RLS–NYC at the Commission on the Status of Women #CSW60

For photos from this event, go here.

2015’s Sustainable Development Goals set an ambitious agenda to advance people’s welfare around the world. How does this agenda address the rights of women and girls? The 60th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW60), taking place from March 14 to 24, 2016, at the UN Headquarters in New York, is set to address these questions. This year’s theme is “Women’s empowerment and the link to sustainable development.”

The discussion about women’s empowerment through the SDGs and how to stop persistent violations of women’s rights is timely. Today, women are disproportionally affected by the global crisis of displacement, as our recent study by Miloon Kothari points out. Meanwhile, women in the U.S., one of the richest countries in the world, do not receive equal pay for equal work and are denied mandatory paid maternity leave. In the face of national governments’ failures to address the structural causes of inequality, there is an urgent need for unified political action.

At CSW60, international leaders and civil society activists will convene to evaluate progress on gender equality and to develop policies to promote women’s rights. In particular, this year’s session will evaluate the implementation of CSW57’s action points regarding the “elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls.”

For the third straight year, RLS–NYC will be at the CSW to support the voices and perspectives of women’s rights activists. We are co-organizing an official CSW Side Event and a Parallel Event.

Official Side Event:
Gender and the SDGs: the Outcome, the Processes, and the Prospects
Gender & Development Special Issue Launch, April 2015, In cooperation with UNRISD (United Nations Research Institute for Social Development),Gender & Development, and Oxfam

At this panel, the special issue’s editors and authors will present their views on the SDGs. Download the flyer here.
Speakers:
Valeria Esquivel, Research Co-ordinator, Gender and Development, UNRISD
Shahra Razavi, Chief, Research and Data Section, UN Women
Corina Rodriguez Enriquez, Development Alternatives with Women for a New era (DAWN)
Caroline Sweetman, Editor, Gender & Development
Jessica Woodroffe, Chair, UK, Gender and Development Network

Monday, March 14, 2016, 4:45 PM – 6:00 PM
United Nations General Assembly Building
Ex-Press Bar, Third Floor
UN Headquarters
1st Avenue between 42th and 46th Street
New York, NY 10017
View Map
UN ground pass required for access
With coffee, tea and light snacks

Parallel Event:
New Tools and Next Generation Strategies to Advance Women’s Human Rights
In cooperation with MADRE, Breakthrough, Wangki Tangni, and Association for Women in Development (AWID)

At the 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, the assertion that “women’s rights are human rights” transformed both the women’s and human rights movements. Today, facing novel global challenges and questions, the women’s movement needs new strategies to fight gender inequality. Join our speakers to discuss how we can reframe gender issues to yield stronger results, learn from other movements such as the environmental movement, and identify new spaces to advance women’s rights on the local and international level.

Speakers:
Yifat Susskind, Executive Director, MADRE
Charlotte Bunch, Founding Director and Senior Scholar, Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL)
Mallika Dutt, Founder and President, Breakthrough
Rose Cunningham, Founder and Director, Wangki Tangni
Anita Nayar, Regions Refocus

Wednesday, March 16, 2016, 8:30 – 10:00 AM
Thai Cultural Center, Suite L, Room 1
310 E 44th Street, New York, NY 10017
With simultaneous interpretation into Spanish
Free and open to the public. Registration here.
Download the flyer here.