Commission on the Status of Women

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/

Featured

Revenge of the Patriarchs: Why Autocrats Fear Women

CSW Blogs 03 March 2022

I highly recommend this recent article in Foreign Affairs magazine (by Erica Chenowith and Zoe Marks) on the right-wing backlash against gender equality activists.

"In recent years, authoritarian leaders have launched a simultaneous assault on women’s rights and democracy that threatens to roll back decades of progress on both fronts."

"Internationally, a multinational coalition is needed to explicitly reject patriarchal...

Generation Equality Forum: Transforming Patriarchy

CSW Blogs 07 July 2021

GEF logo The second Generation Equality Forum (GEF) took place in Paris from June 30 to July 2, 2021. Close to 20 FAWCO members joined GEF events virtually, joining some 47,000 people online. Over 1,000 commitments were made to take concrete action to advance the women’s rights agenda around the world.

GEF, sponsored by the governments of Mexico and France, convened by...

"Istanbul Convention" Myth vs. Reality

CSW Blogs 20 April 2021

Women's rights advocates were shocked when Turkey's President Erdogan announced unilaterally that Turkey would withdraw from the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. Since the Convention was drafted in Istanbul, Turkey, and Turkey was the first country to sign it, it became known as the Istanbul Convention. A leaflet produced by the...

Gender Equality