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The OHCHR also supported the Working Group on the Issue of Discrimination Against Women in Law and in Practice (WGDAW) in developing several conclusions aimed at supporting policy development in its thematic report on “Reasserting equality, countering rollbacks”, published in May 2018 (A/HRC/38/46). It concluded that the road to gender equality and the full realization of women’s and girls’ human right remains long and challenging. Women are scarcely represented in national and global political and economic decision-making bodies and are too often overrepresented in vulnerable employment and paid less than men, impeding their economic independence. They face pervasive violence, lack control over their bodies and lack autonomy, and are too often seen as sexualized objects. In all spheres of life, power and entitlement are still concentrated in the hands of men. Women facing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination experience inequality even more acutely. The continuing existence of direct and indirect discrimination, both visible and invisible, is the reason why women lag behind in nearly all human progress indicators. In the face of discrimination against women and one of its worst manifestations, gender-based violence, everyone has a duty to act. The international community must move forward on setting and implementing standards on gender equality to counter the alarming trends towards undermining human rights principles and jeopardizing the gains made in women’s right.
On 20 July 2018, CEDAW signed a framework of cooperation with the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict. Under this framework of cooperation, CEDAW and the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict seek to advance the rights of women and girls by combating conflict-related sexual violence and supporting the implementation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions on women, peace and security and CEDAW’s General Recommendation No. 30 (2013) on women in conflict prevention, conflict and post-conflict situations. Based on the framework of implementation, CEDAW and the SRSG-SVC have exchanged information on countries of concern that the two entities have been seized of under their respective mandates. In 2018 OHCHR supported the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, on her thematic report to the General Assembly on the gender dimension of trafficking in persons and on integrating a human rights- based approach to trafficking in persons in the women, peace and security agenda of the Security Council, where she strengthened the link between trafficking in persons and conflict-related sexual violence(A/73/171)