When the United Nations’ 70th annual Commission on the Status of Women, the key global body dedicated to promoting gender equality, rights and the empowerment of women, met earlier this month, many of its usual audiences were absent.
This was for a few reasons. First, many feminist activists and organisations feel increasingly disenchanted with the UN. It is disheartening to watch this multilateral institution seemingly unable to preserve peace and stop the genocide and wars ongoing in Palestine, Sudan, Yemen, Ukraine and Iran, to name a few.
The location of the meeting – New York – was also a problem for many. The United States was already inaccessible to many due to its stringent visa restrictions, and it has become even more so with concerns around ICE detainment or illegal deportations, as well as flight disruptions as a result of the US-Israel war on Iran. Many activists rightly question the value of critical meetings being held in a country where the people most impacted by the issues being discussed are unable to bring their concerns to the policymakers and government representatives making life-changing decisions.
And then there is the increasing ‘takeover’ of the UN by far-right actors, an alarm that feminist activists have been sounding for over a decade now.
Far-right civil society actors have steadily ramped up their strategic engagement at the Commission on the Status of Women – not to advance rights for women, but to undo existing protections while claiming to be “empowering women and families”.
Such actors can be highly influential; the US government included The Heritage Foundation, the far-right civil society organisation that authored the Trumpian Project 2025 agenda to roll back reproductive health rights and gender-affirming policies in the US and internationally, in its official delegation to the CWS.
Having previously not been active in negotiating the Agreed Conclusions – a document that describes the commission’s priorities on girls, women, and gender – the US delegation obstructed the process at the final stage, presenting a list of over 90 amendments, comments, and red lines.
Its goal was clearly to disrupt, with a key red line being that so-called “controversial social policies” should not be debated at the UN. While the majority of delegates fortunately did not agree with this stance, the result was that for the first time in its 80-year history, the Agreed Conclusions were adopted by vote, not consensus. In the end, 37 countries voted in favour, six abstained – Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Mali, Mauritania and Saudi Arabia – while only the US voted against.
The far right was present in other ways, too. Just as it has done in previous years, Spanish ultra-conservative advocacy group Citizen Go drove trucks around New York during the commission, emblazoned with messages such as “Stop UN push for abortion worldwide” and “Stop UN push for gener ideology worldwide”. At the same time, its representatives were meeting government delegations at the commission and attempting to influence them to push back on progressive language in the Agreed Conclusions.
Lopa Banerjee, director of the Civil Society Section for UN Women, believes the commission has become “contested” and “polarising”. She warned: “Feminist civil society engagement must be politically astute and strategic in order to navigate this new terrain of geopolitical interests that are playing out as member states negotiate from their positions of national geopolitics.”
As activists, we understand why people feel disenchanted with the UN. We feel the same. But the UN is too important for us to cede ground to the far right, which has already found ways to embed itself in such structures to undo them from the inside.
As Leyla Hussein, a psychotherapist who specialises in supporting survivors of sexual abuse, said: “Attendance at the Commission on the Status of Women is vital, as it remains one of the few global spaces where we can collectively reflect on and shape the status of women.” Beyond preventing anti-rights capture of multilateral spaces, participation at the commission allows feminist activists from all over the world to meet and discuss a wide range of topics relevant to the lives of girls and women.
Hussein, who is the global advocacy director for The Girl Generation, attended this year’s commission to champion the need to dismantle racism in movements working to end Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting. Our own organisations also chose to hold key discussions on the fringes of the meeting. Purposeful, a girl-led activism hub co-founded by Rosa Bransk, a co-author of this article, brought together partners from UNICEF, government representatives and donors to discuss how to meaningfully support and resource adolescent girls as leaders, while The Institute of Journalism and Social Change, co-founded by Nana Darkoa (this article’s other co-author), alongside Noor, a feminist ‘think and do’ tank, held a dialogue with donors and activists to explore how feminist movements can stop progressive funding from flowing to anti-rights actors who work against human rights.
Spaces like the UN have been critical in advancing an international understanding of universal human rights and setting global norms around gender equality and empowerment, which citizens around the world can use as a basis for advocacy with national governments. For this promise to be fulfilled, civil society actors must actively participate in UN processes like the commission, so they can hold their own governments to the commitments they make to gender equality. This also requires governments to sign up to international instruments that set high standards for the protection of rights, the preservation of peace, and human dignity.
As this year’s commission was in session, The Heritage Foundation and other far-right organisations, such as C-Fam (the Center for Family and Human Rights), held a parallel event known as the Conference on the State of Women and Family. This, they said, was “the place to come and find a unique approach to meeting the needs of women and the families they love”.
This is what we are up against. The battle to prevent the rollback of hard-won rights for girls and women around the world is here. The revolution may never take place at the UN, but it must remain an important space for feminists to engage in, as part of our ongoing work to strengthen gender equality around the world.
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Rosa Bransky is a feminist strategist and co-founder of Purposeful, a global hub for girls' activism rooted in Africa. With a commitment to advocating for girls' political power, Rosa currently leads initiatives that empower young feminists to access resources and platforms necessary for activism. Previously, they served as an Organizational Development Advisor at Population Service Training Centre, a Project Worker and Trainer at Nacro, and held various roles in research and development at multiple organizations, including Flamingo and Saul Good. Rosa holds a First Class Master of Arts in Anthropology with Development from Edinburgh University, where they continue their studies.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah is the author of Seeking Sexual Freedom: African Rites, Rituals, and Sankofa in the Bedroom. Her debut, The Sex Lives of African Women, was an instant classic, lauded by Publishers Weekly as “an astonishing report on the quest for sexual liberation” and named a Best Book of the Year by The Economist. Nana Darkoa is also an award winning podcaster, a festival curator, and the Co-Founder of the Institute of Journalism and Social Change. Her transformative work has earned her international recognition, including a spot on the BBC's 100 inspirational and influential women list and New Africa magazine's list of 100 inspirational Africans.
