The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is an intergovernmental body and a political instrument that must belong to feminist and gender justice movements globally. Like all rights-based frameworks, it exists because feminists fought for it, and allies within institutions listened and acted.
AWID has decided that our staff will not be attending in-person the 70th Session of the CSW in New York. This is the first time in many years that we have made this decision, and it was not taken lightly. Our immediate consideration is the escalating border violence and security risks of travel and presence in the US, particularly for our staff and members from across the Global Majority world who cannot participate in an event that involves risking their lives. Even the possibility to travel is a privilege, especially during the current funding crisis when so many organizations around the globe have been forced to lose their financial and human resources, critical to their survival.
More fundamentally, feminist movements have argued for years that the actual political power that this process can enable is simply not meeting our expectations of collective standards and needs. While online engagement remains largely passive, physical presence does not necessarily deliver the promise of reclaiming real influence. Recent examples - such as the crystal-clear recommendations developed by African women and girls in the framework of the CSW revitalization process, - demonstrate the immense gap between feminist expectations and institutional offerings. Our decision against this year’s attendance spells out what refusing “business as usual” means to us. We are not boycotting or aborting the space - while fully understanding the feminists who do. We do see the importance in maintaining presence, celebrating every win and refusing to cede the space to anti-rights actors and agendas to erode our rights and freedoms (visit AWID’s Rights at Risk Resource Library to learn more about these actors and agendas). We remain in deep solidarity with feminists who will be present in New York, holding the line for gender justice. Importantly, we also value genuine relationships of trust and collaborations built over the years with allies within UN institutions, who work hard to uphold the integrity of the UN in uneasy conditions and hostile political climate.
At the same time, we are choosing to organize differently. AWID’s participation at CSW70 centers feminist movements as the drivers of change, while countering the inaccessibility of global policy spaces with new forms of connection, mobilization, and political learning.
Our annual CSW Teach-In for AWID membership will take place on 19 February - this is your space to learn from seasoned feminist advocates how the CSW works, how you can engage, and which collective feminist priorities emerge around the priority theme for this year - access to justice.
In parallel, AWID members will convene Global Hubs in The Gambia and Uganda: local in-person gatherings fully and independently led and organized by AWID members, to discuss their own agendas and to connect to the formal CSW process. It’s about building transnational feminist solidarity and countering the inaccessibility characteristic of global policy processes with new forms of connection, mobilization and movement organizing.
And finally, we continue creating spaces for feminist conversation, political imagination and strategizing. We are collectively and deeply rethinking how to engage with states, and how to advocate in this moment of fragile and collapsing multilateralism. These are times for all of us who care about rights and justice - whether we are rooted in movements, INGOs or UN institutions - to be brave, to prioritize care and safety of marginalized communities, and to develop new strategies to confront fascisms.
Whether CSW, Human Rights Council or COP, our priority is to make sure that these multilateral advocacy spaces work for feminist movements: accessible and effective. The ball is now in the court of UN Women as the UN body entrusted with the CSW process and accountable to women, girls, and gender-diverse people globally. We demand the implementation of feminist recommendations, we need to see courage, and we need to see action. Nobody said this is easy (and we would not have believed them even if they did).
We must never forget the fact that the UN system belongs to the human rights defenders and feminist activists and movements that fought for it, and that its achievements are - and will always be - of and for the people.
To be part of our global community of 9,000 feminist activists, organizations and collectives, join as an AWID member.