by Mary Manning, Heidelberg IWC
The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) was held March 6–17 in New York. This was the 67th edition, and its themes were Innovation and Technological Change as well as Education in the Digital Age. I spoke with Alex Vo, FAWCO’s UN Liaison, to learn more about this important event.
Q: Can you give us a little background on CSW? What is it and what does it do?
A: The Commission on the Status of Women was established in 1946 as one of eight commissions under the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). CSW contributed to the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ensuring that it included gender-inclusive language by arguing against references to “man” as a synonym for “humanity” and phrases like “men are brothers.” CSW has also drafted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which placed special emphasis on reproductive rights.
Each year in March, representatives from the 45 Member States, UN entities and NGOs gather in New York for two weeks to discuss the themes and develop the Agreed Conclusions on those themes. The Agreed Conclusions are not considered international law, but they do carry significant weight as negotiated, affirmed and written international expectations. They are the principal output of each CSW and “contain an analysis of the priority theme and a set of concrete recommendations for governments, intergovernmental bodies and other institutions, civil society actors, and other relevant stakeholders.”1
Q: Tell us a little more about this year’s event.
A: After 2 years of online events, this year’s CSW was hybrid, with some events that were exclusively in-person while others were online. FAWCO had seven delegates in attendance – myself, Sallie Chaballier (AAWE Paris), Jane Politi (FAUSA), Pam Perraud (FAUSA), Karen Castellon (FAUSA) along with her daughter Claire, as well as Annamaria Gergely (AWC Berlin). In all, there were more than 8,000 attendees from all over the world, including four heads of state and government and 116 ministers, with 205 side events on UN premises, and about 700 NGO parallel events.
One of the things that surprised me is that this is the major event each year on women’s issues, and there is surprisingly little coverage of it in the press. I couldn’t find a single article in the New York Times about it, and it is right in their backyard! I feel like it means that gender issues are not at the top of people’s minds anymore. Also, we want to interact with people from the State Department to see what language they intend to propose and what they hope to do. And I could not find any US delegates! Contrast that with the Climate Change Conference (COP27), which I attended in November. There were so many high-level cabinet members there, I was literally tripping over them. I saw Nancy Pelosi several times, John Kerry was always seen about, Secretary of State Blinken was there, and Samantha Power, head of US AID. They were everywhere! At CSW, the US delegation only held one briefing, and it was announced so late that I missed it. The rest of the time I was trying to locate them.
Q: What about this year’s theme? Can you tell us more about that?
A: It boils down to technology and education. We know that men dominate STEM fields. We know that technology can help women in terms of independence and access to information, but the flip side is that it can amplify harm to women in terms of harassment, bullying, etc. Consider that women are 20% less likely than men to use the internet, but 27 times more likely to face online harassment or hate speech when they do.
CSW67 reaffirmed the importance of technology and innovation in gender equality, including recommendations such as mainstreaming gender perspectives in designing new technologies, promoting policies to achieve gender parity in emerging STEM fields, and promoting a zero-tolerance policy for gender-based violence.
An important concept that is emerging in this area is digital poverty, that is, “the inability to interact with the online world fully, when where and how an individual needs to.”2 This can be due to financial poverty, access/geographical limitations, or lack of skills. We need to talk about gaps in digital poverty as much as other types of poverty.
Q: What do you want FAWCO to know about CSW?
A: I always feel like I learn so much at these events. If you are interested in women’s issues, it is worth attending CSW just for the education. In the beginning, I was worried that this year’s theme on technology would be difficult to understand or that I wouldn’t be able to follow everything. But it touches so many different areas: empowerment of women in Africa through access to banking or human rights issues around refugees or migrants and the importance of a phone as a lifeline.
Also, we had a delegation of seven people this year. But we usually have 20 passes to attend CSW, so we are not really utilizing the benefits of having ECOSOC consultative status... So if anyone wants to come visit New York in March and get an education on gender issues, please contact me. The more we know, the more we can talk about these issues.
1 Outcomes | Commission on the Status of Women | UN Women – Headquarters
2 https://www.ncfe.org.uk/all-articles/digital-poverty-3-factors-and-how-society-can-tackle-it/#
All photos by Alexandra Vo