Week 1 at the UN CSW70

By Elena Kerr

Week 1 at the UN CSW70

12/03/2026

CSW70 Parallel Event – Reconceptualising Justice at Work: Structural and Cultural Transformation

Today I attended this empowering event discussing what justice means at the workplace. The panellists discussed topics such as women’s experiences at the workplace, changes, industrial segregation, and action points for improvement and inclusion. The panel included the expert speakers Gillian Unsworth, Tamara Thermitus, Zarin Hainsworth, Alison Marshall, and Mary Darling. The speakers discussed access and exclusion as an important part of the conversation. Women are often expected to take on caring responsibilities at home, which can result in part time work or taking time off from work. Gillian raised the concept of sandwich caring when women have caring responsibilities with children, and as they grow older, their parents grow and may need assistance, and thereby women are often expected to take on another caring responsibility. In this conversation, Mary connected the unity in humanity to the spirituality of justice, where culture matters, to create opportunities for empowering voices. Alison added to this point that we must remember human rights in the workspace, the humanity of workers, which creates a common reference point with fairness in the process. Ageism is another issue for justice at the workspace for women, as older women experience ageism and lack of respect in the workplace, which can impact employment status. As well as lack of support from co-workers, for instance when going through menopause. In the discussion on justice and human rights, Tamara raised the question of who is the judge of the law, and how do they understand the relevant issue? This is important in the conversation as the way the judge understands the law, will affect the way in which laws are upheld.

This was overall an important event that raised relevant questions and discussions to justice for women in the workplace. It is also important to take away the action plans mentioned by Gillian, that the UK Government are pursuing legal obligation for companies to publish statistics such as gender pay gap. This will consist of a selection of 18 suggested topics, with a mandatory of 2 being publicised.

12/03/2026

CSW70 Parallel Event – Women’s Empowerment and Leadership: a Quantum Leap for Peace, Progress and Equality

Today I attended this inspiring event which consisted of an impressive and powerful panel of speakers. The panel included Martine Marandel, Dr Jungsook Kim, Marie-Claude Bertrand, Nicole Ameline, Irene Natividad, Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda and Begoña Lasagabaster. This event discussed the current status of women’s leadership in the world, as well as historical progress. Nicole Ameline, as a former member of the French Parliament, and a current member of the Advisory Committee of the UNHRC in Geneva, emphasised the importance of collaboration for parity. Nicole discussed how women are systematically underrepresented, and we therefore cannot speak of justice when women are absent. Therefore, we must recognise the role of women in decision making, and share the power, as a prerequisite for equality. With consideration of current backlash, there must be collaboration across all sectors to create a global push against backlash, and towards parity. Irene Natividad raised the qualities one must have as a leader, one must be an optimist and look beyond. Irene provided data on current female leaders in the world today, with only 14% of the world leaders being female. However, she flagged the importance of recognising the increase and progress from 1995, when there was only 4,9% of female leaders in the world. The importance of woman’s leadership was also presented though data and evidence that women perform better and response better during crisis, exemplified with Covid-19. Mental health, child poverty, and the environment become focus areas of improvement when women are in leadership. Irene provided this data to demonstrate how counting matters as we can see how things change. For instance, the data on the number of female boards of directors is of relevance as they are the ones who elect the CEO. Although Irene presented the improvements that have been made over the years, Begoña emphasised that we are still facing backlash. This through the increased sexual violence in schools and the rise of the manosphere, and therefore, in the conversation on justice, sustainability is key.

The event was closed by a powerful statement by Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, Deputy Executive Director of UN Women, recognising the resilience that has always existed in women’s movement, even before the creation of the UN and CEDAW, through the fight for liberation and demonstrating courage. Nyaradzayi underlined that we cannot speak of equality, peace, human rights, and development without justice. And that the notion of consensus must not be the new veto where you dilute until you have nothing, rather we must foster and encourage collaboration across all sectors.

12/03/2026

CSW70 Parallel Event – Justice, Protection, and Health Policies for Vulnerable Women and Girls

This event brought together expert speakers including nurse and health professionals, academics, clinicians, and advocates. The speakers discussed missing and murdered Indigenous women, non-state torture, forced child marriage, and domestic violence. My main take away from this event was the presentation by Dr Gloria Littlemouse. Dr Littlemouse is from the Lenape people and presented the case of missing and murdered Indigenous women. With 5712 missing people reported, only 116 were logged. In 2022, murder was the 3rd largest cause of death among young Indigenous women. For every missing Indigenous woman, they hang up a red dress which symbolises the spirit of this woman. When the wind blows through the dress, it illustrates that the spirit of this person is still there. They also wear a painted red hand over the mouth, representing the silence of the media and law enforcement, on the missing and murdered Indigenous women. One of the largest issues raised by Dr Littlemouse was human trafficking, a 150-billion-dollar industry. People are sold multiple times a day, hourly. This is a serious issue and must be addressed and tackled, in addition to the unresolved and unlogged cases of missing Indigenous women. Additionally, Dr Littlemouse raised the issue of domestic violence, of which 1,5 million American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced in their lifetime. However, Dr Littlemouse also underlined the importance within the Lenape people to be who you are, to accept and love everyone, and to protect the land. In this context, she mentioned the Indigenous Two-Spirit identities, which is referred to as the Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, Intersex, and Asexual (2SLGBTQIA+). This demonstrates the diversity and inclusion promoted and celebrated in the culture. Overall, this event included inspiring stories of empowerment through culture, raised important awareness of a crisis that needs justice, as well as emphasised the importance of love and acceptance.

13/03/2026

CSW70 Side Event: Breaking Biases, Building Equality

Today I attended this event organised by the BBVA Microfinance Foundation and the Permanent Mission of the Dominican Republic to the United Nations. This event discussed how legal, social, and cultural norms are major obstacles to achieving gender equality in political, economic, social, and family participation. Gender bias limits participation and social norms limit economic independence, specifically exemplified in Latin America. One of the major issues raised at this event was how women lack resources for shocks, and how to bounce back from a shock, exemplified with Covid-19. The panel presented how 80% of displaced people are women, and that over 40% of women are either unemployed or work in the informal sector. In this sense, poverty is reinforced by gender biases as women are expected to provide care responsibilities within families, which is unpaid work. Care work is disproportionately expected to be in the responsibilities of women, and when women dedicate more time to care work, they are at higher risk of poverty. It is therefore important to invest in strategic comprehensive policies that focus on gender. Women who have care responsibilities must be able to take time off from work. The panel also discussed how 1/10 people have gender biases. This must be deconstructed as gender equality benefits all humans, and men must therefore be allies. This event highlighted how women are needed across all sectors as well as men, not only in the fields following and reinforcing traditional societal norms. Inequalities are rooted in beliefs that exist in society, societal norms exclude women and limit women’s participation in the labour market. It is therefore important to take action across all sectors. This event underlined the importance that we need the private sector, local governance, and civil society to collaborate to break these biases to build equality. Overall, this event thereby calls for collective effort in deconstructing the gendered biases rooted in society, as well as the importance of financing policies for equality.