 Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch. This year's session of the United Nations Commission on Status of Women was recently held in New York. The UN CSW is a platform for delegates from different countries and organizations to come together and discuss the progress of issues relating to women's rights and gender equality. Today we are joined by Sanam Amin from the Asia-Pacific Forum on Women Law and Development to discuss this year's proceedings. Hi Sanam, thanks for joining us. Hi, thank you for having me. Firstly, can you tell us about the reports, various reports, which talked about how the United States is attempting to dilute the language of the outcome document and remove the words gender and replace it with women and girls instead, and is also against the use of language on reproductive rights and comprehensive sexual education. Can you tell us how successful the United States attempts were? So to answer your question regarding how successful they were, I think I should give a little bit of context about the Commission on the Status of Women itself, which is one of the oldest commissions under the United Nations. And in fact predates many of the core human rights conventions, including the Commission on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, or CDOL. So traditionally, this has been a very progressive space, and that means that a lot of conversations of topics relating to the issues that you mentioned, including reproductive rights, have taken place over the years. There are a lot of fallback positions, including for conservative and more religious groups that are a bit touchy about the subject. Now, the fact that we are stuck on the same agreements from 20, even 30 years ago is actually a problem, because you might from the outside think that, oh, we have at least a basic agreement on what provisions there should be for healthcare services that includes sexual and reproductive health and rights. But if we're not moving forward in this conversation after a generation, then we are actually not progressing in terms of women's rights. So that is essentially the problem with the CSW space right now. And what the US has succeeded in doing this year is really bullying across the room. Now, I won't specifically say the US is only responsible for this. What has actually happened is that the US government that, as we well know, is headed by the Conservative Party in power at the moment, appointed certain groups that I wouldn't even call civil society, including some groups that are considered hate groups within the United States, right-wing conservative groups that are completely against abortion, completely against comprehensive sexuality education, and are aligned with other groups, including with the Vatican and with other anti-abortion groups and so on. These are the groups that, since some of them are appointed to the US delegation and have strong support from the Vatican, which by the way is not even a UN member state, it's an observer state, they got together and they started this petition and this included methods of approaching the facilitator of the negotiations of CSW, including sharing her phone number and her email address and really barraging her personal number with calls and texts, specifically addressing that there shouldn't be any language on abortion, there shouldn't be any language on comprehensive sexuality and reproductive rights. And this is really, you know, problematic because the theme this time was social protection, public services and infrastructure and these are public services in particular should include healthcare and healthcare should include all of these elements. So I think in some ways if you look externally it looks like, oh, we've just maintained the standards of the past, but the fact that we're discussing a topic that should have gained ground and yet we got stuck because of the opposition from the US and a few small conservative groups is the problem here. So in that sense they were successful because they didn't let us go forward, they kept the stagnant. But you wouldn't say that we went backwards from where we were, we're still at the same point? Yes, I think what we were able to at least stop was moving backwards because somewhere in the middle of the process there was this proposal for a paragraph on how the family is the primary source of social protection, which if you think about it makes no sense whatsoever. The family does not pay you a pension, the family does not support you during times of unemployment. So these kind of ideas that actually it's the family that should be providing your fundamental support system and that's where the woman should be and the woman should be at home as a wife and a mother. These ideas were the ones that we were at least able to keep out. So we haven't moved back but it's a problem if in years and years of this work that we haven't moved at all. And focusing on this year's agenda which was to make social security and public services work for women, what were some of the specific directives given or which came in the final outcome document? And were these more focused on say public services and the state providing these services or were they more focused on individuals relying on private entities to get this sort of social security for women particularly to get social security and access to public services? So this again is an interesting question because this also was a space of contention and I speak directly of course about the public services. There was certain proposals about how private sector should be encouraged, should be providing services and so on and so forth. But I'm pleased to say that this space very strong pushback especially from trade union groups which along with feminist organizations have said that at the end of the day if you hand public services to the private sector this is harmful because it will not allow those services to remain universal, accessible and affordable for women. The fact of the matter is that women rely on public services more than men and when it comes to certain sectors for example water and sanitation there is no way that you can run that for profit. When you hand that over to the private sector and it's run for profit people are left out and they suffer and we have many documented examples of that around the world from Bolivia to Indonesia you name it. And there were reports that talked about how there are basically two kinds of oppositions two progressive agendas one is as we've discussed socially conservative or religious fundamentalist groups and the other is neoliberal market fundamentalist groups. So can you tell us about like in terms of the countries which are participating which countries aligned towards which agendas and which were more progressive in terms of approaching these issues? So I think there are interesting groupings depending on different issues. Now as far as the sexual and reproductive health and rights topics are the really regressive ones are the ones that I have mentioned the United States the Vatican and then there's a small grouping of certain countries such as St. Lucia a couple of countries from Africa that take a similar position and then there are some groups that maybe not don't have that angle around sexual and reproductive health per se but really want to focus on conservative values and what they call family values and when they push family values it's also their way of pushing out any recognition of LGBTQIA rights and those countries would include Bahrain, Malaysia a few other of their allies and friends who really don't want to have any sort of support or LGBTQIA rights in any way and that's why they really strongly try to push for the conservative family recognition. Now I'm pleased to say that there is one issue at least that there's only one opponent really in the room and that's climate change. Thankfully this is one issue that is recognized across the world that is an urgent issue that needs action. It's only the United States that even tries to deny that climate change exists. The difficulty is of course that not everybody is on the same page with how we need to act because global South countries that are bearing the brunt of the emissions that came from global North historically would say that polluter case principle which comes from Rio Earth Summit more than 20 years ago that's where the contentious but nobody is debating that climate change is urgent issue. Now as far as support of private sector this is really interesting we know that the privatization of goods and services is something that is pushed for by certain countries you know that if you privatize the health sector if you agree to trade an investment agreements that compromise your ability to produce generic medicines because you have a big pharmaceutical industry then that is actually going to challenge your economy as well as the human rights of your people. So this is interesting that there are lots of political splits along the way depending on different issues. The countries that really strongly support progressive language on women's sexual health and reproductive rights are mostly the Scandinavian countries with some support from Canada and a few other groups and then the Pacific islands are the ones that have been really strong about progressive language on climate change. They are the ones that two years ago insisted on a clause that addressed what we call the just transition of they said specifically of the work force so I think a lot of the women's movement and the climate movement have been talking about the just transition of the economy not just the workforce and that is an important push there because we need to really talk about how climate change is not just going to affect the people the agriculture and the migration that's going to be driven by disaster and rising sea levels. We also need to talk about how are we going to build a new energy sector a green energy sector that is just and fair and how can we retrain the workers in the fossil fuel industries to transition into that industry and so on. So those important conversations are being driven a lot by the Pacific countries. Can you also tell us about what kind of discussions took place on the impact of austerity measures and budget cuts of social services and public sector services on women and girls. What kind of impact do austerity measures have on women and girls? So I'm really pleased that at least one element of the outcome document this time specifically says that progress is undermined by budget cuts and austerity measures. So I think in like four or five years time we have finally moved to a global recognition that austerity is really terrible and any cuts to public spending is very damaging not just for women and girls but for really the working class and the working poor. So in that sense we have moved ahead a little bit but at the same time I think this is something that in terms of habits it's hard to move away from because over here we're talking state to state and with UN agencies present the actors that are not present in this space are the international finance institutions and those are the ones that actually push forward for the structural adjustment policies put forward the loans and we'll be the ones pushing for austerity measures in exchange for loans. So I think there has been increased agreement and understanding from some countries that this is a problem but they're not quite sure how to move forward especially the smaller countries with smaller economies that are much that find it much more challenging to stand up to international finance institutions. So I just said there is some progress here because we are recognizing austerity measures are bad and there is recognition of other sorts of gaps on and problems that exist but since this document is not actually legally binding then how effective do you think these discussions and the UN CSW as a whole is being to actually move these issues forward? Well I think this comes back to our understanding of hard law and soft law and the role that both of them play together hand in hand. Nothing coming out of the CSW which again one of the oldest commissions it was founded in 1947 so it's as old as India actually that's funny. It has done this every year and the outcomes are as you said not binding but it works as a guideline for policy so that it goes hand in hand with the existing binding regulations. I mentioned CEDAW for example and that's the interesting dynamic of CSW that many of the discussions have gone from CSW into other spaces and been taken forward as something stronger. And the historic example is of course CEDAW but even a lot of other guidance documents and policy documents have been based on the discussions that have come out of CSW. So that's the strength of that but I do see that the weakness here is that a lot of the time even when we have good developments coming out of the outcome document it is a challenge to come back to the national level and follow up with your governments and say that this is something you committed to how this is going to happen. And I think the strongest example of that is last year we actually had really a good outcome in terms of support of wide-ranging support more than ever before across the room for recognition of women human rights defenders, their work and the fact that they should be included in conversation but in a year's time that has actually translated to governments recognizing that they have that responsibility to do that and to act on that that I think we haven't seen yet. So that I think is the challenge and the weakness but I would say that let's not rule out something just because it's non-binding because at the end of the day there's something very powerful about consensus and the fact that all of these governments have come together to agree that at the very least austerity is bad or that there needs to be a just transition and so on and so forth. The fact that there is that consensus at least helps other actors such as civil society such as trade union movements to take it forward and say that you know what at least we have an agreement that this is the base and we can build on that and move forward. And finally you mentioned women's rights defenders so we and you said that there were discussions last year that they are important and need to be protected but we see a lot of right wing governments in a lot of countries with right wing governments have been increasing attacks on women human rights activists. So was there any explicit discussions on that in ways that it could be prevented? Not as much this year since it wasn't very tied to or at least governments and the UN agencies didn't actually understand as much how linked it is the fact that women who are defending land rights women who are fighting the setup of a dam and so on and so forth are also in a way playing a role as to the kind of public services the kind of energy that should be structured for the community. That conversation I'm afraid to go forward as much in the context of this theme this year but and you're right that there's really no stop to the attacks on defenders across the world. That has been a challenge but I think speaking also as my organization which is a founder and co-conveyor of the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition we also have to take a long view of this where you know a decade ago they wouldn't even acknowledge that there is such a thing as a defender or that we have a role. It's very tough right now to just be surrounded by attacks and arrests and judicial harassment and cases being filed against women who are really just fighting for their communities and their movements but at least it's a step forward that there is recognition that we need to do something about it. And I also think about this in the context of the fact that the Declaration on the Rights of Human Rights Defenders has reached its 20th anniversary last year and so there are conversations taking place not just in CSW but outside about what else can we do to strengthen this and to make this part of law, to make this part of our community conversations, to make this something that has a cultural shift as well because a lot of the things that we talk about are also about changing attitudes. It shouldn't be okay to vilify, attack or even troll online someone who is opposing a dam or a project that is going to displace millions. I'll stop there because I think there are so many myriad issues and yet I want to say that there is potential to move forward. Thank you Sanam, thank you so much for joining us today for this discussion and that's all the time we have for today. Thank you for watching People's Dispatch.