HRC 56: SRI statement to the annual full-day discussion on the human rights of women: Economic violence against women and girls

Annual full-day discussion on the human rights of women

Panel 1: Economic violence against women and girls

Friday 28 June 2024

Thank you, President.

AKAHATA makes this statement on behalf of the Sexual Rights Initiative.

Economic violence against women and girls, as with many other forms of gender-based violence, is rooted in patriarchal, racist, classist systems of oppression. In the last decades, structural conditions created by global capitalism and neoliberal policies, combined with those first mentioned, have added new dimensions, causes and consequences.

Growth in this economic model relies on failing to redistribute wealth and providing social assistance, privatisation, extractive forms of production and natural resources degradation,  in the Global South exploited by Northern countries, regressive taxation systems and unpaid domestic and care work provided mainly by women.

These economic measures and policies are not innocuous. They are themselves a form of gender-based violence. They also result in gender-based violence when they impact women's health and education, when they deprive women of their autonomy, when they kill women human rights defenders or when they devastate indigenous communities.

We call upon this Council, multilateral spaces and member States to urgently address and combat economic measures and dynamics such as corporate extractivism and profiteering, aid and loan conditionalities, sanctions, among others, that undoubtedly constitute violence.  

Thank you.