{"id":4266,"date":"2019-11-19T16:31:18","date_gmt":"2019-11-19T16:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gqualcampaign.org\/old\/?p=4266"},"modified":"2019-11-19T16:51:01","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T16:51:01","slug":"10-ways-to-improve-gender-equality-at-the-un","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gqualcampaign.org\/old\/10-ways-to-improve-gender-equality-at-the-un\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Ways to Improve Gender Equality at the UN"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Originally posted at the <\/em>Inter-Parliamentary Union\u00b4s website<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gender\n equality is vital to realizing human rights for all; without it we have\n no hope of achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Yet no \ncountry has achieved full gender equality. When it comes to women\u2019s \nparticipation in parliament globally, we are still below 25 per cent \u2013 \nat the current rate of progress it will take another half century to \nreach gender parity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Human Rights Council and its mechanisms (HRC) and United Nations \ntreaty bodies are at the heart of the international human rights \nframework, which is supposed to promote gender equality around the \nworld. However, the numbers of women participating in UN treaty bodies \nare extremely low. If not even these bodies can guarantee gender \nequality, which institutions can? If they want people to respect them, \nthe bodies responsible for upholding human rights around the globe must \nlead the way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the recent annual HRC gender integration panel<\/a>\n we proposed 10 ways to achieve gender equality at the UN \u2013 including in\n the HRC and treaty bodies. We need innovative thinking to drive gender \nequality but most of all we need simple structural changes to overhaul \nthe nomination and election processes and create an enabling \nenvironment. The 10 recommendations below have all been successfully \nimplemented by other international organizations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Institutionalize equality measures to the greatest extent possible to bring about structural change. <\/li>
  2. Adopt clear guidelines that unequivocally set gender equality as a criterion in nominating and electing candidates.<\/li>
  3. Put in place formal, open, transparent procedures for selecting and\n nominating candidates; this includes making gender equality a specific \nobjective in the election process.  <\/li>
  4. Make candidate shortlists gender-balanced. When submitting \nnominations for international positions, Member States should consider \nnominating a minimum of two people \u2013one woman and one man- when \nappropriate considering the election process. Countries should consider \ngender parity as a goal when voting for these positions.<\/li>
  5. Apply temporary special measures with clearly defined gender \ntargets. This could include mandatory alternation between genders for \nany given Special Procedure mandate, and also giving priority to the \nelection of women in positions where historically they have been \nunderrepresented.<\/li>
  6. Launch a diversity and inclusion policy setting compulsory targets, e.g. achieving gender balance by 2020. <\/li>
  7. Track, collect data and introduce annual public reporting on gender\n balance. After all, we can\u2019t fix what we can\u2019t see. Producing an annual\n statement setting out measurable objectives and steps to implement the \ndiversity and inclusion policy, along with a progress report, will \nensure full disclosure of diversity and inclusion statistics.<\/li>
  8. Provide elected individuals with family care support to encourage \nthose who bear primary family responsibility, especially women, to apply\n for positions. <\/li>
  9. Expressly encourage applications from candidates from a broad range\n of disciplines (e.g. social scientists) and with diverse subject-matter\n expertise, non-traditional experience and other valuable skills. <\/li>
  10. Apply the best practices set out in the International Gender \nChampions\u2019 Gender Responsive Assemblies Toolkit, which draws on \ninnovative, tried-and-tested best practice from other international \norganizations.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Why are we so concerned? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In the HRC, women experts are over-represented in the panels and \nmandates that focus on women\u2019s and children\u2019s rights issues, and \nunder-represented in forums on security and torture. For UN Special \nProcedures, only 36 of 80 available positions, were occupied by women as\n of July 2019. What\u2019s more, out of 56 UN Special Mandates, 15 have NEVER\n been held by a woman, including mandates on the right to health, on \ntorture, and on freedom of expression. We recommend that in upcoming \nSpecial Procedure appointments, women be selected for positions never \npreviously held by women. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Of the 10 treaty bodies, only the Committee on the Elimination of \nDiscrimination against Women and the Committee on the Rights of the \nChild, as well as the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture, have 50 per\n cent or more women. And even though there is specific language on the \nimportance of gender balance in the Convention on the Rights of Persons \nwith Disabilities, the Committee thereon had only one woman among its 18\n members until June 2018 (currently six members are women, following a \nstrong public campaign). Some of this can be accounted for by the lack \nof transparency and the political trade-offs in the treaty bodies\u2019 \nnomination and election processes \u2013 the biggest of which is gender \nequality in treaty body membership. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Additionally, the data on gender equality in many UN forums remains \nunclear, including regarding delegations attending the HRC sessions. \nYet, we know for a fact that disclosure of data is a first step in \nachieving progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    We need international organizations to walk the talk. For example, \nthe Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) has been tracking women\u2019s \nparticipation at its Assemblies, and sharing that information publicly. \nTo achieve progress, it has put in place several incentives and \nsanctions for its members in order to ensure gender equality in its \ngovernance structure and on delegations. At the most recent IPU Assembly\n in October 2019 in Belgrade, Serbia, the Organization adopted \namendments to strengthen its existing measures. From now on, single-sex \ndelegations will have their voting rights in the Governing Council \nreduced to one vote from three, whereas under the previous rules \nsingle-sex delegations retained two votes. Also, sanctions that restrict\n the number of delegates a parliament is entitled to send to an Assembly\n are now applied after parliaments send single-sex delegations to two \nconsecutive Assemblies instead of three. This step is a testament to the\n fact that where there is political will, anything is possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Caitlin Kraft-Buchman<\/strong>, CEO \/ Founder of Women@theTable 
    Martin Chungong<\/strong>, Secretary General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union 
    Elizabeth S. Salm\u00f3n<\/strong>, Chair of the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee
    Alejandra Vicente<\/strong>, Member of the Secretariat of the GQUAL Campaign <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Originally posted at the Inter-Parliamentary Union\u00b4s website Gender equality is vital to realizing human rights…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4267,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,38,41],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gqualcampaign.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4266"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gqualcampaign.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gqualcampaign.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gqualcampaign.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gqualcampaign.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gqualcampaign.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4268,"href":"https:\/\/www.gqualcampaign.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4266\/revisions\/4268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gqualcampaign.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gqualcampaign.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gqualcampaign.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gqualcampaign.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}