Geneva - After warning of increasing attacks on women and gender rights around the world, the UN finds itself a key arena for a war of words over how those rights are defined. UN rights chief Volker Turk has long warned of “systematic” efforts to strip women of their hard-won rights. Speaking before the UN Human Rights Council last week, he highlighted extreme cases like Afghanistan and Iran, but warned the pushback was happening worldwide. “No country is immune from regression in women’s rights,” he said, also decrying “ongoing discrimination and exclusion on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity”. The UN itself has meanwhile become a key battleground in the fight.
Diplomats describe growing efforts to remove references to women’s rights or to sexual orientation and gender identity that had long gone uncontested in resolutions and texts across the UN system.
“What we’re seeing is a concerted effort to push back on issues related to gender and sexual orientation and gender identity in ... the work of international organisations in Geneva broadly,” said a woman diplomat based in Geneva, who asked not to be named.