HRC 56 : Key developments for sexual orientation, gender identity and expression and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR)
Written by:
Gabriel Gail, UN Programme Coordinator, ILGA World
Paola Daher, Associate Director, Global Advocacy, Center for Reproductive Rights
The 56th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council took place from the 18th June until the 12th July in Geneva. The summer session has a strong focus on gender and sexuality issues related human rights standards. Overall, this session was marked once again by ever increasing attempts at retrogression on well-established human rights standards pertaining to sexual and reproductive rights and other thematic issues related to gender and sexuality.
While retrogressive actors are trying to occupy more space in negotiations, undermining international human rights law and attempting to fit their reactionary vision of women and girls and people of diverse sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics, into the initiatives of the Council, human rights, feminist, LGBTIQ+ and sex workers organizations are facing restricting civil society space. Nevertheless, civil society organizations have worked and continue to work together across movements to ensure the resilience of the multilateral system and the upholding of human rights standards. This article will highlight some of the key takeaways from the session.
Resolutions
Out of the 26 draft resolutions presented this session, 5 had a stronger focus on gender and sexuality issues and have taken important steps in developing human rights standards in these areas.
Human rights in the context of HIV and AIDS
This year’s text of the triennial resolution on HIV was presented by Brazil, Colombia, Portugal and Thailand. The text reaffirms that combination HIV prevention and HIV testing, including self-testing, pre-exposure prophylaxis, post-exposure prophylaxis, access to sexual and reproductive health services, mental health and psychosocial support services, information and education, delivered without stigma, violence or discrimination, are essential elements in achieving the full realization of the right to health (PP13).
Furthermore, it brings strong attention to the stigma, multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, violence and abuse against key populations and against all persons living with, presumed to be living with, at risk of or affected by HIV (PP25, 27; OP5,8) and urges States to repeal and reform restrictive, punitive and discriminatory legal and policy frameworks that adversely affect these populations (OP7,8 and 30).
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines key populations as populations who are at higher risk for HIV irrespective of the epidemic type or local context and who face social and legal challenges that increase their vulnerability. They include sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgender people, people who inject drugs, and people in prison and other closed settings.
The text also addresses needs of specific groups as adolescent and young people and indigenous peoples (OP15 and PP12bis). The text was also the first time that the terminology ‘sexual and reproductive health and rights’ was included in tabled version of a resolution at the Human Rights Council and featured in a globally negotiated document, which, despite increasingly difficult global dynamics on sexual and reproductive rights, still signifies a strong commitment of a wide variety of States to the issue.
The text was targeted by hostile amendments tabled by the Russian Federation, which aimed to redefine key populations according to national interests and to delete references to “gender” and “sexual and reproductive health and rights”. We welcome the fact that the HRC resumed the long tradition of adopting this resolution by consensus and that all amendments were defeated.
Elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and girls
This resolution, carried by Mexico and Chile, is traditionally one of the resolutions of the Human Rights Council in which the strongest human rights standards on women and girls are reflected. This year the resolution focused on the interlinkages of poverty and gender-based discrimination, Crucially, the resolution requests human rights-based, gender-responsive and intersectional approaches to poverty reduction, highlights the importance of a careful gendered analysis of structural economic inequalities and warns against the replication of unequal gender relations within families, communities, institutions and markets that fail to recognize and value women’s unpaid care, support, domestic and agricultural work, which undergirds the economy,
The resolution also, inter alia, centers the need to promote measures aimed at ensuring substantive equality as a way to redistribute the unequal and unfair share of domestic and unpaid care and domestic work that can contribute to women’s and girls’ poverty. It also encourages non-State actors such as financial institutions and businesses to align their practices with international human rights law and standards, recognizing how their practices can impact women’s and girls’ poverty levels.
The resolution also recalls the right to bodily autonomy, the right to sexual and reproductive health and access to available, accessible, acceptable and good quality sexual and reproductive health information and services as key to the eradication of poverty and to women’s and girls’ right to make decisions for themselves.
The text was targeted by amendments from the Russian Federation and Kuwait on behalf of the Group of Arab States, looking to weaken or delete standards on sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, comprehensive sexuality education, bodily autonomy, gender, and trying to add once again national sovereignty caveats. Women’s and girls’ meaningful participation was also subjected to an amendment in line with this retrogressive push to undermine women’s and girls’ agency and equal rights.
Technology-facilitated gender-based violence
This draft resolution is a new initiative at the HRC, presented by Belgium, Albania, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Morocco. According to Amnesty International, the term ‘technology-facilitated gender-based violence’ (TfGBV) is used to describe acts that use technology to cause harm to women, girls and LGBTI people and disproportionately impacts women and girls and can also impact other people based on their real and/or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression. ILGA World’s report “Accessing Connection: Bridging the Digital Divide for LGBTI Communities Worldwide” has also found that LGBTI people are particularly targets of gender-based violence, which is often underreported due to the misgendering of trans and gender-diverse individuals.
The resolution has requested the Human Rights Councilan inter-governmental body within the United Nations which has the responsibility to promote and protect human rights. It is comprised of 47 member States, each elected to 3-year terms by the 193 member States of the United Nations. More Advisory Committee to prepare a study on technology-facilitated gender-based violence and making recommendations on how to address the issue, and to present the study to the Human Rights Council during its 63rd Session.
Accelerating progress towards preventing adolescent girls’ pregnancy
This procedural resolution brings a welcome focus on adolescents’ pregnancy and the particular drivers and potential complications associated with it. It requests the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to prepare, in consultation with all relevant stakeholders, including adolescent girls themselves, a comprehensive report on how to accelerate progress towards preventing adolescent girls’ pregnancy and to present the report, to the Council at its sixty-second session.
Menstrual Hygiene Management, Human Rights and Gender Equality
While the inclusion of the issue of menstrual hygiene management, human rights and gender equality on the agenda of the Human Rights Council is welcome, we regret that the text remains lacking in terms of emphasizing States’ responsibility in addressing menstrual health, and in terms of centering core terminology on menstrual and sexual and reproductive health, which are central to this issue. We welcome the inclusion of language on the linkages between this thematic and unpaid care work performed by women and girls and encourage feminist and human rights organizations to submit input for the report on good practices identified and problems encountered on menstrual hygiene management to be submitted to the Human Rights Council at its sixty-second session.
Dialogues with Special Procedures
Independent Expert on SOGI
The independent expert on SOGI presented his report on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in relation to the human rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association .
According to the report, “these freedoms are fundamental to full participation in society, yet – in all regions of the world – restrictions based on sexual orientation and gender identity aim to erase vulnerable minorities from the public sphere and render them invisible. Restrictions on freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly and association are often defended based on spurious and discriminatory grounds, accompanied by hostile political rhetoric. The net result is that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other gender-diverse persons are less able to advocate for themselves in increasingly inhospitable environments.”
At its oral intervention, ILGA World highlighted that the rise of anti-gender forces and their alliance with both conservative or right-wing and supposedly progressive movements should be regarded as one of the greatest threats to LGBTI people’s rights today and that their impact on LGBTI people’s enjoyment of freedom of expression, association, and assembly is alarming. The mandate-holder also presented reports on country visits conducted to the United Kingdom, Cambodia and the United States of America.
Working Group on Discrimination Against Women
The Working Group on discrimination against women and girls presented a report entitled “Escalating backlash against gender equality and urgency of reaffirming substantive equality and the human rights of women and girls”.
According to the report: “the world is witnessing a growing backlash against sexual and reproductive health rights, including comprehensive education on sexual and reproductive health, ever-present misogynistic statements in the media and the rise of anti-gender discourse in the public domain, even by high-ranking politicians, as well as attacks on women and girl human rights defenders”. The report also highlights the specific challenges faced by LBTQI+ women and girls.
During the debate, for the first time a group of States, led by Canada, presented a joint statement focusing on the discrimination faced by LBTQ Women.
“Even in cases in which women and girls are not expressly criminalized on the basis of SOGI, they may face increased vulnerability to criminalization and deprivation of liberty, and a heightened risk of finding themselves or being discriminated against in the criminal justice system.
Related to this, we also welcome the specific attention dedicated by the Working Group to discrimination against trans women, who, according to the report, are arbitrarily profiled and targeted by law enforcement for engaging in sex work, and experience disproportionate levels of poverty and economic insecurity because of the discrimination they face in accessing employment” said Canada on behalf of a cross regional group of 32 Member States. (Canada, Albania, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands (Kingdom of the), New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United States of America, Uruguay)
During it’s oral intervention, ILGA World stated: “As we can see from the misinformation around legislative debates on trans people’s rights in the United Kingdom to the prohibition of gender and sexuality education across Latin America, this has severe implications on substantive gender equality; including our full enjoyment of the rights to legal gender recognition based on self-determination and all rights that follow, including gender-affirming healthcare, safe access to education and fair and equal participation in sports”
And regarding the backlashes linked to sexual and reproductive health and rights, the Center for Reproductive Rights intervened: “Gender backlash undermines current achievements and prospects for further progress on bodily and reproductive autonomy. Women’s right to sexual reproductive health and rights, including abortion and comprehensive sexual education, is rooted in international human rights standards guaranteeing the rights to life, health, privacy, and non-discrimination (…)International human rights law prohibits retrogressive regressive measures in women’s and girls access to reproductive health”
The Working Group also presented the report of their country visits to Malta and Mauritania.
Sports and Human Rights
During the session, the HRC held its Quadrennial panel discussion on promoting human rights through sport and the Olympic ideal, which this time focused on “Promoting inclusiveness in and through sports”.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, highlighted:
“The world of sports is not immune from human rights challenges, including when mega events are organized. And some worrying issues are more visible than others. Racist or sexist incidents. Abuse. Violence against women. Corruption. Discrimination on the basis of religion or religious attire, disability, nationality, or sexual orientation and gender identity. Transgender and intersex women often face ongoing discrimination, with little place to turn for appropriate remedy and accountability.”
The Panel also had interventions from the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights,
Alexandra Xanthaki:
“Unfortunately, the inclusive nature of sport is often overshadowed by pervasive discrimination. Women and girls continue to face serious obstacles in having the same opportunities as their male counterparts in participating in sports. LGBTQ+ athletes are facing exclusion, harassment, and discriminatory policies that undermine their participation in sport, and their well-being. Athletes living in poverty, athletes who speak out, athletes with disabilities, refugees, minorities, and indigenous peoples; all face continuous challenges in exercising their right to participate in sports.”
Ms. Xanthaki highlighted the progress made in the inclusion of transgender athletes in sports:
“Although gender discrimination issues have a lot of expressions that need urgent attention, there has been progress in the rights of Transgender athletes. I am delighted to see that voices advocating for the exclusion or segregation of these athletes are not seriously taken into account. Last year I published a policy position on the protection of human rights in sport without discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics. This policy outlines the importance of respecting the bodies of all and of creating inclusive environments that respect diversity in sport.
Sport governing bodies must act and adopt policies that are informed by human rights principles, scientific evidence, and the lived experiences of transgender athletes; measures where the individual is put first and proportionality and inclusivity are given their rightful place. The IOC’s Framework on Fairness, Inclusion, and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations is a commendable step in this direction, yet further efforts are required to implement these guidelines effectively across all sports and levels of competition.”.
ILGA World’s oral intervention in the panel also called attention to similar issues:
“The categoric or blanket exclusion of trans, gender diverse, and intersex women from sport is a prima facie violation of their human right to live free from discrimination.” Sports governing bodies must respect the right of LGBTI people to participate in sports by promoting their safety, removing barriers, and conducting fact-based research to tackle stigma and misinformation.”
Decriminalization of Sex Work
During the session, important conversations were held regarding the importance of decriminalization of sex work and through a human rights based approach. ILGA World co-sponsored a side event entitled “Decriminalising Sex Work: A Human Rights Imperative led by the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) and the Sexual Rights Initiative (SRI).
“We work against criminalization, we work against genderrefers to a social construct which places cultural and social expectations on individuals based on their assigned sex. More discriminationunequal or unfair treatment which can be based on a range of grounds - such as age, ethnic background, disability, and diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions or sex characteristics, amongst others. More, we work against exploitation, we work against trafficking of women”, affirmed the panellists in this key event.
The event was also an important reminder of the Guidance document of the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls: Eliminating discrimination against sex workers and securing their human rights, in which the WGDAWG. In the document, the mandate-holders affirm: “there is now sufficient evidence of the harms of any form of criminalization of sex work, including the criminalization of clients and activities by third parties. It notes the growing consensus by international human rights and other bodies on the full decriminalization of adult voluntary sex work, as well as the advocacy of sex workers’ rights movements for such an approach”
