UN Commission on the Status of Women adopts Agreed Conclusions on Violence Against Women

After long and hard negotiations, on Friday 15 March the UN Commission on the Status of Women at its 57^th Session adopted its Agreed Conclusions on Violence against Women. After the previous failure to get Agreed Conclusions on this critically important subject and also the failure to get Agreed Conclusions on the empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development and current challenges in 2012, this was in itself a major achievement. Such Agreed Conclusions, however, were only reached because key concerns including prostitution, sexual orientation and intimate partner relations were set aside.

The language on reproductive rights, “fulfilling reproductive rights, in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences, [as] a necessary condition to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women to enable them to enjoy all their human rights and fundamental freedoms, and to prevent and mitigate violence against women”, however goes beyond that used in the General Assembly Resolutions on Violence against Women in December 2012. In the final paragraph of the Agreed Conclusions, moreover “The Commission emphasizes that ending violence against women and girls is imperative, including for the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals … [and] the Commission strongly recommends that the realization of gender equality and empowerment of women be considered as a priority in the elaboration of the post-2015 development agenda.”

Note: The Agreed text of the Agreed Conclusions is not yet available and a link will be made to the document as soon as possible.