FAQ
The campaign aims to raise awareness and inspire collective action against the resurgence of attacks on women’s rights globally, including in intergovernmental negotiations. That is why it originates in Geneva. Agreed language is being removed or modified trying to reduce meaning, establish forms of control and codes of conducts that have immense consequences on women’s lives and dignity. The initiative seeks to address patriarchal practices in international diplomacy and advocate for systemic change to protect women’s agency, autonomy, and rights.
Started as a professional and activist conversation among a small group of women within the Geneva Global Health Hub (G2H2) and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, this feminist collective has to acknowledge that it comes from a position of privilege and comparative power when it comes to its expertise at the multilateral sphere of work. Yet, it has grown in numbers and intergenerational participation, while remaining open to include people who care to engage in response to the alarming resurgence of national populisms and autocratic leaderships around the world. Tapping on widespread public anxieties cannot legitimize the backlash on women’s bodies and rights. For the time being, G2H2 continues to serve as the facilitator within Geneva’s multilateral landscape.
The initiating group has been discussing for months on how to kick-off and design its initiative. The timing now coincides with an alarming increase in anti-women policies in countries, including within multilateral organizations. In Afghanistan, an unprecedented regime of “gender apartheid” compelled the ICC to issue an arrest warrant for Taliban leaders over gender-based persecution (23rd January). President Milei plans to abolish the figure of femicide from the Argentine penal code. The Iraqi Parliament has just passed a new law allowing children as young as nine years old to marry. According to a UN report published at the end of 2024, 70% of people killed in Gaza by the Israeli IDF are women. While technology has traditionally played a crucial role in the global pushback on gender equality and women’s rights, we are now witnessing tech oligarchs quickly aligning their infrastructures to the return of Donald Trump, bending rules to populist conservative biases, including on gender. Nearly half of the world’s population – 3.6 billion people – had key elections in 2024, but this was also the year that saw the slowest rate of growth in female representation for the last two decades; a negligible 0.03%, after having doubled between 1995 and 2020 worldwide.
As the regression makes its way, there has been a silent political regression happening in the UN fora throughout 2024, playing with words and removing agreed gender language. If you change the language, you change the way people live. The campaign aims to challenge these trends and influence policymakers ahead of key international events. The first one coming up is the 156th Executive Board of the WHO in Geneva (3-11 February 2025).
We deeply value and support intersectional rights, they are enshrined in the reality people live. Yet, our initiative focuses specifically on the escalating and coordinated attacks on women’s rights globally.. This approach does in no way diminish other struggles; rather, it addresses a targeted and pressing issue. By concentrating our efforts, we aim to amplify this specific crisis while remaining allies to broader gender needs and demands. Feminism has never been exclusive in its struggle to break the patriarchal monopoly. We stand in solidarity with all gender minorities and their struggles to attain a full spectrum of rights. Today’s political situation in several regions of the world, from the United States to Afghanistan, the war from Sudan to Gaza, specifically impacts women’s agency, reproductive health, and basic civil liberties. The focus on women’s rights is thus critical at this juncture.
We are acutely aware of this concern. In fact the saviorism of elite and often Western institutions is what we are challenging through this work. Our approach prioritizes not only collaboration with, but centering of grassroots feminist movements, and amplifies voices from affected communities. We are also not removed from these communities. In fact, among us are the women from the Global South and North who have personal experiences and lived stories of war, violence, sexual abuse, economic exclusions, political persecution, and so on. The initiative is rooted in respect, plurality, amity, and humility, aiming to create a platform for diverse experiences without imposing external narratives.
The launch in Geneva is our starting point, but right from the beginning the tools we have produced demonstrate that we do not plan to remain in the Geneva space only. We have produced a statement that has been translated into almost 30 languages. We want to speak to people – not only women – in their contexts and communities. Our vision extends globally, and more tools will be made available in the future to engage with women in diverse settings. Our outreach capacity will enable collaboration with community-based organizations, ensuring a wide-reaching and inclusive impact.
We demand the UN to answer this. The multilateral commitment of the UN system is crucial for advancing all human rights, hence including women’s rights,because the UN is the cradle of international law and diplomatic cooperation. Yet, its effectiveness is increasingly undermined by political resistance, financial disempowerment and pervasive corporate interests, increasingly making their way in the UN policy space. Global opposition, particularly (as we are seeing) from some wealthy nations and right-wing and authoritarian states, is weakening the UN’s ability to enforce its role. To remain viable, the UN must address its structural flaws and balance institutional power with grassroots movements to ensure gender rights are genuinely prioritized. This work is also not restricted to or contingent on UN’s efficacy alone. Our mission is not subservient to any walls of institutions and walkways of congresses. Like any other successful fight for rights, it breathes and will thrive in the wide open, on the streets, in communities, and surely in solidarity with other social movements.