This article reviews significant legal and political developments impacting women internationally in 2023. Highlighted areas of interest include the right to health, gender-based and sexual violence, sexual harassment and assault, human trafficking, and international criminal courts and tribunals.
In 2023, multiple international studies were released regarding women’s representation in the legal sphere and the subsequent impacts on economic, social, and cultural disruption of global events. Gendered stereotypes continue to dominate, shaping perceptions of women’s competency in leadership roles in legislative, judicial, governmental, and national affairs.
During 2023, Albania, Finland, Spain, Nicaragua, and Liechtenstein had the highest percentage of women cabinet members, hovering between sixty to sixty-seven percent. Among women serving in legislatures in 2023, the majority held committee positions related to “human rights, gender equality, and social affairs” including committees overseeing indigenous rights, youth and children affairs, and social inclusion and development. From 2022 to 2023, no change occurred to the percentage of legislatures presided over by women (22.8 percent).
In 2023, six states reached gender parity in their legislatures, where women make up at least 50 percent of representatives, up from 5 percent in 2022. As of October 2023, 129 countries have legislatures where women comprise less than thirty percent of elected representatives. Accounting for all legislative bodies, including both lower and upper political houses, the most recent data reflect an average of 26.7 percent of women filling seats in political representation globally. Rwanda still leads on the percentage of female legislators with 61.3 percent of seats filled by women in its lower house of parliament from the last election in 2018. This is partly because Rwanda’s electoral framework under the 2003 Constitution requires that at least thirty percent of seats be filled by women. During 2023, elections produced more gender parity, like Cuba’s 53.4 percent to 55.7 percent increase of representation by women in parliament after its March 2023 election. Legislative action such as Spain’s draft Equal Representation Law, which requires no less than forty percent of women fill political seats, and India’s passage of a thirty-three percent gender quota for parliamentary seats likewise reflected tangible progress towards equality.
In May 2023, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) met for its 85th session, reviewing eight state reports. CEDAW identified concerns with China’s report, such as the fact that women, “including women from ethnic minorities and women with disabilities, remain seriously underrepresented in legislative bodies.” This analysis also holds true for the majority of other states’ representation globally.
Women’s representation in local governmental bodies for 2023 is 35.47 percent, growing 1 percent from 2022. The forty states reporting figures in 2023 averaged 28.8 percent representation in local elected deliberative bodies.
For judicial leadership, little to no statistical data has been collected in recent years, reflecting a need for further research and updated data. There have been some notable developments in women’s representation, such as in June 2023, when Kao Meng-hsun became the first woman Chief Justice appointed by the Supreme Court of the Republic of China in Taiwan.
The World Bank’s Women, Business, and the Law reports that “women still have only three-quarters of the legal rights of men, and nearly 2.4 billion women of working age still do not have the same legal rights as men.” Further:
The global average Women, Business and the Law score is 77.1 out of 100 in 2022, only half a point higher than in 2021. Today, only 14 economies (Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden) score 100 on the index, meaning that women are on an equal legal standing with men in all of the areas measured (table ES.1). Nearly 90 million women of working age gained legal equality in the last decade. Yet, 2.4 billion women of working age do not have the same legal rights as men.
Alarmingly, the World Bank states that “progress toward equal treatment for women has fallen to its weakest pace in twenty years.”
In Southeast Asia, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC) held its twenty-fifth meeting in September 2022. The meeting focused on ASEAN’s efforts in its goal to end all forms of violence against women and children under the theme “Advancing the Implementation of International and Regional Frameworks on the Elimination of Violence Against Women.” In September, ASEAN and the U.S. issued a joint statement in furtherance of the ASEAN-US dialogue on gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Multilayered crises face the world today, like cost of living increases, pandemic and other health emergencies, the climate crisis, and stalled progress in closing the gender gap in most countries. The term “gender gap” refers to the difference between men and women as reflected in cultural, intellectual, social, political, and economic attitudes towards each respective gender and each gender’s attainment and achievement reflective of existing attitudes. The 2022 global gender gap closed by 68.1 percent, which is a 0.2 percent increase from 2021. While eighty-seven countries have worked to close their gender gap, fifty-eight countries have reversed their gender gap since 2021. With the current rate of progression, the World Economic Forum and the United Nations concluded it will take 132–300 years to close the gender gap entirely.
According to a report published by Human Rights Campaign Foundation, thirty-four nations recognize and legalize same-sex marriages, including, most recently, Estonia, where the Parliament enacted legislation legalizing same-sex marriage on June 23, 2023 (effective January 1, 2024). Of the thirty-four nations recognizing marriage equality, including same-sex marriage, twenty-three countries legalized same-sex marriage nationally through legislation. Ten countries legalized same-sex marriage through court decisions, and two countries enacted legislation legalizing same-sex marriage after court decisions, mandating that legislation was required.
On June 28, 2023, Nepal’s Supreme Court ordered that same-sex marriages be registered, despite legislation remaining in the nation’s Civil Code that limits marriage registration to unions between a man and a woman. Nepal is not included in the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s report.
On October 17, 2023, India’s Supreme Court declined to recognize same-sex marriage, concluding that the legislature, and not the courts, are the appropriate branch of government to make such a decision.
In Uganda, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that President Yoweri Museveni signed into law legislation titled “The Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023.” HRW reports that the legislation includes the death penalty for actions characterized in the statute as “aggravated homosexuality.”
The U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis on June 30, 2023, holding that the First Amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits the state of Colorado “from forcing a website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees.” This holding builds on the U.S. Supreme Court case law set out in Masterpiece Cakeshop. Ltd., v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, decided in 2018, which held similarly that a cakeshop could not be required to provide its baking and decorating services to a same-sex couple, relying upon the “free exercise” clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that over 108 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide until 2022, and that number is likely to increase in 2023 due to several humanitarian emergencies and ongoing conflicts. Women are reported to be more than half of displaced people, and when found in such situations, they have their access to health care—especially sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care—hindered.
Women refugees and internally displaced women suffer from gender-based discrimination, marginalisation, and sexual and gender-based violence; statistics indicate that one in five women refugees experiences some sort of sexual violence. In Sudan, there are reports of refugee women and girls being internally displaced and suffering gender-based violence and conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), In September 2023, the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission in Venezuela received information of sexual violence against women and girls perpetrated by the Bolivarian National Armed Forces agents at checkpoints.
Such acts result in women and girls experiencing unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. The lack of access to SRH might increase the risk of pregnancy due to the scarcity of contraception, overall medical complications, disabilities, and death. When displaced women and girls reach their countries of destination, they encounter issues regarding their documentation while trying to access healthcare facilities in their everyday circumstances. Such barriers raise concerns specifically for victims of CRSV, given that host countries impose legal barriers on access to SRH.
After the eruption of conflict, Ukrainian women who fled to Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia in search of refuge from the hostilities are having a hard time obtaining health care, and their only alternative is of returning to Ukraine temporarily to seek SRH, which can be costly, risky, and against time sensitive matters, such as SRH for CRSV victims.
In July 2023, Senior United Nations officials, regarding the increasing reports of gender-based violence in Sudan, called for an immediate end to gender-based violence, urged all parties to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law and human rights law, and to allow safe passage for survivors of conflict to access health care, including women and girls.
Maternal mortality is an important metric for the quality of healthcare systems and gender discrimination. According to a 2023 report on maternal mortality released by several United Nations agencies, including the World Health Organization, a woman dies during pregnancy or childbirth every two minutes. In Venezuela, due to the humanitarian emergency, SRH services for women have been debilitated, and by March 2023, there were contraceptive shortages as well as lack of appropriate obstetric health care for pregnant women. Venezuelan women are fleeing their country to find health care elsewhere, driven by the fear of dying in childbirth, among other reasons.
In Venezuela, maternal mortality at the national level has a rate of 124 deaths per 100,000 live births, and South Sudan has a rate of 1,223 deaths per 100,000 live births. Since the Taliban’s takeover in 2021, maternal deaths have increased in Afghanistan at a ratio of 620.40 deaths per 100,000 live births due to the incapacitation of the healthcare system, which used to be funded in part by international aid. Therefore, even though there are several treaties, such as CEDAW, that aim to protect maternal rights and women’s access to health care, the numbers of maternal deaths are still high.
In Ethiopia, for instance, 65 percent of women suffer from female genital mutilation (FGM), which can lead to complications during birth. The United Nations Populations Fund estimates that in 2023 nearly 4.3 million girls were at risk of FGM. July 2023 marked the twentieth anniversary of the Maputo Protocol, which explicitly prohibits FGM under Article 5 on the Elimination of Harmful Practices. Nevertheless, member States have a long way to go to protect women and girls. Statistics from 2023 reflect high prevalence of FGM against women and girls aged fifteen to forty-nine years among the following member States: Somalia (ninety-nine percent), Guinea (ninety-five percent), Djibouti (ninety-four percent), Mali (eighty-nine percent), Egypt & Sudan (eighty-seven percent), Eritrea & Sierra Leone (eighty-three percent), Burkina Faso (seventy-six percent), The Gambia (seventy-three percent), Mauritania (sixty-seven percent), and Ethiopia (sixty-five percent).
Also, the Brazilian Supreme Court opened a session in September 2023 to decide whether abortion up to the twelfth week of pregnancy will be decriminalized nationwide, as abortion is only permitted in cases of rape, evident risk to the mother’s life, or if the fetus has a brain malformation. Other types of abortion are criminalized under the Brazilian Criminal Code. The Supreme Court’s Chief at the time, Justice Rosa Weber, put the issue forward and voted in favor before she retired in October. Ten more justices have yet to vote, however, and there is not a set date for the hearing to proceed.
Gender-based violence is one of the most pervasive human rights violations, encompassing physical, sexual, mental, or economic harm as a result of one’s biological sex or gender identity. The UN initiative, UNITE to End Violence Against Women, raises awareness about violence against women and femicide. Approximately one in three women is subjected to physical or sexual intimate partner violence, or non-partner sexual violence, at least once in their lifetime, and less than forty percent of women who are victims of violence seek help.
The most significant development in the laws concerning sexual harassment at the workplace in the United States may be the continuing reconceptualization of “sexual harassment.” A broadly defined concept of “sex-based harassment” has gradually replaced the narrowly construed “sexual harassment” in state and federal laws. Most recently, “sex-based harassment” is incorporated in the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) proposed Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace. “Sex-based harassment” adopts an expanded definition of “sex,” which extends the meaning of “sex” in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to sexual orientation and gender identity, as the U.S. Supreme Court held in its 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County. “Sex-based harassment” broadens the types of prohibited discriminatory, hostile, or offensive actions based on sex. Sex-based harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature. Harassment based on sex includes non-sexual discriminatory or offensive conducts based on gender identity, sexual orientation, and other sex-related conditions. For example, repeated offensive comments on pregnancy, childbirth, or an employee’s decision on abortion or contraception create a hostile and offensive work environment and consequently constitute sex-based harassment.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) has continued its global campaign to promote the ratification of Convention No. 190 (C190), the world’s first international treaty to address violence and harassment in the world of work, including gender-based violence and harassment. C190 requires ratifying governments to enact laws and policies to prevent and address violence and harassment in the world of work.
As of November 2023, there are now thirty-six ratifications of C190: Albania, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Australia (will enter into force in June 2024), Bahamas, Barbados, Belgium (will enter into force in June 2024), Canada (entered into force in January 2024), Central African Republic, Chile (will enter into force in June 2024), Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji, France (will enter into force in April 2024), Germany (will enter into force in June 2024), Greece, Ireland (entered into force in January 2024), Italy, Lesotho (will enter into force in March 2024), Mauritius, Mexico, Namibia, Nigeria, North Macedonia (will enter into force in October 2024), Norway (will enter into force in October 2024), Panama, Papua New Guinea (will enter into force in September 2024), Peru, Rwanda (will enter into force in November 2024), San Marino, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Uganda (will enter into force in August 2024), the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and Uruguay.
Regionally, the European Union (E.U.) has recently adopted a draft decision calling on all E.U. member states to ratify C190 without delay. Moreover, the United States also recently announced in May 2023 a new partnership between the U.S. Department of Labor and the International Labour Organization to curb gender-based violence and harassment in the world of work. The partnership aims to end violence and harassment in the world of work in the U.S. by “uplifting the principles and promising practices featured in [C190].”
As noted previously, 2023 marked the twentieth anniversary of the Maputo Protocol. This Protocol guarantees “extensive rights to women,” including “the right to take part in the political processes, to social and political equality with men, improved autonomy in their reproductive health decisions, and an end to harmful traditional practices such as female genital mutilation,” along with other rights.
In November the Irish Minister for Justice introduced a new stand-alone offense for non-fatal strangulation and non-fatal suffocation. Minister of Justice Helen McEntee stated the new offense is intended to target “non-fatal strangulation, which can be a precursor to murder in domestic abuse situations.” Also introduced was a stand-alone offense for stalking, which the Minister determined is a common behavior in domestic abuse situations.
In the United States, Michigan passed a law banning any person convicted of a misdemeanor involving domestic violence from possessing, carrying, or distributing firearms. The law also expands the meaning of a “misdemeanor involving domestic violence” to include vulnerable adult abuse, willful and malicious destruction of another’s property or home, online stalking or harassment, and more.
Because of its scale, speed, and impact, online abuse and violence can quickly spread, making it difficult to stop. The United Nations marked November 25 as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women to more actively combat the issue.
Political violence remains one of many barriers to women pursuing or serving in political roles. For example, although Brazil recognized women’s political voting rights in 1932 and despite ongoing efforts to increase representation in political spheres, including the introduction of regulatory and advocacy measures, closing the political gender parity gap remains an uphill battle with politically gendered violence.
In Latin America, the 1994 Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women (Belém do Pará Convention) is the principal treaty for tackling harassment and other forms of violence against women. The Belém do Pará Convention has been ratified by all the Member States to the Organization of American States (OAS), with the exception of Canada, Cuba, and the U.S. Under the Belém do Pará Convention, the Follow-up Mechanism to the Belém do Pará Convention (MESECVI) monitors the implementation of the treaty by its parties.
In Europe, the 2011 Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention) is the principal instrument for addressing violence against women. Under the Istanbul Convention, the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO) monitors the implementation of the treaty by its parties.
According to the Harvard International Law Journal, human trafficking is one of the gravest human rights violations and affects every country of the world. With annual profit as high as $150 billion, it represents the world’s third largest and most profitable crime industry after illicit drug and arms trafficking. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Migration Agency, in 2016 alone, over forty million people were victims of “modern slavery.” To break it down, more than twenty-five million have been victims of forced labor, including forced labor exploitation, forced sexual exploitation of adults, commercial sexual exploitation of children, and state-imposed forced labor; in addition, over fifteen million people were victims of forced marriage. Of this forty million, the report estimates that 71 percent of victims of “modern slavery” are women and girls, and one in four victims is a child.
The most widely accepted definition of human trafficking is included in the 2003 UN Trafficking Protocol (Trafficking Protocol), adopted by 178 states. According to Article 3(a) of the Protocol, to constitute trafficking in persons, three basic elements need to be established: an action (“recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons”) by certain means (“threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person”) for the purpose of exploitation (which “includes at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs”).
Women (forty-nine percent) and girls (twenty-three percent) make up the majority of all reported human trafficking cases, including ninety-nine percent of victims of sex trafficking and fifty-eight percent of victims in all other commercial industries. The risk of human trafficking is heightened for women and girls in areas of extreme gender discrimination, gender-based violence, and conflict. Discriminatory labor laws limit professional options for many women and girls, making them more susceptible to traffickers who promise opportunities for a better life. High societal rates of gender-based violence can make it difficult for authorities to identify and stop traffickers who employ similar violence. Societies without rule of law and armed or extremist groups can easily target women and girls for forced marriage, sexual exploitation, and domestic servitude. Various actors capitalize on conflict to exploit adults and children regardless of gender, such as the self-proclaimed Islamic State, Nigeria’s Boko Haram, Central Africa’s Lord’s Resistance Army, and several governments involved in state-sponsored human trafficking. “Men (twenty-one percent) and boys (seven percent) also constitute a significant share of human trafficking victims, including the majority of those trafficked in male-dominated industries such as agriculture, construction, and manufacturing. Men and boys also make up the majority of victims of organ removal.”
According to the International Organization for Migration:
Climate change increases the risk of natural disasters and places a strain on livelihoods; it exacerbates poverty and can potentially cause situations of conflict and instability. These conditions, when combined with a mismatch between demand for labor and supply and the proliferation of unscrupulous recruitment agencies, increase high-risk behaviors and other negative coping strategies among affected populations. This may include resorting to migrant smugglers, which in turn makes migrants vulnerable to trafficking in persons (TiP) and associated forms of exploitation and abuse. The impact of climate change, however, is rarely considered as a potential contributor to human trafficking in global discussions or national level policy frameworks.
Trafficking in persons is modern-day slavery, involving victims who are forced, defrauded, or coerced into labor or sexual exploitation. The ILO, the UN agency charged with addressing labor standards, employment, and social protection issues, estimated in 2022 that 27.6 million people worldwide were victims of forced labor, bonded labor, forced child labor, sexual servitude, and involuntary servitude. In 2000, the US Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), most recently reauthorized in 2022 and took effect in January 2023, “which provides tools for the U.S. to combat trafficking in persons, both domestically and abroad.” One of the law’s key components is the creation of the U.S. Department of State’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report, which assesses the government response in some 185 countries with a significant number of victims trafficked across their borders who are recruited, harbored, transported, provided, or obtained for forced labor or sexual exploitation.
Fewer victims of trafficking in persons are being identified even as the COVID-19 pandemic and other crises are increasing vulnerabilities to exploitation, according to the latest Global Report on Trafficking in Persons published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The number of victims detected globally fell by eleven percent in 2020 from the previous year, driven by fewer detections in low- and medium-income countries. The pandemic, in addition to reducing opportunities for traffickers to operate, may have weakened law enforcement capacities to detect victims. The seventh UNODC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons covers 141 countries and provides an overview of patterns and flows of trafficking in persons at global, regional and national levels, based on trafficking cases detected between 2017 and 2021. The findings are further informed by analysis of 800 court case summaries and accompanied by detailed suggestions to policymakers to help formulate effective responses. Fewer cases of trafficking for sexual exploitation were detected during the pandemic as public spaces were closed and related restrictions may have pushed this form of trafficking into more concealed and less safe locations, making it harder to identify victims. Globally, the number of convictions for trafficking offenses also fell by twenty-seven percent in 2020 from the previous year—with sharper decreases registered in South Asia (fifty-six percent), Central America and the Caribbean (fifty-four percent) and South America (forty-six percent)—accelerating a longer-term trend registered by UNODC since 2017. Court case analysis featured in the report further shows that trafficking victims, when they are identified, escape from traffickers on their own and are in effect “self-rescued”; there are more cases of victims escaping and reporting to authorities on their own initiative (forty-one percent) than cases where victims were located by law enforcement (twenty-eight percent) or by members of the community and civil society (eleven percent).
The report also details how war and conflict offer opportunities for traffickers to exploit. It shows that the war in Ukraine is elevating trafficking risks for the displaced population. Most victims resulting from conflicts originate in and are trafficked to countries in Africa and the Middle East. Breaking down trafficking in persons statistics by region, the report shows higher levels of impunity in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Countries in these regions convict fewer traffickers and detect fewer victims than the rest of the world. At the same time, victims from these regions are identified in a wider range of destination countries than victims from other regions. The 2022 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons also examines court cases showing that female victims are subject to physical or extreme violence at hands of traffickers at a rate three times higher than males, and children are subjected almost twice as often as adults. At the same time, women investigated for trafficking in persons are also significantly more likely to be convicted than men. This suggests that the justice system may discriminate against women, and/or that the role of women in trafficking networks may increase the likelihood that they are convicted for the crime.
In June, the U.S. Department of State released the “2023 Trafficking in Persons Report.” Both governmental and non-governmental organizations have been engaged in combatting human trafficking in North America. Challenges persist in identifying victims, prosecuting traffickers, and providing comprehensive support services to survivors. It underscores the need for increased regional cooperation and resources to effectively address human trafficking in North America.
The Group of Experts on Action Against Human Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA) launched in 2023 its 12th General Report covering 2022. In this report, GRETA raised alarm on human trafficking risks amid Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, offering guidance and practical steps. It highlighted gaps in anti-trafficking measures, including low convictions and insufficient victim compensation access. In January, the UNODC released its 2022 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons. Globally, a decrease in detected victims and prosecution figures occurred for the first time in twenty years. Yet, Europe saw increased victim detections, especially in labor exploitation. Interestingly, in parts of Europe, sexual exploitation no longer ranks as the primary form of trafficking.
In May 2023, in an effort to combat migrant smuggling from the Middle East to Europe, UNODC held a three-day liaison visit of Iraqi criminal justice experts to the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol). UNODC held a further workshop in July of 2023 to address the issue of trafficking relating to organ removal.
As noted by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) trafficking in human beings remains a significant issue on the African continent. In July 2023, the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) held its World Day against Trafficking Persons 2023 in Ghana. This event was attended by the ECOWAS Commission (Economic Community of West African States) and its member states. The Regional Referral Mechanism for Victims of Trafficking was validated at the conference.
ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), China and UNODC met in September 2023 to address trafficking persons associated with casinos and scams. The policy document and commitments by regional actors focused on the trafficking of human beings by transnational criminal organizations. Currently, UNODC believes the trafficking in human beings for this type of forced criminal endeavor constitutes 10.2 percent of the total trafficking in human beings globally.
According to the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security’s 2023 Women, Peace and Security Index, the year 2022 remains “the deadliest in terms of battle-related deaths from armed conflict since 1994, the year of the Rwandan genocide, and approximately 600 million women lived near armed conflict.” Additionally, “2022 marked the eighth consecutive year that global military expenditure rose, hitting a record-breaking $2.2 trillion.”
In 2023, the UN Security Council convened “Women’s participation in international peace and security: from theory to practice” at its annual open debate on women peace and security. Underpinning the urgency for turning theory to practice is the staggering data on the impact of conflict on women and girls.
The UN Secretary General noted in his 2023 Women, Peace, and Security report that climate change, the need for gender sensitive climate finance, addressing misogyny in the context of authoritarianism, and violent conflict remain issues to monitor as they disproportionately impact women and girls.
Since 2000, the United Nations Security Council has adopted a total of ten resolutions on women, peace, and security (WPS) These measures serve as the international policy framework for WPS and articulate the obligations of international and national stakeholders and are binding for the enforcement of global peace and stability. The resolutions are important for facilitating the Council’s ability to address the impacts and prevalence of war, violent conflict, terrorism, and violent extremism, which all continue to ravage the lives of women and girls.
As of July 2023, 107 countries and territories have adopted dedicated National Action Plans (NAPs) on women, peace, and security. Chad, Morocco, Somalia, Sri Lanka and Uruguay launched their first action plans and several countries renewed expired plans.
The Office of the Prosecutor (OFP) of the International Criminal Court launched a new Policy on Gender-based Crimes (GBC) with the aim to strengthen and guide investigations and prosecutions of same, articulating OFP’s position that “essentially all crimes under the Rome Statute can involve forms of sexual, reproductive, or other gender-based violence regardless of whether they have traditionally been seen as such.” This new policy identifies OFP’s underlying principles of overcoming misconceptions and stereotypes, adopting an intersectional perspective, and taking a trauma-informed and survivor-centered approach in OFP’s work on GBC.
In the Case of Rodriguez Pacheco et al. v. Venezuela, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights declared Venezuela to be “internationally responsible” for violating the rights to a fair trial and judicial protection with regard to the rights of health and personal integrity and violating subsections b, f, and g of Article 7 of the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women. The violations stemmed from deficient judicial proceedings related to a complaint of medical malpractice and obstetric violence which occurred in a private hospital.
In April 2023, the European Court of Human Rights issued a Chamber judgment, finding no violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights in A.H. and Others v. Germany, a case in which German officials refused to record a transgender parent, whose child was conceived through the use of her sperm, as the child’s mother on the birth certificate as she had not given birth to her child. According to the court, and in line with the German legislature’s intent, the former gender and forename of a transgender parent must be indicated on a child’s birth certificate regardless of whether that parent’s gender reclassification became final before or after the child’s conception or birth.
In 2023, the Constitutional Court of Kyrgyzstan ruled that any Kyrgyz citizen over the age of sixteen can now choose a matronymic rather than a patronymic. The Kyrgyz Law “On Acts of Civil Status” was found unconstitutional and discriminatory for only allowing patronymic naming practices.
Julie King and Sandhya Taneja served as co-editors. The views expressed are attributed to the authors individually and do not represent the views of their respective organizations.
