The sixty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69) is taking place at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from 10 to 21 March 2025, bringing together government representatives, advocates, and policymakers to advance gender equality and women’s rights.
This year’s session is especially significant as it marks 30 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (Beijing+30), a landmark commitment to women’s rights that continues to shape today’s global agenda.
In a world where women’s rights, human rights, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and gender equality remains an urgent challenge, CSW69 provides a crucial opportunity to reflect on progress, address persistent gaps, and push for stronger political commitments. It is also a time and space for connection, dialogue, reflection, and collective action—where those in New York and around the world can come together to strategize, organize, and reimagine a more just future in this complex political moment.
Using this political momentum, over the next two weeks SRHM will be sharing exclusive interviews, opinion pieces, book reviews and report launches from key actors in the SRHR space.
We will explore the latest developments, challenges, and commitments shaping the SRHR agenda, capturing the energy and urgency of the moment and giving you a real-time look into the conversations unfolding at CSW69.
As the discussions evolve, our goal is to amplify frontline perspectives, inspire advocacy, and drive meaningful action within the SRHR community.
Stay tuned for powerful insights and stories from the heart of the movement.
The Commission on the Status of Women Adopts by Consensus the Political Declaration
International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) statement:
“IPPF welcomes the adoption of the Political Declaration on the occasion of thirtieth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, in which Governments reaffirm their commitment to accelerate action to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. IPPF actively engaged in the process by providing technical inputs to Member States and raising awareness of the situations of women, girls and the most marginalized communities and bringing their real-life experiences into the conversation.
The geopolitical backdrop to this year’s negotiations was extremely divided, with key issues such sexual and reproductive health and rights, multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and even the most basic agreed terms around gender equality being challenged.
Following the extensive and challenging political negotiations, the consensus adoption of this political declaration underscores strong cross-regional support for the human rights of all women and girls, the Commission’s mandate, the priority theme and the multilateral system.
The true impact of this political declaration will be measured by its implementation at the national level. As a locally rooted yet globally connected Federation, IPPF and its Member Associations are uniquely positioned to drive the implementation of the political declaration across national, regional, and global spheres. By doing so, we can ensure meaningful change in the lives of women, adolescents, girls, and other marginalized communities where it matters most.
As we mark the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Programme of Action and find ourselves only 5 years away from the 2030 deadline for the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), no States are on track to achieve gender equality. Women, girls and marginalized communities continue to suffer disproportionally from lack of equality and have their fundamental human rights undermined every day, with grave consequences. In this current political moment, where governments are cutting funding and scale back support for basic lifesaving assistance for the most vulnerable, the renewed political commitment of governments with the adoption of the Political Declaration to accelerate the fulfilment of rights of all women and girls is an important step. It is now crucial to collectively hold governments accountable for their commitments”.
Read the full statement by IPPF: The Commission on the Status of Women Adopts by Consensus the Political Declaration. IPPF welcomes the political declaration adopted by the Commission on the Status of Women
Also see the statement from the Guttmacher Institute: On the 30th Anniversary of the Beijing Declaration, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Are Under Threat
Discussion on the Roadmap of Repression: Trump’s Executive Order on “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism”
During the UN CSW meeting (10–21 March; 30-Year Review of Beijing), a group of around 15 advocates and scholars gathered on 10 March for an ad hoc discussion on the implications of Trump’s Executive Order (EO) on “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”
This EO, which weaves together multiple ideological claims, affects all of us. Our conversation focused on mapping its linked components and understanding its broader impact. While our group made no claim to global representativeness, we reflected a broad range of expertise and perspectives, spanning global south/north feminisms, queer and trans organizing, and academic scholarship.
We began the discussion by noting that each part of the EO is important: the EO predicates political order on so-called biological “truth” of a sex/gender binary, frames the defense of [cis] women from trans-ness by demonizing transness; invoking carceral spaces as safe spaces for ‘women’.
Ideological Frameworks and Gendered Rights Advocacy Silos
Our discussion reaffirmed that the EO is just one example of a broader set of ideological strategies that weaponizes ambivalence and ambiguity in current human rights’s engagement with gender as a term for rights, and then puts coercive state power behind it. Three hours was not enough to unpack its full implications, but the meeting highlighted the value of bringing academics and activists together for reflection and strategic analysis. Our exchange sparked critical questions, knowledge-sharing, and historical insights that help bridge often rigid gendered silos in scholarship and activism.
Revisiting again, Gender, Human Rights Norms and Power
We examined the evolving but unfulfilled role of gender as a key frame to analyze power relations in operation across all of us, including as intersecting with other axes of power. We discussed the need to return to the work of elaborating in a comprehensive, structural way, the elements of ‘gender equality’ and ‘gender stereotype’. We agreed on the need to support and expand mapping the many sites– and funding flows– supporting current regression and repression at global and national levels, preparatory to organizing to counter them. The current CSW was an ever- present example of the new assemblies of alliances with anti gender and faux rights advocacy occasioned by the US government’s realignment . The conversation reinforced the need to map out the many forms of repression parroted lthe EO—particularly in UN and NGO spaces—to develop effective strategies for counteraction that support each other across all our work: trans rights, sex worker rights, sexual and reproductive health rights, among others–the full range of human rights for gender equality, across many kinds of difference and place.
The Weaponization of Science and Biology
A key concern raised was how both progressive and regressive actors deploy claims of “scientific truth” to justify their positions. The discussion underscored the risk of falling into essentialist traps when defending comprehensive gender analyses and the need to be careful when putting together concerns around gender, sex-linked biological traits and legal designations of sex, , cautioning against static or ahistorical understandings of science or biological truths. Like many right-wing strategies, the EO seeks to legitimize exclusionary and punitive measures through claims of biological determinism.
Right-Wing Narratives and Mobilization Strategies
We explored the variations in right-wing gender ideologies across different regions, noting that anti-trans mobilization has a longer history in the U.S. than in parts of Europe. This contextual difference underscores the need for context specific, tailored resistance strategies, which also rest on cross-sectoral solidarities A crucial realization was that a key element of the right-wing approach is to exhaust opposition movements through relentless ideological attacks. This highlights the importance of persistence and strategic resistance to counter these tactics effectively. We also raised concerns that describing the regressive efforts as backlash obscures the present and future real world construction going on (in universities, in state institutions) by the right wing, taking place while they attack us.
Building Counter-Narratives and Intersectional Action
A major takeaway from the discussion was the necessity of strengthening counter-narratives and intersectional advocacy. By identifying key INGOs and NGOs where feminist, queer, and trans activism intersect, we can create spaces for collaborative resistance and feminist analysis. This will allow us to challenge institutional repression more effectively and ensure that marginalized voices remain at the center of gender justice movements.
Sustaining Resistance and Collaboration
The meeting reinforced the urgency of ongoing dialogue, knowledge-sharing, and collective action. As right-wing attacks continue to evolve, so too must our strategies for resistance, advocacy, and mobilization. By sustaining these discussions and fostering cross-regional collaborations, we can push back against repressive policies and work toward a more just and inclusive future.
Authored by Ali Miller, Mindy Roseman, Susana Fried, Cynthia Rothschild, Eszter Kismödi
Advancing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights: Moving Forward post-the 2024 U.S. Election
On 12 March, 2025, colleagues from SRHM (Eszter Kismödi), EngenderHealth (Sekai Chikowero), AVAC (Mitchell Warren), and Plan C Pills (Francine Coeytaux) gathered for a dynamic virtual dialogue hosted by the USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health and moderated by IIGH Director Sofia Gruskin. Less than two months have passed since the Trump administration took power for a second time in the U.S., and already our world looks incredibly different – with potentially devastating impacts on the health and rights of people everywhere.
Several key themes emerged from the conversation:
1. The need for a bold new system, not a return to the old system.
Since Janaury 20th, the health and human rights community have been scrambling to respond to the myriad attacks on health and well-being for populations across the globe. However as Mitchell Warren pointed out, with so many crises, “we’ve spend a lot of time plugging the holes.” Warren and others urged a move away from the old system, which is unlikely to ever be effectively rebuilt. “A lot of people are trying to go back to January 19th, but we need to go forward.”
We need to uphold multilateralsim and the human rights system underpinning it. Eszter Kismödi stressed that internationally agreed upon political declarations and human rights frameworks ensure accountability and a common framework and are thus more important than ever. But the multilateral system as we knew it depended heavily financially on a few countries, and the events of 2025 have shown us what we already knew to be true: we need structural reform and a different model which will allow for more diversified leadership and attention to civil society. Panelists emphasized the need for regional and local action and for this to happen quickly: a new localization agenda must happen in an accelerated fashion — reorganization cannot take the next 30 years to put into place.
2. The importance of partnerships, especially across sectors.
Throughout the conversation, panelists underscored the importance of revitalized and strengthend partnerships, as well as the creation of new partnerships. Sekai Chikowero emphasized the importance of new alliances and new sources of funding, including work across sectors and the cultivation of local philanthropies. She reminded the audience that a little funding can go a long way, giving the example of youth-led organizations, who may need little more than internet connection and a space to work in order to connect with other advocates globally.
Francine Coeytaux emphasized that just as ultra-conservative movements are attacking science and evidence, they are also attempting to rupture the collaborations across sectors that have been key to public health solutions and given movements strength. These collaborations must remain front and center, and we must look for additional ways to fortify them. The private sector, as one example, could be brought in more frequently and earlier on. Civil society will remain a necessary partner in holding governments accountable, and for delivering services when government cannot or will not deliver.
3. In the tradition of the AIDS response, we need to act up, and fight back.
Being in community has never been more important. “No matter where we live, no matter what work we do… if we don’t engage and connect and plan, the health of communities will continue to suffer.” Many would agree that while it’s easy to become paralyzed in this moment, we cannot afford to be. As Mitchell Warren reminded the audience, “doing our work well is the best revenge.”
The event concluded with each panelist sharing a single action that audience members could take forward into their work and advocacy. Panelists encouraged organizations and communities to define priorities and focus on the work that they do best and that they consider to be mission critical. Panelists emphasized the need to bring SRHR together with other areas of work, keep clear on our principles, and strengthen our partnerships across sectors.
Authored by Summer Peet, Senior Program Officer, USC IIGH and Caroline Diamond, Project Specialist, USC IIGH.
From Persistence to Prevention: Strategies for Abandonment of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C)
“It’s the end of the first week of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. I have heard from different presentations about FGM/C, including governments, civil society organizations, feminists and activists. They displayed the successes of FGM/C abandonment programs in different countries made over the last 30 years as well as some of the huge challenges that we face in the rollback of rights for women and girls around the world, with raising the slogan, “Zero Tolerance to FGM/C”.
There was a particularly insightful presentation by Divya Srinivasan, the Global Lead to End Harmful Practices at Equality Now.
In the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Program on the Elimination of FGM/C session titled ‘Stepping Up the Pace to End FGM’, I heard about successful interventions in countries like Egypt, Uganda, and Burkina Faso, where progress has been made. Also, the funding government’s representatives from Italy and Sweden highlighted their commitments over the past 30 years in giving support to the countries.
Some key insights:
- Indonesia: Progress is being made, but prevalence remains high
- Uganda: FGM/C prevalence is now below 0.2
- Egypt: The prevalence among girls under 14 dropped from 56% (EDHS 2014) to 27% ( Family Health Survey) 2021. However, 80% of FGM/C cases are now medicalized.
An alarming setback was discussed in an event “Global Platform for Action to End FGM”, hosted by the Orchid Project, Equality Now, and other partners. The event delved into the latest data and strategies for accelerating change and highlighted UNICEF’s 2024 report which revealed that 30 million more girls have undergone FGM/C compared to previous estimates.
The March 2025 ‘What Works’ report highlighted proven strategies for elimination: Community mobilization, including religious leaders, social media and including medical doctors to combat medicalization.
To move towards a future free from FGM/C, there is an urgent need to shift from seasonal campaigns and training sessions aimed at raising awareness to consistently integrating messages into the different institutions.
While progress has been made, there is still a long road ahead”.
Authored by Hala El Damanhoury, Independent SRHR expert
Stay tuned for powerful insights and stories from the heart of the movement.
Please note that blog posts are not peer-reviewed and do not necessarily reflect the views of SRHM as an organisation.