Panel on Integration of a Gender Perspective
Delegation of the United States of America
Human Rights Council 33rd Session
Geneva,
September 26, 2016
— As drafted —
Thank you Mr. President.
The United States welcomes this opportunity to discuss gender integration. We appreciate the panelists’ diversity of experience and thank them for their presentations and dedication.
Promoting gender equality, human rights, and the empowerment of women and girls is a top U.S. priority. At the U.S. Mission in Geneva, we promote gender integration and encourage others to do so as well through the Future She Deserves initiative, which aims to leverage Geneva-based institutional mechanisms and multilateral fora to improve opportunities for women and girls. The Future She Deserves focuses on ensuring adolescent girls’ access to health services, preventing and responding to gender-based violence, empowering women and girls economically, and promoting leadership opportunities and gender parity within the UN. We encourage all Member States to address these four pillars, which can advance the cause of gender integration and gender equality nationally, globally, and across the UN system.
In the last session of the Human Rights Council, the United States was proud to introduce with our Core Group a resolution on women’s right to a nationality. This resolution highlights the importance of eliminating discrimination against women in their ability to confer nationality to their spouses and children – a problem that persists in every region of the world. It also highlights how discrimination against women in nationality laws affects women and their families, increasing their vulnerability to human trafficking, arbitrary detention, and restrictions on movement. Over 100 countries co-sponsored this resolution and joined us in our efforts to promote women’s equal nationality rights.
Question: What role have women-led civil society organizations and female human rights defenders played in your work to integrate gender into HRC resolutions and to implement those resolutions in a gender-responsive manner? How can the Council ensure civil society actors are empowered in realizing the rights of women around the world?
Thank you.