By Prof. Bharat H. Desai
The 67th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW67) opened in New York on March 06 for a two-week (March 6-17 March 2023) long deliberations. It began work just ahead of the International Women’s Day (IWD) on March 08, 2023.
The 2023 IWD comes with a theme of online violence and other dangers faced by women and girls as well as the need for quality education in the information age. The CSW67 has a special focus on closing this major gap in the information and communication technology (ICT). Thus, turning the innovation into a boon instead of bane constitutes new ideational challenge to counter deeply entrenched patriarchal mindsets as well as “creating new social, economic and cultural codes for a gender equal future”.
The Chair of the CSW67 Mathu Joyini in her opening remarks said that the digital technologies are having profound effects in the lives of women globally since they would heighten already serious gender inequalities, discrimination and violence against women. “Gender-based discrimination is a systemic problem that has been interwoven into the fabric of our political, social and economic lives, and the technology sector is no different,” she said. CSW67 is also slated to address approaches and options for gender equality and empowerment of rural women and girls.
UNSC 2023 Open Debate on WPS
In a significant move, on March 7, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of the Republic of Mozambique, Veronica Nataniel Macamo Dlhovo is to chair the UN Security Council (UNSC) open debate on the theme ‘women and peace and security’. It will mark the anniversary of the adoption of the historic UNSC resolution 1325 of October 31, 2000. The UNSC’s engagement on women issues has been justified on the ground that they are worst affected due to the armed conflicts raging around the world. In the third decade of the 21st century women and girls face the brunt of wars including sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) mainly due to their gender as well as marginalized status and exclusion from the decision-making in matters of peace and security. As a tactics of war, rape has been widely used by all kinds of combatants as a cheaper weapon than even bullets. This has been vividly shown in this author’s scholarly work: Sexual and Gender Based Violence in International Law (Singapore: Springer Nature, 2022) as well as highlighted in the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Denis Mukhwege and Nadia Murad for "for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict". All indicators point towards a backwards slide.
Shrinking Global Space for Women
In an ominous sign, March 2023 assessment of the International Labour Organization (ILO) shows that in the last 20 years, the jobs and pay for women have barely improved. As a corollary, the gender gap in the labour market, graphically reveal the jobs gap for women is a “stubborn and damaging reality of the global labour market” especially in the developing countries. According to the ILO, almost 25% women are unable to find a job, compared with 16.6 % of men. “It paints a much bleaker picture of the situation of women in the world of work…(it) shows that women still have a much harder time finding a job than men,” ILO said. It is most worrying that for each dollar of labour income men earn, women earned only 51 cents. Moreover, there is a serious gender disparity in income in low and lower-middle income countries “with women earning 33 cents and 29 cents on the dollar, respectively”.
The year 2022 left the legacy of many negative parameters for women. As seen in the case
of regressive policies of outlaws like Taliban after its usurpation of power on August 15, 2021 in Afghanistan, it pushed back decades of progress on women empowerment. Iran emerged as another big trouble spot wherein death of 22 year old Mahsa Amini in September 2022 became an inspiration for widespread Iranian protests. This author’s 2022 work published in the global journal Environmental Policy and Law (vol. 52 (3-4) 2022) shows that by 2050 climate change would cause loss of 4% global annual economic output - $ 23 trillion – wherein women and girls would suffer the most. Due to their traditional roles, as a consequence of disasters and Covid-19 pandemic 2020-22, women have faced heightened risks of SGBV. They suffer from lack of protection, privacy and mental trauma. The effects of climate change results in the feminization and intensification of vulnerability of women.
Deleterious Impact of ICT on Women’s Rights
The 2023 IWD focus on the safe digital environment for women is indicative of the global winds of change. Ironically, women are still a minority in digital information technology, computing, physics, mathematics and engineering, and account for less than 35 per cent of the global ICT workforce. As a reflection of the heavy odds faced on all the fronts, women face a graver risk from ICT. The UN data show that women are 20 per cent less likely than men to use the internet – but 27 times more likely to face online harassment or hate speech, when they do. “The world needs women’s expertise to address complex and interlocking crises, such as climate change, conflict, poverty, hunger and water scarcity, said the President of the 77th UN General Assembly, Csaba Kőrösi.
Making International Law Work
It is in this context that the ideational works of International Law scholars, decision- makers of the UN member states and the UN system need to be geared up for the audacious task of remedying adverse effects on women and girls from the global juggernaut of development, violent conflicts and the pushback by the entrenched patriarchy that refuses to see the inevitable change as the law of life. In this respect, the global campaign by the UN Women, mandate of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the special procedures of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) and other agencies need to be effectively marshalled for application of the entire corpus of International Human Rights Law for protection of the rights of women. The basic challenge lies in making a dent on the pernicious mindsets as well as in walking-the-talk for the elimination of sexual and gender-based violence, inequality and discrimination that have become root causes for many of the global ills.
Within the limits of this SIS Blog Special, it is sufficed to state that even the CSW67 aims for “Cracking the Code”, International Law instrumentalities, primary treaties such as 1979 CEDAW, 1989 CRC and other processes of the HRC shall have to be woven together as a comprehensive response for the protection of rights of women and girls including risks emanating from the ICT. “Your focus this year on closing gender gaps in technology and innovation could not be more timely. Because as technology races ahead, women and girls are being left behind,” the UNSG Antonio Guterres said. The words of the worldly wise UNSG seem to provide a beacon of hope for all women.
Professor Dr. Bharat H. Desai is Jawaharlal Nehru Chair and Professor of International Law at the Centre for International Legal Studies of SIS, JNU. He served as a member of the official Indian Delegations to various multilateral negotiations (2002-2008), coordinated the Making SIS Visible initiative (2012-2020) and Inter-University Consortium: JNU; Jammu; Kashmir; Sikkim (2012-2020) as well as contributes as the Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Policy and Law (IOS Press: Amsterdam)