Women’s Rights

 

Women’s Rights

Every woman and girl is entitled to women’s rights. Women’s rights are human rights.

 

International Law

Eleanor Roosevelt holding poster of the UDHR, 1949. Image courtesy of FDR Presidential Library & Museum is unmodified and licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)

The United Nations enshrined fundamental human rights in 1948 in the UDHR. These include the right to:

  • Life
  • Bodily autonomy
  • Freedom from slavery
  • Recognition as a person before the law
  • Equality
  • Free movement within your country
  • Freedom to marry, with equal rights between spouses during marriage and dissolution
  • Property ownership
  • Access to work and equal pay for equal work
  • Education

 

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)

CEDAW (‘see-daw’) is often described as an international bill of rights for women. CEDAW defines what constitutes discrimination against women and creates an agenda for action to end such discrimination. CEDAW ensures women’s equal access to, and equal opportunities in, political and public life, including the right to vote and to stand for election, education, health, and equal employment opportunities. CEDAW has been used to improve women’s rights across the world.

Countries that have ratified CEDAW are legally bound to put its provisions into practice. Only six nations have not yet ratified CEDAW, including Iran, Somalia, Sudan, and the United States.

World Without Genocide advocated for passage of CEDAW at the municipal level:

  • Appleton, WI
  • Duluth, MN
  • Eden Prairie, MN
  • Edina, MN
  • Red Wing, MN
  • Richfield, MN
  • Paul, MN
  • Minneapolis, MN
  • Northfield, MN
  • Minnesota State Bar Association
  • Minnesota Nurse’s Association
  • Minnesota Chapter, American Association of University Women

Support is needed to pass CEDAW at the state and national levels.

 

Gender Inequality

Despite these international treaties, women and girls around the world and in the US face gender-based discrimination. Women and girls are disproportionately affected by lack of education access, lower pay, lack of representation in government, inadequate healthcare, and domestic and sexual violence.

  • Minnesota: 6,710 women were victims of rape or assault in 2022 in Minnesota, ​18 women a day.
  • US: A woman is assaulted or beaten every 9 seconds.​
  • US: A woman is raped every 2 minutes.
  • Worldwide: A woman or girl is a victim of femicide, being killed by a male partner or family member, every 6 minutes. 85,000 women worldwide were killed in femicides in 2023.

Women around the world are denied rights based on their gender:

  • Afghanistan: Many gender-based decrees target women, including restrictions on their ability to work, access education, be in public places like parks or gyms, speak in public, or access voting rights. Women suspected of violating these restrictions are arrested or killed.
  • Syria: Since 2011, over 52,000 women have been killed, detained, or are victims of sexual violence.
  • Iran: Women must conform to restrictive dress codes; laws relating to family, divorce, inheritance, and child custody privilege men; femicide is widespread; girls as young as 9 are legally married; the state limits what jobs women can hold; and schools emphasize that females must be subjugated to men.
  • Pakistan: Women are legally able to vote but some community leaders bar women from attending the polls due to patriarchal local customs.
  • United States: Child marriage is legal in 37 states and disproportionately affects girls; the gender pay gap provides women with only 82% of male counterpart salaries, and it is much less for Indigenous and women of color; women lack bodily autonomy and in many states are unable to access abortions, including for children conceived through rape or incest or where the mother’s life is endangered by pregnancy; the ability for women to engage in family planning through use of birth control is under threat; the rollback of DEI programs removes equal employment access for women; and the proposed SAVE Act would disproportionately disenfranchise women.

 

The future of women’s rights in the US and globally is at risk.

 

The Climate Crisis is Not Gender-Neutral

The climate crisis causes floods, droughts, extreme storms, food scarcity, water scarcity, conflict, poverty, and severe infrastructure damage. The UN calls the climate crisis a ‘threat multiplier’ for women and girls and other vulnerable populations.

A flood destroyed Nurun Nahar’s house in Jamalpur, Bangladesh in 2019, putting her and her children at risk. Image courtesy of UN Women/Mohammad Rakibul Hasan is unmodified and licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Women and girls are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis. They are often left behind or victimized in a climate catastrophe, and 80% of the people displaced by climate disasters are women, many of them Indigenous. Women are often sexually exploited where they seek shelter, they are the last to receive food, and they are often unable to find appropriate medical care.

Familial dysfunctions escalate during these times of crises, including rates of child marriage, the sale of women and girls into sex trafficking, child abandonment and abuse, and intimate partner violence.

When household food is scarce, females are the ones to suffer the most. This affects not only their immediate health, but also, for pregnant women and girls, the well-being of a fetus and the development of a newborn.

When there isn’t enough money for all the children to go to school, the girl children are the ones who are made to stay at home – disadvantaging the next generation as well, with more poverty, less food, and perhaps more abuse.

 

Our Work and the UN

Convention on the Status of Women (CSW)

CSW is an annual, two-week gathering of 9,000 people from around the world to address women’s economic and social equality, representation, freedom from violence, and bodily autonomy. It is held at UN headquarters in New York.

World Without Genocide, which has Special Consultative status with the United Nations, regularly participates at CSW meetings.

In 2025, we held two webinars at CSW:

  • Women at Risk in Genocide: Amplifying Danger with a UN Veto
  • Women and Ecocide: Victims of Environmental Destruction

We continue to engage with local and global leaders to address these issues.

 

Sustainable Development Goals SDGs

In 2015, UN Member States adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which aims for peace and prosperity across the globe. At the core of this Agenda are 17 SDGs.

At World Without Genocide, we seek to advance five SDGs, including SDG 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. We do this through public programming and advocacy to:

  • Ban child marriage
  • Support LGBTQ rights
  • Support gender equality: Title IX, ERA-MN, ERA, CEDAW
  • Support reproductive rights

 

 

 

Women’s rights are human rights.

Human rights are women’s rights.

 

 

This page was written by Rachel Hall Beecroft, 2025.