CSW69: Oral Statement at the High-Level Interactive Dialogue on Accelerating Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action: The Role of the Commission on the Status of Women

This oral statement was broadcasted at the 69th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women. Click here to watch the statement.

I am making the statement on behalf of the Asian Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women ARROW. More than 270 CSOs came together at the Asia Pacific Regional Review of Beijing Platform of Action.

We reflected that thirty years after the Beijing Platform for Action the gendered discrimination and violence persists and access to sexual and reproductive health and rights still remain as a challenge for many women and girls in their diversities in the region. Women and girls face multiple barriers stemming from systemic bias, providers attitudes, discrimination and stigma when trying to access sexual and reproductive health services. More than 4 billion people globally are at risk of facing barriers to accessing at least one key sexual and reproductive health service (WHO, 2020). And this number will rise exponentially with shrinking civil society space and massive funding cuts.

Asia and the Pacific is also one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change with devastating and disproportionate impacts on women and girls. Additionally, in the region, women do four times more unpaid care work than men, with costs to their health, well-being, and ability to engage in economic and political activities.

Therefore, we call all the governments to:

1. Invest in implementation and scaling of programmes and interventions that address harmful gendered norms and stigma that propel and perpetuate cultures of GBV,  by ensuring fulfilment and respect of the right to bodily autonomy of women in their diversities.
2. Eliminate all discriminatory laws, policies, and programmes that negatively impact women in their diversities and from marginalised communities. Collect and use disaggregated data that reflect the real conditions of women and girls to support evidence-based policy change. Allocate sufficient budgets and human resources for implementing laws and policies to end GBV.
3. Commit to improving public investment in health and develop social protection systems including universal health coverage ensuring women and  girls have safe, timely and undisrupted access to a comprehensive range of health information, supplies and services including sexual and reproductive health information and services such as access to contraceptives, safe abortion, respectful maternal care and new-born and child health, sexually transmitted infections and reproductive tract infections.
4. Prioritise budget availability for and integrate comprehensive sexuality education into school curricula, and update curricula to make it comprehensive.
5. Ensure the most vulnerable and marginalised women and girls are placed at the centre of all crisis and disaster management policies including their meaningful participation in planning, financing and implementation of climate responses and incorporate the provision of sexual and reproductive health information and services into the national crisis and disaster management policies, budget and programmes
6. Redistribute the burden of paid and unpaid care work and labour, most often shouldered by all women and girls by providing support systems, strengthening public services and infrastructures, and promoting the human right to care as a collective social responsibility.
7. Ensure meaningful inclusion and engagement  of CSOs in the review and CSW process at all levels.