RES/26/5 Elimination of discrimination against women

GE.A/HRC/26/39. 4-08234 (E)

*1408234*

Human Rights Council Twenty-sixth session Agenda item 3 Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development

Resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council

26/5 Elimination of discrimination against women

The Human Rights Council,

Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,

Recalling the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,

Recalling also the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, adopted on 25 June 1993 by the World Conference on Human Rights, the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, adopted on 13 September 1994, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, adopted on 15 September 1995 by the Fourth World Conference on Women, and their review conferences in 2005 and 2010, the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, adopted on 8 September 2001 by the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, and the outcome document of the Durban Review Conference, adopted on 24 April 2009,

Recalling further General Assembly resolution 66/130 of 19 December 2011, Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) of 31 October 2000 and Human Rights Council resolutions 15/23 of 1 October 2010, 20/6 of 5 July 2012 and 23/7 of 13 June 2013 on the elimination of discrimination against women, and 20/4 of 5 July 2012 on the right to a nationality: women and children,

Bearing in mind that international human rights treaties, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender and include guarantees

to ensure the enjoyment by women and men, and girls and boys, of their civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights on a basis of equality,

Recognizing that the full, equal and effective participation of women of all ages in all spheres of life on an equal basis with men is essential for the full and complete economic, political and social development of a country and for achieving lasting solutions to global challenges, and that gender equality and the empowerment of women benefit women, men, girls and boys and society as a whole,

Mindful of the fact that the elimination of discrimination against women and girls requires the consideration of their specific socioeconomic context, and recognizing that laws, policies, customs and traditions that restrict their equal access to full and effective participation in development processes and economic and social life are discriminatory, and that the non-participation of women in decision-making contributes to the feminization of poverty and hampers sustainable development and economic growth,

Mindful also of the gender gaps in salaries, social security, pensions, decision- making and access to resources, capital and financial services, the burden of unpaid care work and the concentration of women in higher numbers than men in the informal sector,

Bearing in mind the challenges still faced by all countries throughout the world to overcome inequality between men and women, and the need to intensify efforts to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women and girls throughout the world,

Recognizing and deeply regretting that many women and girls face multiple forms of discrimination and are still subject to significant disadvantage as the result of discriminatory laws and practices, and that de jure and de facto equality has not been achieved,

Deeply concerned by the widespread persistence of various forms of violence against girls and women of all ages,

Acknowledging the work undertaken by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, the Commission on the Status of Women, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the special procedures mandate holders of the Human Rights Council and other relevant United Nations bodies, funds, agencies and mechanisms to eliminate discrimination in law and in practice throughout the world, and noting the work undertaken by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the issue,

Recognizing that gender responsiveness is an essential part of the role played by national human rights institutions as established by the principles relating to the status of national institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights (the Paris Principles) adopted by the General Assembly in its resolution 48/134 of 20 December 1993,

Underscoring that periods of economic and financial crisis pose additional challenges to the advancement of women’s equal participation and representation in economic, political and social spheres,

1. Welcomes the work undertaken by the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice, and takes note with appreciation of its report,1 in which it focused on discrimination against women in economic and social life;

2. Affirms that realizing human rights requires the full, effective and meaningful participation of women in all aspects of economic and social life, on an equal footing with men;

3. Calls upon States to include, as appropriate, special or positive action measures to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women in economic and social life as part of a comprehensive system-wide approach of non-discrimination and equality of opportunity and treatment;

4. Also calls upon States to promote the rights of women and girls and to support their empowerment by adopting, as appropriate, a coherent set of gender-responsive social and economic policies directed at the family, the workplace and the marketplace, and by addressing poverty and social exclusion in order to overcome the structural barriers and inequalities they face and thereby to ensure their long-term and sustainable participation in economic and social life;

5. Further calls upon States to promote reforms, the effectiveness of institutional mechanisms and good governance, and to accelerate the implementation of legal frameworks and policies directed towards achieving equality and the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and girls, including nationality laws;

6. Emphasizes that the prohibition of discrimination against women on grounds of sex, pregnancy, maternity, parenthood or care work should be enforced for all women in all areas of work, including in the informal sector;

7. Requests States to take measures to overcome the barriers to women’s economic opportunities resulting from maternity and the disproportionate burden of unpaid care work in order to permit choice by women and men as to how they allocate work and family duties and in order to enable the complementarity of work and family between women and men;

8. Urges States to take measures to reduce informal work for women, with a focus on female participation in economic life and by increasing women’s economic opportunities, particularly in formal employment, in order to promote gender equality;

9. Recommends that States support women’s entrepreneurship, including through training, the dissemination of information and the provision of credit and saving facilities, and by securing women’s equal rights over resources to ensure women’s equality and well-being;

10. Also recommends that States promote and protect women’s rights by providing women with access to social security over the course of their life cycle;

11. Calls upon States to analyse and evaluate the impact of the economic and financial crisis from a gender perspective, and to ensure that the principles of gender equality and the empowerment of woman are reflected also in State-led initiatives to sustain and expand the economic recovery, which can provide opportunities to tackle patterns of gender inequality and discrimination;

12. Calls for gender equality, the empowerment of women and human rights of women and girls to be reflected as a stand-alone goal and to be integrated and mainstreamed through, inter alia, targets and indicators, into all sustainable development goals in the post-2015 development agenda;

13. Calls upon States to take concrete steps towards eliminating all forms of discrimination against women and girls, directed to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women at all levels of economic and social decision-making processes, especially during economic and financial crises, and to engage women in State-building;

14. Stresses the need to accelerate efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls, including in economic and social life, such as gender-based violence and sexual harassment against women in the public arena, such as in public transport and services, workplaces, educational institutions and cyberspace, to combat impunity, and to guarantee access to appropriate civil remedies and redress that take into account multiple, intersecting and aggravated forms of discrimination;

15. Reaffirms the importance of the right to education as key to the empowerment of women and girls and for ensuring equality and non-discrimination, and the need for the elimination of discriminatory laws and practices that prevent girls from completing their education;

16. Calls upon States and encourages institutions of global economic governance and business to promote women’s equal access to decision-making positions and processes, and encourages them to appoint and promote women staff members in order to guarantee women’s full participation;

17. Urges Governments to recognize the important role the media can play in the elimination of gender stereotypes and, to the extent consistent with freedom of expression, increase women’s participation in and access to all forms of media, and to encourage the media to increase public awareness of the Beijing Platform for Action, the Millennium Development Goals, gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls;

18. Recognizes that the work done by civil society organizations, in particular independent women’s civil society organizations, is crucial to promoting full equality in all aspects of economic and social life and eliminating violence against women and girls, including women human rights defenders, and that they therefore require support for their sustainability and growth;

19. Calls upon all States to cooperate with and assist the Working Group in its task, to supply all necessary available information requested by it and to give serious consideration to responding favourably to its requests to visit their country to enable it to fulfil its mandate effectively;

20. Invites relevant United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, treaty bodies within their respective mandates and civil society actors, including non- governmental organizations, as well as the private sector, to cooperate fully with the Working Group in the fulfilment of its mandate, and requests the Working Group to continue its cooperation with the Commission on the Status of Women, including by participating in its work, and reporting, on request;

21. Requests the Working Group to continue to work on its thematic priorities, namely, political and public life, economic and social life, family and cultural life, and health and safety, and to dedicate specific attention to good practices that have contributed to mobilizing society as a whole, including men and boys, in the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and girls;

22. Takes note with appreciation of the intention of the Working Group to focus its next report on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice in family and cultural life;

23. Requests the Working Group, in the discharge of its mandate, to offer support to States’ initiatives to address multiple forms of discrimination against women and girls when implementing their obligations as State parties to relevant international human rights treaties with regard to civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights, and related commitments, where applicable;

24. Decides to continue its consideration of this issue in conformity with its annual programme of work.

37th meeting 26 June 2014

[Adopted without a vote.]