Category: Conference/meeting

CSW61: Reclaiming the Universality of Rights: Gender, Economic Justice and Anti-Rights Threats

An OURs event during CSW61, Wednesday 15th March 2017, 4:30pm

Reclaiming the Universality of Rights: Gender, Economic Justice and Anti-Rights Threats

Rising (mis)use of religion, culture, tradition, and nationalism to justify discrimination in many areas around the world is having disastrous consequences for gender justice and women’s economic rights and empowerment.

Anti-human rights actors employing these arguments increasingly undermine women’s rights, including their rights to work and rights related to gender and sexuality. Through their attempts to control women’s bodies and autonomy, they propagate gendered restrictions on employment, restrict pathways to employment, and fuel gender stereotypes that undermine women’s access to work and justify violence in the workplace.

This event will highlight the findings of the first trends report from the Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs) initiative regarding regressive trends and actors on our human rights norms and systems and open up a critical reflection on the tactics, discourses, strategies and increasing impact of ultra-conservative actors to undermine the universality and indivisibility of our human rights standards. This event will then examine and discuss the strategic opportunities and challenges that lie ahead for gender justice movements.

Watch the Facebook live stream

Join the conversation on Twitter #RightsAreUniversal

CSW61: Women’s Stories, Women’s Lives: Bridging the disconnect between law and reality

As part of the 61st session of the Commission on the Status of Women, Musawah has organized an event on the disconnect between law and reality concerning women.

Topics discussed will include:

  • New feminist knowledge in Islam
  • New forms of activism in the Muslim world
  • Engaging with Islam from a rights perspective
  • Documenting women’s lived realities
  • Groundbreaking new publications

CSW61: Who Provides? Who Decides? Egalitarian Marriage in Muslim Contexts

As part of the 61st session of the Commission on the Status of Women musawah has organised an event on egalitarian marriage in Muslim contexts.

This event is co-sponsored by the Government of the Republic of Indonesia and UN Women-Arab States.

Topics discussed will include:

  • New feminist knowledge in Islam
  • New forms of activism in the Muslim world
  • Engaging with Islam from a rights perspective
  • Documenting women’s lived realities
  • Groundbreaking new publications

HRC34 Panel: Comprehensive Sexuality Education and Human Rights

This event will explore recent developments on the right to Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) from the perspective of States, youth led civil society, UN agencies and UN Human Rights mechanisms.

Participants will gain a broader understanding of State obligations to provide CSE that is accessible to all children, adolescents and young people, including those with disabilities, and how the Human Rights Council can support the implementation of CSE within the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Facing up to the Global Avalanche of Hate: The impact of fundamentalism and extremism on cultural rights

A discussion of the report by the UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights.

In her second report to the Human Rights Council (A/HRC/34/56), the Special Rapporteur considers how the rise of fundamentalism and extremism, in diverse forms, represents major threats to human rights worldwide and a growing challenge that must be faced with urgency, using a human rights approach. The report maps how such threats gravely undermine the enjoyment of cultural rights and stresses the centrality of cultural rights in combating them.

The event is hosted by the UN Special Rapporteur in the Field of Cultural Rights, Freemuse, Muslims for Progressive Values, Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), and the Centre for Inquiry.

Speakers will include

  • Ms Karima Bennoune (Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights)
  • Mr Magnus Ag (Freemuse)
  • Ms Samia Benkherroubi (Fonds for les femmes en Méditerranée)
  • Dr Chetan Bhatt (Director, Human Rights Studies Centre, London School of Economics)
  • Ms Alejandra Sarda-Chandiramani (Director of Programs, Association for Women’s Rights in Development)

The discussion will be moderated by Ms Ani Zonneveld (Muslims for Progressive Values).