The UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), part of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), promotes gender equality and the advancement of women. Its charge is to measure progress towards equality and highlight challenges, set standards and formulate concrete policies to promote equality and women’s empowerment, and encourage mainstreaming of the gender perspective in all UN activities worldwide.
FAWCO is a member of the NGO Committees on the Status of Women (NGO CSWs) in NY, Geneva and Vienna. FAWCO members and UN Representatives regularly attend the annual CSW in New York. You can read blogs by members of FAWCO's delegations to CSW.
FAWCO signs on to Written and Oral Statements submitted to UN Women for consideration by CSW, joining our partner women's NGOs with consultative status to ECOSOC. You can read these statements on the Advocacy page.
| Key Links | |
| UN CSW | http://www.unwomen.org/en/csw |
| NGO CSW New York | www.ngocsw.org |
| NGO CSW Geneva | www.ngocsw-geneva.ch/ |
| NGO CSW Vienna | https://ngocswvienna.org/ |
From March 11–14, 2024 I attended my first Commission on the Status of Women (CSW68) at the UN in New York City. I attended 14 sessions in total, which I have listed below. Some were held in small-to-medium-sized conference rooms with a few dozen participants; others were held in the main UN General Assembly Hall with...
The 68th annual session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) was a first for me – and most certainly not my last. As a college student, I was greatly impacted by the second feminist movement that hit the United States in the early seventies, being totally stunned when I became aware of...
November 25 is the International Day to End Violence Against Women, and the first day of the #16 Days Campaign. Why November 25th? I heard the Ambassador of the Dominican Republic to the UN in Vienna tell the story of Las Hermanas Mirabal, or the Mirabal Sisters. Patria, Minerva and Antonia Mirabal, killed in the Dominican Republic on November 25,
We visited Otávio Roth’s xylographs of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an art installation on permanent exhibit at the UN Headquarters in NYC.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of human rights. The Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on...
She Surfs Freedom: Approaches to Ending Violence against Women and Girls Online and Creating Safe Spaces for Young Women and Girls
World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts
Tuesday, March 7, 2023
Salvation Army Auditorium
This panel discussed the results of a survey conducted during the 16 Days of Activism to End Gender-based...
Girl Scouts of USA
Tuesday, March 7, 2023, 10:30 am-12:30 pm
Salvation Army Auditorium
Sarah from Oklahoma. I was impressed by her experience of not being able to access the Internet in her small, rural town of 2,334 residents. This made me realize that not everyone has the privilege to have access to what...
Having experienced two other gatherings of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) at the United Nations in New York City, I knew that we had to line up to get tickets to the meetings held in the General Assembly room. There is a capacity of 581, and the registered attendees at CSW67 numbered close to...
There were so many CSW66 side events and NGO CSW66 Forum parallel events, no one could possibly have seen them all in real time. Here are a few events I found particularly interesting.
Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) Press Conference
Feminist groups disappointed by lack of commitment to Climate Justice at CSW66
Watch the session here. (1 hr...
The closing session of CSW66 happened late on Friday, March 25. As so often, the negotiations lasted until past 9 PM New York time, but finally, the Member States reconvened to adopt the outcome document by consensus. German Ambassador Antje Leendertse, the witty and resourceful facilitator of the negotiations, made a brief report. She called the Agreed Conclusions a “historic...