The 69th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69) marked a critical moment, thirty years after the monumental 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing, where governments vowed to invest in advancing gender equality and the empowerment of girls and women globally through the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. In March 2025, United Nations member states’ ministers and representatives of governments convened at CSW69, in New York, to reassert commitments made in Beijing and adopted the CSW69 Political Declaration. However, for many activists, feminists, and civil society advocates, CSW69 Political Declaration had shortfalls – particularly in its deliberate exclusion of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), which were boldly acknowledged in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.
This omission is not an insignificant oversight; it is a considerable failure that challenges the rights, health, and autonomy of girls and women worldwide. During a time of emboldened anti-rights movements and rollbacks on human rights and gender justice, the omission of SRHR from the CSW69 Political Declaration is dangerous, scary and very disappointing.
SRHR is a Core Human Right – Not a Footnote
SRHR is not an insignificant issue; it is at the bedrock of gender equality. Without access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services- including access to contraception, maternal healthcare, safe abortion, gender affirming healthcare, and sexuality education girls and women cannot exercise agency over their bodies or lives. Yet, the CSW69 Political Declaration is silent on these rights.
On one hand, the declaration celebrates “important progress in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls,” on the other hand, it does so at the expense of acknowledging the structural changes that will make this progress possible. SRHR is fundamental to that progress. By not affirming it, the declaration undermines decades of global promises and responsibilities by strengthening those who aim to deny girls and women these basic human rights.
This omission is particularly disturbing given that SRHR is intricately connected to other areas of life including education, economic participation, political representation, protection from violence, freedom of choice and bodily autonomy. Without the autonomy to make decisions about their reproductive lives and bodies, girls and women are denied equal access to all other opportunities. As a result, the declaration’s silence on SRHR communicates a reluctance to address the systemic root causes of gender inequality and intersecting inequalities.
The Threat to Health and Equality
The absence of SRHR in the declaration is not just symbolic – it has real, substantial and lasting consequences. Global data consistently reminds us that where SRHR services are restricted or inaccessible, girls and women suffer the most. Maternal mortality increases, unsafe abortions rise, HIV rates increase, and adolescent girls are more likely to be forced out of school because of early pregnancy and forced unions.
The declaration claims to affirm commitments to achieving gender equality by 2030, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, how can we achieve SDG 5 – gender equality and the empowerment of girls and women if we do not take seriously the importance of protecting SRHR? How do we fulfil SDG 3 on health and well-being when millions of women die or suffer preventable complications due to lack of reproductive care? And how do we fulfil SDG 10 aimed at reducing inequalities without addressing a critical driver of gendered inequalities – the inaccessibility of SRHR?
By refusing to reaffirm SRHR as a human right, the declaration regresses decades of work to combine health and gender justice. It also communicates to countries that they can persist in rolling back or ignore these rights with immunity, further threatening the lives and dignity of girls and women globally.
It Is A Dangerous Time for Silence
This is not just a missed opportunity. We are in a moment of polycrisis. We are witnesses to a disturbing rise in anti-rights movements globally, facing climate crises and multiple conflicts across the world and a crumbling multilateral system. Well-resourced, well-organised groups are forcibly working to roll back girls’, women’s, LGBTQI+ people’s safety and rights. These movements often start by targeting SRHR through disinformation, legal restrictions, and attacks on health providers and human rights defenders.
In this context, silence is not neutral. It is complicit. By not taking a clear and uncompromising stance in support of SRHR, the declaration warrants those who are actively working to deny our rights. It communicates that these rights are negotiable, optional, or secondary instead of central to human dignity and justice.
What we need now is courage, bold action(s), unyielding support and the will to protect our rights. We need governments to name SRHR explicitly, defend it unconditionally, fund it adequately and support activists and feminists who advocate for SRHR. We need leadership that pushes against the rising wave of anti-rights and anti-gender ideologies, and listens to feminist movements, human rights defenders, and the communities most affected by this violence.
Feminist Movements Are Watching and Responding
Despite the failure of the declaration, feminist movements remain determined. From the streets to the United Nations halls and in the communities we serve, we have been clear: gender equality without SRHR is a delusion, and delusion is not a solution!!!!. We will not accept limited rights or diluted commitments. We know that sustainable change is not possible in the face of vague political language. It needs bold, uncompromising action deep-rooted in justice and liberation for everyone.
Feminists across the Global South who have been leading this fight, advocating for access to abortion services, HIV prevention, treatment and care, comprehensive sexuality education, universal healthcare, maternity care, and decriminalisation of sex work. We know and understand that SRHR is not just about health. It’s about freedom, choice, power, and autonomy.
As we move forward, governments need to follow the lead of these movements and hear us. For the promises made in Beijing, Cairo, and at CSW69 to come to life, they need to go beyond just making commitments and plan to take bold, consistent action. They must name and protect SRHR in every forum, with laws, and allocate resources.
It Is Time To Walk The Talk
CSW69 should have been a moment to affirm and build on the Declaration and Platform for Action. Instead, we witnessed a disheartening pullback and pushback on human rights, which is a blow to us who are already facing unmitigated attacks from anti-rights forces. The silence on SRHR in the declaration is a betrayal of the principles of gender equality it claims to protect.
This is not the end of the story, though. Across the world, activists are working, resisting, fighting and pushing forward. We know that SRHR is non-negotiable, and we will not be silent or persuaded otherwise. We know that our lives, our bodies, our futures and the strides made by the feminists who came before us are worth fighting for. And we will continue to demand more, imagine and fight for our collective well-being and rights. Because anything less is a loss.
The time for watered-down commitments and empty promises is over. We demand that governments, institutions, and allies stand up and walk the talk for SRHR, justice, liberation and the full dignity and equality of every girl and woman.