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The Center for Women's Global Leadership at The 45th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)

The 45th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) was held from March 6-17, 2001, at the United Nations headquarters in New York.  The CSW prepares recommendations and reports promoting women's rights and brings urgent problems requiring immediate attention to the Economic and Social Council.  Since the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing (1995), the CSW has focused on reviewing the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action, each year examining specific critical areas of concern. In addition, it reviews emerging issues affecting women's lives and adopts resolutions on issues of pressing concern to women.  

This year's CSW had an ambitious agenda and focused primarily on two thematic issues:  Women, the girl child and HIV/AIDS (in preparation for the United Nations Special Session of the General Assembly on HIV/AIDS); and Gender and all forms of discrimination, in particular racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance (in preparation for the UN World Conference Against Racism).[1]  The CSW also sought agreement on the following United Nations documents:

  • "The Proposed system-wide medium-term plan for the advancement for women, 2002-2005"(E/CN.6/2001/4), which reviews gender mainstreaming in organizations of the United Nations system.
  • "Recommendations for enhancing the effectiveness of the working methods of the Commission on the Status of Women" (E/CN.6/2001/8), which examines the working methods of the CSW and seeks to make the Commission more effective in formulating policies and in monitoring the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and Outcomes Document.
  • "Proposed programme of work of the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women and the Division for the Advancement of Women for the biennium 2002-2003" (E/CN.6/2001/CRP.2).
  • "The Multi-year programme of work for the Commission for 2002-2006" (E/CN.6/2001/L.8), which outlines the themes and issues to be addressed in future CSW sessions. 
  • "Resolutions on the situation of and assistance to Palestinian women" (E/CN/.6/2001/L.2/REV.1); "The release of women and children taken hostage, including those subsequently imprisoned in armed conflict" (E/CN/.6/2001/L.3); "Discrimination against women and girls in Afghanistan" (E/CN/.6/2001/L.5/REV.1); "Mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies and programmes in the United Nations system" (E/CN.6/2001/l.6).

Given how much was on the agenda, the CSW was not able to finish all its work and consequently met in a resumed session from May 9-11, 2001.  During the May session, the CSW continued to work on the medium-term plan, the proposed programme of work of the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the agreed conclusions on Women, the girl child and HIV/AIDS.

For more information on the resulting official documents, visit the DAW website at http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/45sess.htm .

This year, as in previous years, the CSW developed agreed conclusions on the themes and emerging issues under review. Typically, the process of developing agreed conclusions involves holding an expert group meeting several months before the CSW session; and a panel with presentations from governments, UN experts and members of civil society, during the CSW session.  After the presentations, governments ask questions of the panelists and non-governmental organizations make interventions.[2]  The panel discussion is intended to describe the issues and suggest recommendations for action to governments and the United Nations.[3]  The agreed conclusions are to integrate themes from the expert group meeting and the panel presentation and to compile actions for governments, the United Nations and civil society to take on the respective theme/issue.  

At this year's CSW, the Center for Women's Global Leadership focused primarily on the thematic issue of gender and all forms of discrimination, in particular racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.  TheCenter for Women's Global Leadership and the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women co-sponsored "A dialogue on how intersectionality can be put into practice in the work of the CSW."   Panelists from five regions stressed both the importance of understanding the structural causes of intersectional oppressions and the need to consider the impacts of these oppressions on women across the life cycle. They pointed to specific problems like those of women asylum seekers, migrants and the frequent connection of their problems to violence against women. The panelists suggested that the CSW develop a methodology for intersectional analysis and provide leadership broadly to other United Nations entities in the use of such a methodology. Another area of Center activity at the CSW was NGO participation in the World Conference Against Racism processes. The Center co-sponsored a women's human rights caucus discussing how NGO participation can be substantive and enable the participation of racial, ethnic, immigrant, refugee, Dalit, indigenous women and women from other minorities. The importance of youth participation was also emphasized.

The Center, along with other women's human rights colleagues, advocated that there were two key issues the CSW needed to address: first, the recognition and integration of an 'intersectional analysis' and its application to all of the work of the CSW, and second, to make strong recommendations to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights for preparations and outcomes for the World Conference Against Racism.[4]  We stressed that the issues of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerances and the intersection of these human rights violations with other forms of violation that women experience should not just be a one year theme for the work of the Commission.[5] Rather, an intersectional approach should be incorporated into the Commission's permanent pattern of work, in order to enhance its ability to monitor better the implementation of the commitments of the Beijing Platform for Action and the Outcome Document, as well as the implementation of the commitments made at all the other world conferences of the 1990's.  Therefore, the Center advocated the inclusion of an intersectional analysis as a permanent methodological component of the work of the CSW. 

To implement this approach, women called for the inclusion of intersectionality in the CSW's Multi-year programme of work (E/CN.6/2001/L.8)and the working methods documents (E/CN.6/2001/8).  However, the final resolution on the Multi-year programme of work does not contain any reference to intersectionality and discussion on the working methods document has been postponed until the CSW 2002.  In the 46th session of the CSW in 2002, there are two important themes which still need to be introduced to strengthen the working methods document: a call for an intersectional analysis and the development of language for an intersectional methodology and the integration of NGOs into the work of the CSW.

After much effort by many women's NGOs, not only at the CSW but also at the various preparatory meetings for the World Conference against Racism, the CSW Agreed Conclusions on Gender and All Forms of Discrimination, in Particular Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance recognized that women experience intersectional discrimination. They go beyond the language in the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) General Recommendation 25, which simply addresses the gender related dimensions of racial discrimination, by highlighting how various forms of discrimination overlap and shape one another.  The agreed conclusions also recognize the link between intersectional discrimination and poverty, serious and infectious diseases, violence, inequities in education, etc. While the agreed conclusions call for the review of the criminal justice system to ensure that women and girls can seek equal protection and shelter under the law, the document does not address how intersectional discrimination affects the human rights violations inflicted on incarcerated women.

It is also important to recognize the preceding work on issues of diversity and overlapping discriminations that governments and women's  rights NGOs have forged through the UN World Conferences for Women and the CSW.  For example, the Beijing Platform for Action recognizes that "women experience multiple barriers to empowerments and advancement for factors such as their race, age, language, ethnicity, culture, disability or because they are indigenous people".[6]  The agreed conclusions on gender and race go one step further and highlight that "gender discrimination may be intensified and facilitated by all other forms of discrimination".[7]  However, the language suggests that the discrimination occurs for women because they are women and that there are other additional and varying factors, which contribute to and exacerbate discrimination women experience. Unfortunately, the agreed conclusions read as though only women experience intersectional discrimination, rather than seeing this as a way of looking at many forms of multiple discrimination. Furthermore, the document frames all women's oppression as discrimination based on gender and does little more than add the notion of racial discrimination and stir. In doing so, the CSW chose to keep the focus on gender by using the words of intersection, while failing to operationalize the concept. To date, we have not seen any  non-gender related reference to intersectional discrimination in a UN document. Therefore, it is important that those working on the World Conference against Racism remain vigilant and work to ensure that intersectional discrimination is not institutionalized as a phenomenon that occurs only in women's lives.    

Furthermore, while the agreed conclusions identify migrant, indigenous, and refugee women, they fail to identify women in terms of their racial/ethnic identities or to suggest any special measures to address their realities beyond the generic, "address all forms of discrimination including racial discrimination ".  With regards to the recommendations by the CSW for the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and related intolerance, we wish they went further. The agreed conclusions do call for mainstreaming a gender perspective in the preparations, work and outcome of the World Conference, as well as the inclusion of women on delegations to the Conference.  For a number of years, women's non-governmental organizations have been calling upon the United Nations and governments not only to encourage and foster women's participation in meetings, but to facilitate the participation of women who represent the full diversity of women's lives.  Women's groups have been stating that in order for policies and programmes to adequately reflect women's diverse experiences, diverse women need to be involved in the design and implementation process.  At this CSW, women's NGOs lobbied governments to use the World Conference against Racism to set an example by encouraging and supporting delegations that reflect the full diversity of women's lives.  While we appreciate the recognition of the need for women on delegations, the agreed conclusions did not go far enough and should  insist that delegations participating in the World Conference reflect the varying lives of women who are impacted by racism and related intolerances. 

Finally, unlike previous agreed conclusions on other issues, the final version of the agreed conclusions on gender and racism contains primarily general statements, which recognize the need to examine the intersection of multiple forms of discrimination, but offer no operative language calling for concrete actions or commitments to providing resources for implementation of this.  Given that there was recognition in the Beijing Platform for Action and the 23rd General Assembly Special Session Outcomes Document that there are multiple forms of discrimination which women experience, the CSW should have gone further. The agreed conclusions do recognize the need to develop methodologies to identify multiple forms of discrimination, but the CSW did not use this opportunity to suggest components of such a methodology.  The agreed conclusions do not provide governments, the United Nations and civil society with a methodology by which to undertake an intersectional analysis.  Much work has been done by women's NGOs on such a methodology, some of which is reflected in the work of the Expert Group Meeting on Gender and Racial Discrimination (Zagreb, Croatia, 21- 24 November 2000). 

As stated previously, the Global Center did not work on the agreed conclusions on Women, the girl child and HIV/AIDS.  We do know, however, that the negotiations were contentious. In a year when many are preparing for the World Conference against Racism, it is disappointing that the agreed conclusions on HIV/AIDS fail to incorporate the demands by women's NGOs and the Report of the Secretary-General on thematic issues before the CSW (E/CN.6/2001/9) to address the racial dimension of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. 

For more information about our work during the CSW, please visit our website at http://www.cwgl.rutgers.edu/globalcenter/policy/csw01/cswmarch01.html.

[1]Information about the United Nations Special Session of the General Assembly on HIV/AIDS  held in New York from June 25-27, 2001 can be found at http://www.un.org/ga/aids/ .  For more information about the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance to be held  in Durban, South Africa from August 31 to September 7, 2001, visit the official United Nations website at http://www.un.org/WCAR/. Additional information about the NGO Forum at the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance can be found at http://www.racism.org.za/.  Information about women's caucus activities for the WCAR can be found at http://www.whrnet.org. 

[2] For reports from the Expert Group Meeting on The Aids Pandemic and its Gender Implications (Windhoek, Namibia, 13-17 November 2000) and the Expert Group Meeting on Gender and Racial Discrimination (Zagreb, Croatia, 21- 24 November 2000) visit 

http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/documents/index.html

[3]The panelists papers and the moderators summaries for the panels on the two thematic issues of this year's CSW can be found at http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/45sess.htm

[4]For background papers on intersectional discrimination and a methodology for intersectional analysis produced during the CSW by the Center in collaboration with other women's NGOs see http://www.cwgl.rutgers.edu/globalcenter/policy/bkgdbrfintersec.html and http://www.cwgl.rutgers.edu/globalcenter/policy/csw01/csw01priority.html.

[5] For examples of lobbying documents used during this CSW on these two themes see documents under Working Group on Women and Human Rights at http://www.cwgl.rutgers.edu/globalcenter/policy/bkgdbrfintersec.html .

[6] Beijing Platform for Action, paragraph 32.

[7] Agreed Conclusions on Gender and all forms of discrimination, in particular racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, paragraph 5.
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