CSW67 WRC Press Conference calls for Accessibility, Accountability & Transparency

On the last day of CSW67, the Women's Rights Caucus (WRC) held a virtual press conference. While the negotiations were still ongoing, in her opening remarks, Katherine Olivera (Fòs Feminista) expressed hope for an outcome, Agreed Conclusions, to be adopted at the end of the day. We now know she was right, although it took until 4 am the next morning.    
 
The press conference aimed to convey clear messages from feminist organizations from all over the world to the UN and its Member States. And to emphasize there will be nothing about us without us.  Accessibility, accountability and transparency proved to be a pressing matter for all the speakers at the press conference.  
 
Speeches 

 Joms Salvador - Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) 
Joms Salvador is a Programme Organising Committee member of the APWLD and Vice Chairperson of GABRIELA, the biggest grassroots organisation of women from the Philippines. Joms highlighted important issues that are not  sufficiently addressed in the CSW67 discourse. 

• Digital transformation and its impact on women and girls in the Philippines The rise of cyber criminalisation regulations and military technology and surveillance are cause for concern. These oppressive regulations are used to create conflict, underminde the freedom of assiociation and criminalize human rights defenders.
• Lack of accountability for digital security, safety and accountability If the internet was a country, it would be the 6th biggest electricity consumer. Most of the extraction of minerals used for digital technology are mined in the Global South while this mostly facilitates technological advancement in the Global North. There should be a clearer picture of the environmental footprint of digital infrastructure which poses a huge threat to our planet, first to the livelihoods of many of the island countries in the pacific and coastal areas of Asia. The intersection of climate change and technology is not adequately addressed.
• Big tech companies are not being held accountable for their part in the environmental footprint Their power allows them to manage the dissemination of information and consequently disinformation too. This often leads to infringement of user's privacy over the data they are publishing through their platforms. We need sound political power to face big tech companies.

Josefina Sabaté - Casa FUSA 
Josefina Sabaté is a popular educator, feminist, mother, teacher and researcher.  

Josefina expressed concern for the Agreed Conclusions not to go backwards. The final document should guarantee Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) as human rights. Many countries want to abolish SRHR and gender-based violence (GBV) from the document, and even though it is not the priority theme, we need to remind them that it is essential everywhere and every time. 

 
Yande Banda – Young Feminist Caucus 
Yande Banda is a member of the Global Adolescents task force of UN Women and  former youngest advisor of the Adolescent Girls Advisory Council for the Global Fund for Women. Yande spoke up about young people and accessibility of the CSW. She had a clear message: “the structural violence on visas is unacceptable”.  

The Global South is systematically excluded from the CSW. The exclusion of young people and adolescents is institutionalized, even though it is essential they can make it to New York and take part in the negotiations. These same young people and girls need the necessary capacity building to be able to actively take part in the CSW process. Meaningful engagement means asking how to best engage young people and what are the means to fund them to allow them to participate. 

Yanda further calls on the explicit mentioning of technology facilitated gender-based violence in the Agreed Conclusions.  

Slow progress is no progress, there is a need for acceleration. 

Rachel Kagoiya – FEMNET 
Rachel Kagoiya is FEMNET's Communications and Information Lead, developing communications strategies and creating knowledge products that contribute to increasing the visibility of African women's and girls’ voices and agency.  Rachel calls for the rotation of the venue of the CSW and asks us the question touching on the CSW67 main theme ánd the accessibility of the CSW: “whose knowledge and whose voices are being invisibilized?”  

She highlights:

• Only 5% of leadership positions in the technology sector are held bij women.
• The internet remains heavily monolingual - 60% of online content is in English. Knowledge production, most scholarly (including digital) publications are available only in English.
• On Wikipedia, only 10% of editors are women or non-binary, and only 20% of public knowledge on the platform is produced on or by people from the Global South.
• Africa contributes 1-2% to global knowledge production, yet 85% of research on Africa is conducted outside the continent.

Structural racism, capitalism, patriarchy, ageism embedded in historical colonialism further deepens inequality in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Decolonizing the internet calls for a dismantling of colonial structures of power. It calls on us to collectively demand from big tech companies to create a more just, equitable and safe internet for all. Not platforms that prioritize profits over people.  
 

Luiza Veado – Outright International 
Luiza Veado is Outright’s United Nations Program Officer and the convener of the LGBTI caucus. She published several academic papers on sexual orientation and gender identity.  
“We thought we would be done with it, but we continue to have that conversation”, Luiza points out in her speech talking abouut gender-based violence (GBV).  

She recommends the consistent use of technology facilitated GBV throughout the text in the paragraphs related to the theme. This is the most comprehensive in capturing the different forms of GBV that specifically are aggravated, amplified and facilitated by technology. It is important to recognise the continuum of violence (between online and offline space) as well as new and emerging forms of violence perpetrated through technology, which are ever evolving. 

The LGBTI Caucus supports the language of the Secretary-General report which comprehensively describes the phenomenon of technology facilitated GVBV and its impacts on women, girls, adolescents and queer, non-binary and other marginalised groups online and in the context of digitalization and technological advance.

There has been a lot of conversation on adding LGBTIQ populations in this year's CSW, considering the mention on the SG report to how this population is particularly attacked in digital spaces and through the usage of technology. However, the revised text that was still being discussed had no specific mention of LGBTIQ persons nor of those who suffer violence and discrimination due to their Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. 
 

Read the final press release here.

Read FEMNET's call to adopt a UN resolution to rotate the venue of the CSW.

By Fleur Stukje, WO=MEN