Several members of CNEDA (The Christian Network to End Domestic Abuse) met during the Commission on the status of women last March in New-York at the UN. Here are some highlights of that meeting.

The theme of this year’s CSW was the thirtieth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995). It was an opportunity for member states and NGOs to take stock of the implementation of the recommendations and action plan adopted in Beijing 30 years ago.

First of all, a sad general observation: progress on women’s rights is in retreat everywhere: one in four countries in its annual report to the UN reports such backlashes. Even the Nordic European countries, far ahead on equality issues, are witnessing a decline and advance in masculinism, due to misinformation, polarization of debate and lack of space for dialogue between people with opposing positions.

At the opening session of the CSW, the UN Secretary-General spoke of “the poison of patriarchy, which is back and out for revenge”. He added: “We tell women to stay in their place, that they must know their place… I tell you that your place is here, everywhere!” He also said, “women’s rights are human rights!” One panelist reported on the success of a best-selling masculinist Tshirt: “your body, my choice!”

Then CSW keynote speech by Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women:

What has been done is not enough. What needs to be done can no longer be put off. From this, we have identified six key actions:

1. Putting technology at the service of equality for a digital revolution (250 million women still have no access to the Internet); Beware of the increase in cyber-violence: what is forbidden offline must also be forbidden online.
2. Eradication of poverty (today, nearly one in ten women lives in the most extreme forms of poverty. When women prosper, economies prosper).
3. Zero violence (1 in 3 women worldwide has suffered physical or sexual violence)
4. Redefine power structures to guarantee and equalize full decision-making power (inclusive governments are effective governments).
5. Peace and security (women account for less than 10% of peace negotiators worldwide).
6. Advance climate justice (256 million more women and girls risk becoming food insecure by 2050 if the climate crisis is not addressed. The climate crisis is not gender-blind).

What has been achieved in the 30 years since the historic Beijing Declaration?

On the one hand, the world is more equal than it was 30 years ago: the right to vote for women in many countries, the right to work, the number of women in parliaments has doubled (from 11 to 20%), the number of girls in school has never been so high, domestic violence has moved from the bedroom to the courtroom, and 88% of countries now have laws against such violence.

But on the other hand, the world is even more violent for women and girls than it was 30 years ago: in 2024, a quarter of all countries acknowledge backlashes in terms of rights; three quarters of the world’s population live in an undemocratic country; 600 million women live in a country at war.

One of the keys to achieving full equality is for men to start fighting harder for it too. Several events referred to “men as allies”. Feminism is not an ideology, it’s justice. Christian NGOs, who were also present, said: “Gender equality is not a gift to women, it’s the Gospel!

Shocking statistics:

• One in 2 young women aged 16 to 34 in the UK has experienced sexual harassment (school, work, street), and more and more medical consultations are reporting strangulation of very young girls by their boy-friend, due to the influence of porn (88% of porn content is violent). Child rape videos can even be ordered online. 96% of porn actresses in Sweden were sexually abused as children.
• 23 US states have no legislation against child marriage (which should really be called child rape).
•  According to a recent EU survey, 43% of Europeans believe that a woman’s place is in the home
• At the current rate, it would take another 63 years to eradicate “child marriages” (when an adult marries a 14-year-old girl)
• At the current rate, it would take 300 years to achieve real equality between women and men worldwide.
• In Germany, a woman dies of femicide every day
• 129 million girls in the world do not go to school at all
• Only 5% of all concert music played has been written by women, and only 3% of film music; yet women account for more than half of all music school students.

Heartbreaking testimonies from women in war-torn countries:

• Sudanese women victims of wartime rape; militias arrive in villages and threaten them with a choice: “rape or death”. In Sudan, mass suicides are committed by women who want to avoid this dilemma.
• Afghan women are living through what many at the UN call “gender apartheid”, a crime against humanity; women are eradicated from social space, forbidden from education. The number of “morality police” has increased considerably.
• Palestinian women recounting their own C-sections and the loss of their babies at birth due to lack of care; women and children account for 70% of Palestinian victims.
• Women in Myanmar, where women are raped every day.
• Ukrainian women: 11 million Ukrainians have left their homes, 7 million have left the country; increase in sexual violence (Russian soldiers and violence against these displaced populations).

Every morning, women from different Christian denominations and among them CNEDA members were meeting at the Un chapel to start the day together praying, singing and networking. During one of this morning worship, we did “the red chair” in different languages. 

CNEDA has run a workshop as a side-event on men as allies in the fight against DV. Click here to watch the session.

Personally I come back with many ideas and good networking with great contacts to carry on fighting for equality between men and women and against gender based violence, especially domestic violence within churches, all churches, in my country, in the world.

Valerie Duval-poujol