Noelene Nabulivou, DIVA for Equality, Fiji delivered the CSO Statement on behalf of the Asia and Pacific CSO Forum participants.
Excellencies, distinguished speakers, honourable members and delegates, colleagues and friends from Asia and the Pacific, all protocols observed.
Thank you for the opportunity to amplify the views of Asia-Pacific women-led human rights organisations, feminist groups, and social movements, to be deepened and nuanced through upcoming panels.
Across Asia and the Pacific, women and girls face significant obstacles in accessing justice. This is amid global polycrises, rising income inequality, war and conflict, democratic decline, climate change, and uneven digital access. These challenges undermine access to justice and weaken human rights norms and standards.
There is a rapid rollback of women’s and girls’ human rights, fuelled by globalised geopolitics and attempted corporate capture of development, bold fascism and authoritarianism, threats against multilateralism, and anti-gender movements. This weakens sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), increases gender-based violence, and places greater restrictions on the crucial work of civil society and social movements.
We see some States promoting submissive gender roles, narrowly defining family-focused policies and pronatalist agendas, legislative efforts to lower the legal age of marriage, a stalling of HIV and AIDS response, and attacks overall on gender justice and SRHR. We must stop this regression, together.
Further, the ‘UN@80’ initiative, ‘CSW Revitalisation Agenda’, and ‘UN Regional Reset’ create additional anxiety and complexities, as civil society groups face a lack of opportunity to participate. Resource constraints and safety considerations limit opportunities for effective advocacy at the CSW and ICPD. Many civil society groups from across Asia and the Pacific are unable to travel to CSW70. We call for State support for women advocates’ access to justice within the multilateral system, and adequate representation at UN processes.
All the while, many women in Asia and the Pacific face multiple barriers and compounded injustice including lack of access to food, water and sanitation, lack of education, health and land and housing; discriminatory legal frameworks, weak enforcement mechanisms, limited legal literacy and legal aid mechanisms, economic barriers, digital divides, climate induced loss and damage, colonialism, conflict and displacement, and more.
This theme of the 70th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70) represents an excellent opportunity to advance gender equality, women’s rights, and empowerment. Structural and everyday challenges of access to justice in law and in practice must be systematically addressed.
Firstly, we urge Asia and Pacific governments to call for an International Decade to Advance Access to Justice for Women and Girls from 2027 to 2036. We have global normative frameworks such as CEDAW, the Beijing Platform for Action, the ICPD, and others, as well as regional commitments such as the revitalised Pacific Leaders Gender Equality Declaration. We look forward to a similar gender justice declaration from leaders in Asia. States must be clear on political will and accountable for commitments to normative frameworks.
Second, issues of justice are not merely about access to courts or legal remedies; they are about dismantling systems of power that perpetuate inequality and can be deeply transformative. Structural and systemic barriers such as patriarchy, coloniality, heteronormativity, neoliberal capitalist economics, geopolitics, racism, geographic determinism, poverty, gender based violence, ableism, neurotypical bias, ageism, restrictive gender norms, and criminalisation of identity, all compound injustice.
Third, we call attention to interconnected structural barriers. Institutional and language barriers and biases prevent women from accessing justice. Impunity and judicial bias allow serious crimes to go unpunished, undermining trust in the legal system and denying justice. Socio-economic and geographic barriers persist, and the costs of legal representation, transportation, and court fees are prohibitive. Economic dependency silences women who fear retaliation, destitution, or imprisonment if reporting—especially LBTQ women, those living with HIV and AIDS, migrants, and women in informal care work or sex work. Women with disabilities from rural and remote locations suffer, as justice systems rarely provide transport and accommodation to attend court.
Whenever State systems cannot guarantee safety, protection, dignity, and meaningful remedies, women will rely on informal mechanisms, even when mechanisms are deeply flawed. Justice for women and girls must be safe, timely, and relational, with access to all basic needs, to peace and human security, an economy that delivers just development, and a healthy, clean environment and climate that supports and sustains every woman, every person, all other species, and this living Planet.
Thank you for your time. We look forward to the strongest agreed conclusions at the 70th UN Commission on the Status of Women.
Ends.