Category: Update

The 70th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70) will take place from 09 to 20 March 2026, bringing together representatives of Member States, UN entities, and ECOSOC-accredited non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from across the world to discuss the priority theme of ‘ensuring and strengthening access to justice for all women and girls, including by promoting inclusive and equitable legal systems, eliminating discriminatory laws, policies, and practices, and addressing structural barriers’.

Across Asia and the Pacific, women and girls—particularly those from marginalized and excluded communities—continue to face significant obstacles in accessing justice. These include discriminatory legal frameworks, weak enforcement mechanisms, limited legal literacy, economic barriers, digital divides, conflict and displacement, and intersecting forms of discrimination based on gender, disability, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, and migration status. And those with multiple barriers face compounded injustice.

Civil society organisations (CSOs) play a critical role in advancing legal reform, providing survivor-centred services, documenting rights violations, and amplifying the lived experiences of women and girls. Meaningful civil society engagement is therefore essential to shaping regional priorities and strengthening outcomes for CSW 70. In facilitation of this, UN Women ROAP has joined hands with the Asia Pacific CSO Forum Steering Committee comprising organisations such as the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD), Asia Pacific Alliance for SRHR (APA), Asia Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women (ARROW), Asia Pacific Women’s Watch (APWW) and Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM) to organise an Asia Pacific Regional CSO Forum on the Priority Theme of the CSW70 in hybrid format from 27 to 28 January 2026., preceding the Asia-Pacific Regional Preparatory Meeting on CSW 70, This Regional CSO Forum aims to collectively examine and identify actionable regional priorities and put forth recommendations for the CSW70 session and the agreed conclusions on the priority theme.

The Collective Statement from the AP CSO Forum on CSW 70th can be found

HERE

Today APWW and it’s member organisation gather to remember Anne Walker.  Anne was an ally, a friend, a mentor, a supporter and guide to many of us on the APWW Steering Committee and to the hundreds of organisations we have represented over the years.  She was a women of extraordinary energy, passion and ability who dedicated her life to promoting peace, democracy and social justice.

Anne worked to support many of our members and member organisations over the years some from as early as the World Conferences on Women (Mexico) and her work with Ruth Lechte and the establishment of the YWCA in Fiji.

She had the ability to make the most complicated systems, processes and procedures seem accessible, such was her way of sharing and movement building.  Anne served on the Steering Committees and Boards of some of our organisations and was tireless in her support of us.

Meeting annually at the IWTC with Anne was always a pleasure – the small gesture of a cup of tea, or a seat to sit and warm up during the cold winter months, a smile and welcome made the long travel and difficult work so much easier.

Her light and the joy she brought to us all will be missed.  Know Anne that you have spread your light far and wide through the many young activists you have mentored and befriended.  Some of whom came to work with you at the IWTC.  We know you as a friend who was genuinely interested in us as women, as feminists and as someone who was always supportive and happy when we reached our goals.

We thank you Anne for who you were in this world and we thank those who supported you through your journey and send you love in your final resting place.

Developed by the Civil Society Steering Committee (SC), the CSO report highlights priority areas of action to accelerate gender equality and women’s empowerment based on the lived experiences of civil society members in the region.
Through this report, we hope to impact the political declaration that will be drafted at the Beijing +30 Ministerial Conference in Bangkok from November 19 to 21.

Based on these consultations that involved 503 participants across 32 countries, the report provides key recommendations for the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA) and the Beijing +5 Political Declaration and Outcome (B+5).

Read the report: https://www.unescap.org/…/asia-pacific-ministerial…
#Beijing30 #GenderEquality #Beijing30AsiaPacific #BPfA30 #SRHR4ALL

 

Join the 2024 UN Civil Society Conference Town Hall for updates on the planning and preparation for the Conference and learn how you can become involved!
Watch LIVE on UN WEB TV
#2024UNCSC #WECOMMIT

When: Tuesday, 23 April 2024
Time: 11:30 am – 1:00 pm EST
Location: Conference Room 1, UNHQ, New York

This parallel event hosted by Asia Pacific Women’s Watch focuses on the continuing impact on women in a post Covid19 world and, the economic downturn evident in many of the countries in the region. The panel, comprising representatives from the Asia Pacific region, will address issues of economic security of women in a context where households are sliding into poverty across socio-economic divides with women’s unpaid care work intensifying, leaving them and their families vulnerable to negative health outcome. It is now imperative that national as well as regional financial institutions reprioritize investment in sectors (labour, health education) that will strengthen avenues forgender equality. Women are pushing back on patriarchal social norms in collective efforts to highlight alternate strategies that can respond to these critical issues.

 

 

Asia Pacific Women Watch would like to express our deepest condolences at the passing of  Thanpuying Sumalee on 4th April, 2022. It is a great loss for Thai Women Watch and APWW.  The world has lost a leading light and great advocate for Gender Equality with her passing .  May her soul find peace as she journey’s forth.

Thanpuying Sumalee was one of those rare women who would bring out the best in others, was generous of time and spirit and worked to improve the world through collaboration and kindness.  She was one of the founding members of Asia Pacific Women’s Watch (APWW) and at a time when many women were working on national issues, had the foresight to recognise the important role regional organisations played in the battle for women’s rights.

Each of us have special memories of Thanpuying Sumalee an elegant, woman , a gracious host and a great leader of the Asian Women’s Movement.  May we hold these memories close as the days move forward.

 

Dear CSW followers,

We made it.   Well done to everyone for surviving a second online / hybrid CSW.   For many this was a long haul of working through the day, following the negotiations at night and working with their governments to hold them accountable to push a progressive agenda. It’s been a joy working with you all and I hope you’re recovering rapidly from the sleep deprivation.

Parallel Sessions

The Beyond Beijing Committee (Nepal) and APWW successfully presented ‘Achieving Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women and Girls int he context of Climate change’ on Friday March 18th 2022.   Moderated by APWW SC Member Ms Shanta Laxmi Shrestha, speakers covered a range of topics from food security, sexual and reproductive rights and addressing the challenges of climate change (interpretation was available in Nepali)

APWW also successfully co-hosted the NGO CSW Asia Pacific Forum Day event held on Saturday 14th March, 2022.  This event featured a celebration of women activists from the Asia Pacific Regain along with an interactive panel on the impacts and solutions to some of the issues arising from climate change in this region . A link to the recording of this event can be found here.  

A commentary on the Agreed Conclusions

Negotiations for the Agreed Conclusions once more came down to the wire. It sounds like the most difficult negotiations revolved around the climate action paragraphs; negotiations on these paragraphs apparently occurred last, after delegates had already worked through the night, and so were apparently fairly short and to the point.  The full version of the  final Agreed Conclusions  can be found here.

Despite the facilitator’s preference for a brief document, the Agreed Conclusions are about the same length as usual, although there is slightly more content in the preambular paragraphs than in previous years.

Here are  some initial thoughts about the outcomes:

• The language regarding climate change mitigation and response is weak. It certainly doesn’t go beyond COP26 and in some places doesn’t even reach that standard.
• Language on the women, peace and security agenda made it in, but isn’t as strong as we would have liked. The connection between conflict, disaster response and gender was not clarified and the direct reference to Security Council resolution 1325 was deleted.
• On the plus side, multiple references to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction in the PPs. (See paras 6, 13, 27 in the PPs and 64(c) and (d) in the OPs.) were included.
• Reference to sexual and reproductive health and rights is included in the PPs, a gain, because the PPs set out the acknowledged and accepted context for the subject area. The language in the OPs regarding access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights (para 62(ii)) has reverted to the CSW65 language, which is not as progressive as it could have been.
• Unfortunately language about sexuality rights was not accepted.
• The language on comprehensive sexuality education was watered down significantly, eventually reverting to CSW65 language. (para 62(ff))
• There is a new paragraph specifically on the need to protect women journalists and media professionals from interference, violence and harassment. (Para 62(rr).) There are also several other references to journalists and media workers as important partners and stakeholders. . (Paras 35 and 62(oo).) This is all new and welcome language, and was useful to win here, as it will set a standard for discussing trolling and online harassment against women in public roles under next year’s theme.
• There are good reference to oceans and water, which will be important in Small Island Developing States (SIDs countries).
• There was push back on the  rights of women to own land , key advocacy pushed back on this and  the result is a reference to the right to ownership of and control over land and other natural resources in the PPs (para 57), and two reference to eliminate discrimination in relation to ownership of and control over land and other forms of property in the OPs (paras 62 (f) and (h)).
• There has been a very obvious battle over including language about women human rights defenders – only two references have survived, down from six in rev.2. (paras 35 and 62(qq).) Language about women environmental defenders has been completely removed.
• The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was included in the PPs and there is also a solid reference to ‘respecting and protecting the traditional and ancestral knowledge, including of indigenous peoples’. (Para 32) and a good stand alone paragraph about Indigenous women in the OPs (para 62(dd) ), along with 10 or so references throughout the text.
• The OP paragraph on women and girls with disability includes a reference to the need for disability-inclusive design (para 62(q) ) and there is a reference to integrating a disability-inclusive perspective in policy and laws (para 62(h) ).
• There is strong language on women and girls in rural areas throughout the document.
• We are apparently only allowed to have three references to multiple and intersecting discrimination in the ACs (paras 19, 25 and 62(dd) ). Down from 5 references in CSW63 and seven in rev.2. (yep – it gets this petty.)
• There are strong paras on data and research (paras 56, 62 (ss) and (tt).)

It would be great to hear your thoughts / analysis as you develop your thoughts and workplans  with the Agreed Conclusions.