Penna Dexter
One of the United Nations’ largest annual feminist gatherings, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), is meeting in New York. Rebecca Oas from the Center for Family and Human Rights says, this year, there’s “a dramatic mood shift, largely because of the change in U.S. leadership.” A declaration adopted on the first day of the 2-week conference contained some language friendly to the gender identity agenda. But, to the chagrin of representatives from the International Planned Parenthood Federation, references to sexual and reproductive health, reproductive rights, and sexuality education were left out.
Feminists are not happy. Dr. Oas says, normally they ignore conservatives at the CSW. But not this time.
She reports that at a townhall for CSW attendees, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres spoke of a “ferocious backlash against the rights of women and girls” which, he says, “is growing in power and strength.” He opened the Commission with a warning: “The poison of patriarchy is back….with a vengeance.”
A change in the party controlling the White House normally brings a switch in how the U.S seeks to influence international abortion policy. Notably, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio rejoined the Geneva Consensus Declaration, which states that there is no international right to abortion and that no nation is obligated to fund or promote abortion.
UN agencies constantly work to implement a version of gender equality that is outside their mandate. They are supported by certain NGOs and by groups like Women Deliver, which has voiced its concern that conservatives now “hold power in key global capitals.”
Dr. Oas says “The presence of conservative groups at the U.N. is often derided and their messages have been increasingly denigrated as ‘anti-rights,’ including by U.N. officials.”
Conservatives are pushing back with a statement declaring that, in many countries, majorities or sizable minorities of women ”hold pro-life and pro-family values, which ‘are mainstream positions’ and not anti-rights.”
It’s their views that should drive U.N. policy.
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Kerby Anderson