen­si­tive and age-appro­pri­ate mea­sures that take into account the spe­cific needs and cir­cum­stances faced by women and girls with regard to the world drug prob­lem and, as States par­ties, imple­ment the Con­ven­tion on the Elim­i­na­tion of All Forms of Dis­crim­i­na­tion against Women.” (para­graph 14)

2016 Resolution on Women, the Girl Child and HIV and AIDS

• “Calls upon gov­ern­ments, inter­na­tional part­ners and civil soci­ety to give full atten­tion to the high lev­els of new HIV infec­tions among young women and ado­les­cent girls and its root causes, bear­ing in mind that women and girls are phys­i­o­log­i­cally more vul­ner­a­ble to HIV, espe­cially at an ear­lier age, than men and boys, and that this is increased by dis­crim­i­na­tion and all forms of vio­lence against women, girls and ado­les­cents, includ­ing sex­ual exploita­tion and harm­ful prac­tices.” (para­graph 1)

• “Urges gov­ern­ments to increase polit­i­cal com­mit­ment and domes­tic financ­ing to achieve gen­der equal­ity and the empow­er­ment of women and girls through national HIV and AIDS responses tar­get­ing women and girls that respect, pro­mote and pro­tect human rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms for women and girls, includ­ing in the con­text of the HIV epi­demic, and pro­mote equal eco­nomic oppor­tu­ni­ties and decent work for women and girls.” (para­graph 19)

• “Calls upon Mem­ber States to inten­sify efforts to achieve gen­der equal­ity and the empow­er­ment of women and girls in all spheres of life, rec­og­niz­ing that struc­tural gen­der inequal­i­ties, dis­crim­i­na­tion, vio­lence against women and girls and harm­ful mas­culin­i­ties under­mine effec­tive HIV responses and the full and equal enjoy­ment of human rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms by women and girls.” (para­graph 2)

• “Requests gov­ern­ments, the pri­vate sec­tor, the inter­na­tional donor com­mu­nity and funds, pro­grammes and agen­cies of the United Nations to inten­sify finan­cial and tech­ni­cal sup­port for national efforts to end AIDS and achieve gen­der equal­ity and the empow­er­ment of women and girls, focused on women and girls affected by the HIV and AIDS epi­demic, and also to inten­sify finan­cial and tech­ni­cal sup­port for main­stream­ing gen­der and human rights per­spec­tives in poli­cies, plan­ning, pro­grammes, mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion.” (para­graph 21)

• “Urges gov­ern­ments to elim­i­nate gen­der inequal­i­ties and gen­der-based abuse and vio­lence, increase the capac­ity of women and ado­les­cent girls to pro­tect them­selves from the risk of HIV infec­tion, prin­ci­pally through the pro­vi­sion of health care and ser­vices, includ­ing, inter alia, sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health care, as well as full access to com­pre­hen­sive infor­ma­tion and edu­ca­tion, ensure that women can exer­cise their right to have con­trol over, and decide freely and respon­si­bly on, mat­ters related to their sex­u­al­ity, includ­ing their sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health, free of coer­cion, dis­crim­i­na­tion and vio­lence, in order to increase their abil­ity to pro­tect them­selves from HIV infec­tion, and take all nec­es­sary mea­sures to cre­ate an enabling envi­ron­ment for the empow­er­ment of women and strengthen their eco­nomic inde­pen­dence and, in that con­text, reit­er­ates the impor­tance of the role of men and boys in achiev­ing gen­der equal­ity.” (para­graph 9)

2016 Outcome Document of the Session on the World Drug Problem

• “Main­stream a gen­der per­spec­tive into and ensure the involve­ment of women in all stages of the devel­op­ment, imple­men­ta­tion, mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion of drug poli­cies and pro­grammes, develop and dis­sem­i­nate gen­der-sen­si­tive and age- appro­pri­ate mea­sures that take into account the spe­cific needs and cir­cum­stances faced by women and girls with regard to the world drug prob­lem and, as States par­ties, imple­ment the Con­ven­tion on the Elim­i­na­tion of All Forms of Dis­crim­i­na­tion against Women.” (para­graph 4(g))

2016 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS

• “Remain deeply con­cerned that, glob­ally, women and girls are still the most affected by the epi­demic and that they bear a dis­pro­por­tion­ate share of the care­giv­ing bur­den, note that progress towards gen­der equal­ity and the empow­er­ment of all women and girls has been unac­cept­ably slow and that the abil­ity of women and girls to pro­tect them­selves from HIV con­tin­ues to be com­pro­mised by phys­i­o­log­i­cal fac­tors, gen­der inequal­i­ties, includ­ing unequal power rela­tions in soci­ety between women and men and boys and girls, and unequal legal, eco­nomic and social sta­tus, insuf­fi­cient access to health-care ser­vices, includ­ing sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health, and all forms of dis­crim­i­na­tion and vio­lence in the pub­lic and pri­vate spheres, includ­ing traf­fick­ing in per­sons, sex­ual vio­lence, exploita­tion and harm­ful prac­tices.” (para­graph 41)

• “Rec­og­nize that the unequal socioe­co­nomic sta­tus of women com­pro­mises their abil­ity to pre­vent HIV or mit­i­gate the impact of AIDS, acknowl­edge the mutu­ally rein­forc­ing links between the achieve­ment of gen­der equal­ity and the empow­er­ment of all women and girls and the erad­i­ca­tion of poverty, and reaf­firm that the pro­mo­tion and pro­tec­tion of, and respect for, the human rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms of women should be main­streamed into all poli­cies and pro­grammes aimed at the erad­i­ca­tion of poverty.” (para­graph 61(a))

• “Stress, in that regard, that the lack of pro­tec­tion and pro­mo­tion of the human rights of all women and their sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health and repro­duc­tive rights in accor­dance with the Pro­gramme of Action of the Inter­na­tional Con­fer­ence on Pop­u­la­tion and Devel­op­ment, the Bei­jing Plat­form for Action and the out­come doc­u­ments of their review con­fer­ences, and insuf­fi­cient access to the high­est attain­able stan­dard of phys­i­cal and men­tal health, aggra­vates the impact of the epi­demic, espe­cially among women and girls, increas­ing their vul­ner­a­bil­ity and endan­ger­ing the sur­vival of present and future gen­er­a­tions.” (para­graph 61(b))

• “Pledge to elim­i­nate gen­der inequal­i­ties and gen­der-based abuse and vio­lence, increase the capac­ity of women and ado­les­cent girls to pro­tect them­selves from the risk of HIV infec­tion, prin­ci­pally through the pro­vi­sion of health care and ser­vices, includ­ing, inter alia, sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health, as well as full access to com­pre­hen­sive infor­ma­tion and edu­ca­tion, ensure that women can exer­cise their right to have con­trol over, and decide freely and respon­si­bly on, mat­ters related to their sex­u­al­ity, includ­ing their sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health, free of coer­cion, dis­crim­i­na­tion and vio­lence, in order to increase their abil­ity to pro­tect them­selves from HIV infec­tion, and take all nec­es­sary mea­sures to cre­ate an enabling envi­ron­ment for the empow­er­ment of women and to strengthen their eco­nomic inde­pen­dence, and, in this con­text, reit­er­ate the impor­tance of the role of men and boys in achiev­ing gen­der equal­ity.” (para­graph 61(c))

• “Com­mit to achiev­ing gen­der equal­ity and the empow­er­ment of all women and girls, to respect­ing, pro­mot­ing and pro­tect­ing their human rights, edu­ca­tion and health, includ­ing their sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health, by invest­ing in gen­der-respon­sive approaches and ensur­ing gen­der main­stream­ing at all lev­els, sup­port­ing women’s lead­er­ship in the AIDS response and engag­ing men and boys, rec­og­niz­ing that gen­der equal­ity and pos­i­tive gen­der norms pro­mote effec­tive responses to HIV.” (para­graph 61(d))

• “Com­mit to end­ing all forms of vio­lence and dis­crim­i­na­tion against women and girls, such as gen­der-based, sex­ual, domes­tic and inti­mate part­ner vio­lence, by, inter alia, elim­i­nat­ing sex­ual exploita­tion of women, girls and boys, traf­fick­ing in per­sons, femi­cide, abuse, rape in every and in all cir­cum­stances and other forms of sex­ual vio­lence, dis­crim­i­na­tory laws and harm­ful social norms that per­pet­u­ate the unequal sta­tus of women and girls, as well as harm­ful prac­tices such as child, early and forced mar­riage, forced preg­nancy, forced ster­il­iza­tion, in par­tic­u­lar of women liv­ing with HIV, forced and coerced abor­tion and female gen­i­tal muti­la­tion, includ­ing in con­flict, post-con­flict and other human­i­tar­ian emer­gen­cies, as these can have seri­ous and long-last­ing impacts on the health and well-being of women and girls through­out the life cycle and increase their vul­ner­a­bil­ity to HIV.” (para­graph 61(h))

• “Com­mit to adopt­ing, review­ing and accel­er­at­ing effec­tive imple­men­ta­tion of laws that crim­i­nal­ize vio­lence against women and girls, as well as com­pre­hen­sive, mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary and gen­der-respon­sive pre­ven­tive, pro­tec­tive and pros­e­cu­to­r­ial mea­sures and ser­vices to elim­i­nate and pre­vent all forms of vio­lence against all women and girls, in pub­lic and pri­vate spaces, as well as harm­ful prac­tices.” (para­graph 61(i))

• “Com­mit to devel­op­ing and to strength­en­ing, in all coun­tries, national poli­cies, norms and mea­sures directly aimed at aware­ness, pre­ven­tion and pun­ish­ment of all forms of vio­lence and dis­crim­i­na­tion against women and girls, as well as to devel­op­ing poli­cies aimed at the pre­ven­tion of sex­ual vio­lence and com­pre­hen­sive care for chil­dren and ado­les­cents sex­u­ally abused.” (para­graph 61(k))

2016 Resolution on the girl child

• “Urges all States to enact, uphold and strictly enforce laws and poli­cies aimed at pre­vent­ing and end­ing child, early and forced mar­riage and pro­tect­ing those at risk and to ensure that mar­riage is entered into only with the informed, free and full con­sent of the intend­ing spouses, to enact and strictly enforce laws con­cern­ing the min­i­mum legal age of con­sent and the min­i­mum age for mar­riage, to raise the min­i­mum age for mar­riage, engage all rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers, includ­ing girls, where nec­es­sary, and ensure that these laws are well known, to fur­ther develop and imple­ment holis­tic, com­pre­hen­sive and coor­di­nated poli­cies, plans of action and pro­grammes and to sup­port already mar­ried girls and ado­les­cents and ensure the pro­vi­sion of viable alter­na­tives and insti­tu­tional sup­port, espe­cially edu­ca­tional oppor­tu­ni­ties for girls, to ensure the sur­vival, pro­tec­tion, devel­op­ment and advance­ment of the girl child in order to pro­mote and pro­tect the full enjoy­ment of her human rights and to ensure equal oppor­tu­ni­ties for girls, includ­ing by mak­ing such plans an inte­gral part of her total devel­op­ment process.” (para­graph 13)

• “Urges States to improve the sit­u­a­tion of girl chil­dren liv­ing in poverty, in par­tic­u­lar extreme poverty, deprived of ade­quate food and nutri­tion, water and san­i­ta­tion facil­i­ties, with lim­ited or no access to basic phys­i­cal and men­tal health-care ser­vices, shel­ter, edu­ca­tion, par­tic­i­pa­tion and pro­tec­tion, tak­ing into account that, while a severe lack of goods and ser­vices hurts every human being, it is par­tic­u­larly threat­en­ing and harm­ful to the girl child and is fur­ther exac­er­bated by liv­ing in a child-headed house­hold, leav­ing her unable to enjoy her rights, to reach her full poten­tial and to par­tic­i­pate as a full mem­ber of soci­ety.” (para­graph 3)

2012 Resolution on women in development

• “Urges the donor com­mu­nity, Mem­ber States, inter­na­tional orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the United Nations, the pri­vate sec­tor, non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions, trade unions and other stake­hold­ers to strengthen the focus and impact of devel­op­ment assis­tance tar­get­ing gen­der equal­ity and the empow­er­ment of women and girls through gen­der main­stream­ing, the fund­ing of tar­geted activ­i­ties and enhanced dia­logue between donors and part­ners, and to also strengthen the mech­a­nisms needed to mea­sure effec­tively the resources allo­cated to incor­po­rat­ing gen­der per­spec­tives in all areas of devel­op­ment assis­tance.” (para­graph 10)

• “Urges Mem­ber States to incor­po­rate a gen­der per­spec­tive, com­men­su­rate with gen­der-equal­ity goals, into the design, imple­men­ta­tion, mon­i­tor­ing, eval­u­a­tion and report­ing of national devel­op­ment strate­gies, to ensure align­ment between national action plans on gen­der equal­ity and national devel­op­ment strate­gies, and to encour­age the involve­ment of men and boys in the pro­mo­tion of gen­der equal­ity, and in this regard calls upon the United Nations sys­tem to sup­port national efforts to develop method­olo­gies and tools and to pro­mote capac­ity-build­ing and eval­u­a­tion.” (para­graph 11)

• “Encour­ages Mem­ber States to ensure inclu­sive and more effec­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion of national mech­a­nisms for gen­der equal­ity and women’s empow­er­ment in the for­mu­la­tion of national devel­op­ment strate­gies, includ­ing strate­gies aimed at erad­i­cat­ing poverty and reduc­ing inequal­i­ties, and calls upon the United Nations sys­tem to sup­port national efforts in this regard.” (para­graph 12)

• “Encour­ages Mem­ber States, the United Nations sys­tem and donor coun­tries to strengthen gen­der-respon­sive plan­ning and bud­get­ing processes and to develop and strengthen method­olo­gies and tools for this pur­pose as well as for the mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion of invest­ments for gen­der-equal­ity results, as appro­pri­ate, and encour­ages donors to main­stream a gen­der per­spec­tive in their prac­tices, includ­ing joint coor­di­na­tion and account­abil­ity mech­a­nisms.” (para­graph 14)

• “Encour­ages Gov­ern­ments, the pri­vate sec­tor, non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions and other actors of civil soci­ety to pro­mote and pro­tect the rights of women work­ers, to take action to remove struc­tural and legal bar­ri­ers to, as well as elim­i­nate stereo­typic atti­tudes towards, gen­der equal­ity at work, and to ini­ti­ate pos­i­tive steps towards pro­mot­ing equal pay for equal work or for work of equal value.” (para­graph 17)

• “Encour­ages Mem­ber States to adopt and/or review and to fully imple­ment gen­der-sen­si­tive leg­is­la­tion and poli­cies that reduce, through specif­i­cally tar­geted mea­sures, hor­i­zon­tal and ver­ti­cal occu­pa­tional seg­re­ga­tion and gen­der-based wage gaps.” (para­graph 20)

• “Urges Gov­ern­ments to take mea­sures to facil­i­tate equi­table access to land and prop­erty rights by pro­vid­ing train­ing designed to make the judi­cial, leg­isla­tive and admin­is­tra­tive sys­tem more respon­sive to gen­der-equal­ity issues, to pro­vide egal aid for women seek­ing to claim their rights, to sup­port the efforts of women’s groups and net­works and to carry out aware­ness cam­paigns so as to draw atten­tion to the need for women’s equal rights to land and prop­erty.” (para­graph 28)

2011 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS

• “Pledge to elim­i­nate gen­der inequal­i­ties and gen­der-based abuse and vio­lence, increase the capac­ity of women and ado­les­cent girls to pro­tect them­selves from the risk of HIV infec­tion, prin­ci­pally through the pro­vi­sion of health care and ser­vices, includ­ing, inter alia, sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health, as well as full access to com­pre­hen­sive infor­ma­tion and edu­ca­tion, ensure that women can exer­cise their right to have con­trol over, and decide freely and respon­si­bly on, mat­ters related to their sex­u­al­ity, includ­ing their sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health, free of coer­cion, dis­crim­i­na­tion and vio­lence, in order to increase their abil­ity to pro­tect them­selves from HIV infec­tion, and take all nec­es­sary mea­sures to cre­ate an enabling envi­ron­ment for the empow­er­ment of women and to strengthen their eco­nomic inde­pen­dence, and, in this con­text, reit­er­ate the impor­tance of the role of men and boys in achiev­ing gen­der equal­ity.” (para­graph 53)

2011 Resolution on trafficking in women and girls

• “Also urges Gov­ern­ments, in coop­er­a­tion with inter­gov­ern­men­tal and non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions, to sup­port and allo­cate resources to strengthen pre­ven­tive action, in par­tic­u­lar edu­ca­tion for women and men, as well as for girls and boys, on gen­der equal­ity, self-respect and mutual respect, and cam­paigns, car­ried out in col­lab­o­ra­tion with civil soci­ety, to increase pub­lic aware­ness of the issue at the national and grass-roots lev­els.” (para­graph 11)

• “Also calls upon Gov­ern­ments to take appro­pri­ate mea­sures to address the fac­tors that increase vul­ner­a­bil­ity to being traf­ficked, includ­ing poverty and gen­der inequal­ity, as well as other fac­tors that encour­age the par­tic­u­lar prob­lem of traf­fick­ing in women and girls for pros­ti­tu­tion and other forms of com­mer­cial­ized sex, forced mar­riage, forced labour and organ removal, in order to pre­vent and elim­i­nate such traf­fick­ing, includ­ing by strength­en­ing exist­ing leg­is­la­tion with a view to pro­vid­ing bet­ter pro­tec­tion of the rights of women and girls and to pun­ish­ing per­pe­tra­tors, includ­ing pub­lic offi­cials engag­ing in or facil­i­tat­ing human traf­fick­ing, through, as appro­pri­ate, crim­i­nal and/or civil mea­sures.” (para­graph 8))

2009 ECOSOC Resolution on UNAIDS

• “Rec­og­nizes the inter­re­lated nature of the health- and gen­der-related Mil­len­nium Devel­op­ment Goals, and wel­comes the progress made by the Joint Pro­gramme in assist­ing coun­tries in accel­er­at­ing action on women, girls and gen­der equal­ity within the con­text of AIDS, includ­ing the appoint­ment of an advi­sory group, under the lead­er­ship of the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, to develop, imple­ment and mon­i­tor an oper­a­tional plan in rela­tion to a strength­ened inter-agency strat­egy and the draft­ing of the UNAIDS Action Frame­work: Address­ing Women, Girls, Gen­der Equal­ity and HIV.” (para­graph 21)

2006 Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS

• “Pledge to elim­i­nate gen­der inequal­i­ties, gen­der-based abuse and vio­lence; increase the capac­ity of women and ado­les­cent girls to pro­tect them­selves from the risk of HIV infec­tion, prin­ci­pally through the pro­vi­sion of health care and ser­vices, includ­ing, inter alia, sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health, and the pro­vi­sion of full access to com­pre­hen­sive infor­ma­tion and edu­ca­tion; ensure that women can exer­cise their right to have con­trol over, and decide freely and respon­si­bly on, mat­ters related to their sex­u­al­ity in order to increase their abil­ity to pro­tect them­selves from HIV infec­tion, includ­ing their sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health, free of coer­cion, dis­crim­i­na­tion and vio­lence; and take all nec­es­sary mea­sures to cre­ate an enabling envi­ron­ment for the empow­er­ment of women and strengthen their eco­nomic inde­pen­dence; and in this con­text, reit­er­ate the impor­tance of the role of men and boys in achiev­ing gen­der equal­ity.” (para­graph 30)

2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS

• “Stress­ing that gen­der equal­ity and the empow­er­ment of women are fun­da­men­tal ele­ments in the reduc­tion of the vul­ner­a­bil­ity of women and girls to HIV/AIDS.” (para­graph 14)

• “By 2005, imple­ment mea­sures to increase capac­i­ties of women and ado­les­cent girls to pro­tect them­selves from the risk of HIV infec­tion , prin­ci­pally through the pro­vi­sion of health care and health ser­vices, includ­ing for sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health, and through pre­ven­tion edu­ca­tion that pro­motes gen­der equal­ity within a cul­tur­ally and gen­der-sen­si­tive frame­work.” (para­graph 60)

Expert precedents

2022 OHCHR Annual Report on Human Rights and HIV/AIDS

• “Rec­om­mend that States that have not yet con­ducted an assess­ment of the extent to which exist­ing legal and pol­icy frame­works com­ply with the human rights norms and gen­der equal­ity norms applic­a­ble to the HIV response, and of their com­mit­ments under the Polit­i­cal Dec­la­ra­tion, do so through a process involv­ing the mean­ing­ful par­tic­i­pa­tion of stake­hold­ers, includ­ing key pop­u­la­tions, women and girls and young peo­ple.” (para­graph 15 (a))

• “Rec­om­mend that States develop national strate­gies and plans to address dis­crim­i­na­tion against women and girls in all their diver­sity in their access to health ser­vices, includ­ing sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health ser­vices; these should be imple­mented in tan­dem with strate­gies to pro­tect women and girls from gen­der-based vio­lence, tak­ing into account its inter­link­ages with HIV/AIDS, and all strate­gies and plans should be devel­oped in con­sul­ta­tion with women-led orga­ni­za­tions and women and girls liv­ing with HIV, and be fully funded.” (para­graph 29(a))

• “Rec­om­mend that States increase invest­ments into inno­v­a­tive data col­lec­tion method­olo­gies to inform pol­icy and action on gen­der-based vio­lence; access to effec­tive and vic­tim-cen­tred reme­dies for gen­der-based vio­lence should be made read­ily avail­able and account­abil­ity for per­pe­tra­tors enforced.” (para­graph 29(c))

2021 Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to health

• “The Spe­cial Rap­por­teur observes a global patri­ar­chal cul­ture, a regres­sive cli­mate and push­back in the area of sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health rights and oppo­si­tion to gen­der equal­ity. Gains made in the past decades in these areas are at risk of being rolled back, with the rights and per­spec­tives of women, girls and LGB­TIQ+ per­sons side­lined.” (para­graph 82)

2006 Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health

• “It is also vital to address social, cul­tural, polit­i­cal and legal fac­tors which influ­ence women’s deci­sions to seek mater­nal or other repro­duc­tive health-care ser­vices. This may require address­ing dis­crim­i­na­tory laws, poli­cies, prac­tices and gen­der inequal­i­ties that pre­vent women and ado­les­cents from seek­ing good qual­ity ser­vices.” (para­graph ii(a)(17)(c))

1999 General Recommendation No.24 on women and health

• “As a con­se­quence of unequal power rela­tions based on gen­der, women and ado­les­cent girls are often unable to refuse sex or insist on safe and respon­si­ble sex prac­tices. Harm­ful tra­di­tional prac­tices, such as female gen­i­tal muti­la­tion, polygamy, as well as mar­i­tal rape, may also expose girls and women to the risk of con­tract­ing HIV/AIDS and other sex­u­ally trans­mit­ted dis­eases. Women in pros­ti­tu­tion are also par­tic­u­larly vul­ner­a­ble to these dis­eases.” (para­graph 18)

Evidence

2022 WHO Consolidated Guidelines on Person-centred HIV Strategic Information

• “While the over­all HIV bur­den is higher in girls and women, men are less likely to get tested for HIV and, if infected, less likely to be on treat­ment and less likely to be virally sup­pressed. A grow­ing body of evi­dence shows that men have less access than women to HIV pre­ven­tion, test­ing and ART.” (p. 21)

2020 Evidence Review of the UNAIDS Strategy 2016-2021

• “Sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health and rights are not upheld. Sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health and rights are cen­tral to empow­er­ing women and ado­les­cent girls, ful­fill­ing their human rights, ensur­ing their health and well­be­ing, cre­at­ing gen­der-equal soci­eties and economies, and pre­vent­ing HIV infec­tions. In 57 coun­tries, only 55% of mar­ried or in-union women (aged 15–49 years) cur­rently using con­tra­cep­tion are able to make their own deci­sions regard­ing their sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health includ­ing to refuse unwanted sex. More­over, there is lit­tle sign of improve­ments in women’s agency.” (p. 66)

• “Laws and poli­cies pre­vent many ado­les­cent girls from mak­ing deci­sions about their own sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health or access­ing essen­tial health ser­vices, includ­ing for con­tra­cep­tion and HIV-related ser­vices. In 2019, 105 of 142 coun­tries with avail­able data required that ado­les­cents have parental or guardian con­sent to access HIV test­ing. In 86 of 138 report­ing coun­tries, they needed sim­i­lar con­sent to access HIV treat­ment and care. A recent mul­ti­coun­try review in sub-Saha­ran Africa found that laws allow­ing young peo­ple younger than 16 years to access HIV test­ing with­out parental con­sent were asso­ci­ated with a 74% increased like­li­hood of HIV test­ing uti­liza­tion among ado­les­cents. Dis­crim­i­na­tory crim­i­nal­iza­tion laws linked to HIV can dis­pro­por­tion­ately affect women, as women are more likely than men to know their HIV sta­tus as a result of rou­tine HIV screen­ing in ante­na­tal care.” (p. 67)

• “Women who belong to key pop­u­la­tions are at par­tic­u­lar risk of expe­ri­enc­ing vio­lence. Women who use drugs are up to five times more likely to expe­ri­ence vio­lence than non-drug-using women. It is esti­mated that 45–75% of female sex work­ers are assaulted or abused at least once in their life­time, although mech­a­nisms for report­ing abuse or access­ing sur­vivor ser­vices are often blocked due to the crim­i­nal­iza­tion of sex work. Women belong­ing to eth­nic and other minori­ties, trans­gen­der women and women with dis­abil­i­ties face higher risks of vio­lence.” (p. 69)

• “Women’s lack of free­dom and agency to make deci­sions regard­ing their sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health results in inad­e­quate uptake of essen­tial inter­ven­tions and tools. More than half of the esti­mated 38 mil­lion sex­u­ally active ado­les­cent girls (aged 15–19 years) in devel­op­ing regions in 2016 who needed con­tra­cep­tives because they were mar­ried or were unmar­ried and sex­u­ally active and did not want a child for at least two years, were not using mod­ern con­tra­cep­tives. Each year, 21 mil­lion ado­les­cent girls become preg­nant and approx­i­mately 12 mil­lion ado­les­cent girls give birth, includ­ing 777 000 girls under the age of 15. One in three women liv­ing with HIV in 19 coun­tries report expe­ri­enc­ing at least one form of dis­crim­i­na­tion related to their sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health in a health-care set­ting in the pre­vi­ous 12 months (e.g. being advised not to have chil­dren, being offered ART on con­di­tion they use cer­tain forms of con­tra­cep­tion, or being denied sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health ser­vices).” (pp. 66–67)

2016 Prevention Gap Report

• “Expe­ri­ences of phys­i­cal and emo­tional inti­mate part­ner vio­lence in set­tings with male con­trol­ling behav­iour and HIV preva­lence above 5% have been strongly asso­ci­ated with HIV infec­tion in women. In some regions, women who expe­ri­enced phys­i­cal or sex­ual inti­mate part­ner vio­lence were 1.5 times more likely to acquire HIV than women who had not expe­ri­enced vio­lence.” (p. 20)

• “Stud­ies have shown that increas­ing edu­ca­tional achieve­ment among women and girls is linked to bet­ter sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health out­comes, includ­ing lower rates of HIV infec­tion, delayed child­bear­ing, safer births and safer abor­tions, and other devel­op­ment out­comes.” (p. 23)