Launch of Advancing Women’s Rights and Gender Equality

On Wednesday, 3 June, the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) held a high-level event to launch Advancing Women’s Rights and Gender Equality: The Fifteenth Anniversary of the Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls.

This report aims to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of the Working Group against Women and Girls, to reflect on the work that the Working Group has done to advance gender equality globally, and to provide guidance and recommendations for states on how to achieve gender equality.

The Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls is one of the special procedures of the Human Rights Council and was established on 1 October 2010 by resolution 15/23. The Working Group works to address discrimination against women and girls in every sphere: political and public, economic and social, family and cultural, health and safety.

Below are some advancements worth mentioning:

1. The number of women in parliament globally has doubled.
2. Globally, over 50 million girls have been enrolled in schools since 2015.
3. More than 160 countries have passed laws to address domestic violence.

Despite these advancements, progress towards gender equality has been slow, and this is evident in the following statistics:

1. Despite the number of women in parliament doubling, globally, only 27.2% of seats in parliament are occupied by women.
2. Globally, only 22.9% of cabinet ministers are women, with only 25 countries having women as heads of government or state.
3. As of 2024, women make up only 21% of permanent representatives, with only 9% of all ambassadors since 1947 being women, and with 73 countries having never even appointed a female representative.
4. Laws in 105 countries still deny women equal rights in marriage, divorce, inheritance, or decision making about family and household matters.
5. The gender pay gap will take an estimated five generations to close.

The Amman Center for Human Rights Studies (ACHRS) welcomes this report which chronicles the work that the Working Group has done over the previous 15 years to protect women and girls’ rights along with advancing gender equality. We are disappointed to learn that no country in the world has achieved full gender equality, and that the already-slow progress is occurring at a time where there is a pushback on women and girls’ rights. ACHRS concurs that is the combination of the acceleration of implementation, the expansion of the civic space, and the protection against backlash offer the best route to achieving gender equality.

ACHRS reaffirms its commitment to progressing women’s rights to achieve gender equality, and to work with all relevant stakeholders to achieve this goal.

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