In 2024, we deepened our work on the political economy of sexual rights and on linking the impacts of various global crises, the unequal power relations between the Global North and the Global South, and the harmful excesses of unbridled capitalism to the full realisation of rights for the global majority. For us, economic justice is central, addressing neoliberalism directly and how it impacts sexual rights, specifically targeting austerity, debt, sanctions, privatisation and financialisation. As we enter 2025, the SRI will continue this work, hoping to build power in and from the margins, highlighting the need for reform or transformation of current UN mechanisms and systems and critiquing the corporate capture of the UN.
As in previous years, we are witnessing a coordinated, systematic attack on sexual rights norms and standards. Conservative and regressive actors, both within and outside of the UN system, are working to erode rights in areas such as sex work, transgender and intersex rights, and reproductive justice. We are also seeing growing pressures from certain states to erase gender as a concept, reverting instead to outdated, binary sex-based language. These efforts are gaining momentum at the UN and in other multilateral spaces, often misleadingly framed as "gender-neutral" reforms, but they risk undermining the very principles of gender equality and sexual rights that are essential for advancing substantive equality and justice.
Last year, we intervened in key convening and organising spaces for sexual rights beyond the human rights system. We moderated a side event co-sponsored by Fòs Feminista, SRI and the Permanent Missions of Colombia and South Africa at CSW 68 on “The Impact of Unjust Global Economic Policies on Gender Equality and SRHRJ in the Global South”. This event aimed to explore the interrelationship between harmful macroeconomic policies and practices and sexual and reproductive rights and justice, which aligned with last year’s CSW theme.
In collaboration with NSWP, we hosted a panel on Decriminalising Sex Work at the AIDS 2024 conference. This conversation highlighted the need to end protectionist approaches to implementing public health initiatives and for affected communities to be involved in these interventions. Listen to some of the panellists' interventions at this event here, here, here, and here.
At the forum, with the #EmptyChairs campaign, we hosted a series of interconnected activities at the latest AWID Forum: a provocative performance-workshop challenging the current multilateral human rights system, an exhibition showcasing global activist perspectives on barriers to participation, and a panel discussion featuring social justice activists advocating for a decolonial, feminist approach to global governance and human rights.
Our panel on global governance cohosted with AWID and the #EmptyChairs campaign brought together people working in varied multilateral spaces and analysed the similarities and differences of dynamics between these various spaces. We also explored ways in which feminist and queer analysis need to confront cooption in this system and sites of resistance as well as avenues for organising for systemic change.
#EmptyChairs is a feminist campaign that seeks to transform the United Nations Human Rights System into the People’s Council, where ordinary people all over the world set the agenda and make decisions that are then supported and implemented by political leaders.
Read below for our highlights of 2024 and what’s ahead for 2025.
Our work at the Human Rights Council
In 2024, in collaboration with SRI partners and many other civil society organisations, we made more than 40 oral statements to the debates, panels and discussions of the Human Rights Council. These statements covered a range of issues, such as the occupation and genocide in Palestine, the role of the family and states’ obligations in regard to human rights, the right to development, the human rights economy and women’s rights, the right to health, access and participation of civil society to UN mechanisms, the rights of persons with disabilities and the rights of the child the to name a few.
In its resolution on human rights in the context of HIV and AIDS, the 56th session of the HRC marked the first time that the term “sexual and reproductive health and rights” was adopted by consensus in a globally negotiated document. This is a critical success in the decades-long struggle for the recognition of sexual and reproductive rights in multilateral processes. We also worked on influencing the language of resolutions concerning a broad range of rights interlinked with sexual rights. With other feminist and activist organisations, we were able to advocate for text promoting the end to racial discrimination, identifying menstrual poverty, sexual and reproductive health and rights and the elimination of domestic violence.
Last year, a global delegation of sex workers participated in an HRC session supported by the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) and SRI. The delegation successfully highlighted the years of work and advocacy by sex worker-led movements worldwide for the full decriminalisation of sex work, the right to bodily autonomy for all, and the need for the Human Rights Council to meaningfully listen to sex workers as rights holders. This was particularly evident in the statements delivered during the Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, where sex workers and allies emphasised the harms caused by the criminalisation of any aspect of sex work, its conflation with trafficking, which could lead to a retrogression of human rights related to sex work. They called for the full decriminalisation of sex work and respect for sex workers’ labour rights. Read more about the work of the delegation here.
Last year, we hosted 3 side events during the Human Rights Council sessions: Political Economy of Sexual Rights (see recording), Decriminalising Sex Work: A Human Rights Imperative (see our twitter highlights) and Feminist approaches to the right to development (watch the clips of the interventions of Ayuush Bat-Erdene and Karla Velasco on Instagram).
To coincide with International Safe Abortion Day, the Sexual Rights Initiative, in collaboration with many other civil society organisations, launched again a call in 2024 for a Joint Civil Society Statement on Abortion. The statement focused on linking reproductive justice and bodily autonomy to the right to development. This initiative builds on our previous joint statements on abortion to the Council these past 6 years and was signed this year by 367 organisations and 326 individuals.
Read our full round-ups of HRC 55, HRC 56 and HRC 57.
Special Procedures: Focus on Cultural Rights and participation in sports
In 2024, we provided input to thematic reports by the Special Rapporteur on cultural rights and the Independent Expert on international solidarity, and fed into various consultations and processes initiated by the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls, the Independent Expert on international solidarity and the Independent Expert on an international democratic and equitable order. We also made statements commenting on several Special Procedures reports at HRC 55, HRC 56 and HRC 57.
Our submission to the SR on cultural rights sought to inform her thematic report on the right to participate in sports. It advocates for an intersectional approach that examines the colonial, racist, patriarchal and capitalist underpinnings and root causes for violations of the right to participate in sports. This requires engaging with the enabling environment, material conditions and socio-economic rights necessary for the enjoyment of the rights to sports participation, leisure and rest, including with regard to reproductive labor. The submission also looks at the colonial past and present of competitive sports and the targeting of racialized athletes based on essentialist and racist conceptions of womanhood. Finally, it calls for analyzing the capitalist dimensions of human rights violations in the context of large sporting events and for human rights accountability for corporations and sporting bodies. Read the SR’s report here. SRI also endorsed a joint statement welcoming the SR’s report.
UPR: 15 Shadow Reports: 12 Countries
Last year, we collaborated with activists and organisations to submit shadow reports on a range of sexual rights issues to the Universal Periodic Review 47th, 48th and 49th sessions for Albania, Bhutan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Angola, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bolivia, Armenia, Kenya and Sweden.
Find our round-ups and reports here for UPR 45, UPR 46 and UPR 47.
Treaty Monitoring Bodies: Racial Discrimination & Health
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) adopted in August 2024 its General Recommendation No. 37 about racial discrimination in the enjoyment of the right to health. SRI has engaged throughout the process of the discussion of this GR and has submitted, with partners, inputs to the Committee.
In 2024 we also collaborated with activists and organisations on reports to different Committees. For the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), we collaborated on the review of Canada and Japan. For the Human Rights Committee (HRCttee), we supported partners on the List of issues prior to reporting for South Africa’s review. We have also collaborated with partners on the reviews of Ecuador and Peru at the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
Up next in 2025!
The Human Rights Council will continue its work throughout the year. SRI will continue coordinating and supporting advocacy efforts, including the #EmptyChairs Campaign, to defend and expand spaces within the UN system for feminist advocacy. This campaign critically engages with the impact of 'efficiency measures' and the geopolitical context on civil society participation and influence. Activities will encompass hosting dialogues, webinars, and various creative advocacy forms to share intersectional feminist analysis and recommendations.
In 2025, SRI will continue its work of advancing sexual rights in the UN human rights system. The 58th session of the Council will be held from February 24 to April 4 2025. We will again expand our work on the political economy of sexual rights at the Council by watching closely and preparing interventions for debates and discussions on economic, social and cultural rights, VAWG, child, early and forced marriage, maternal mortality, and access to medicines. We will also open spaces to hopefully think deeper on issues related to multilateralism and corporate capture at the Council.
We will carry on our work at the Special Procedures by providing input to relevant thematic reports, especially related to the political economy of sexual rights and civil society participation at the UN. Of note, we look forward to providing inputs to upcoming reports by the Special Rapporteur on freedom of peaceful assembly and association and to the Special Rapporteur on racism, among others. We will also continue to support activists and organizations interested in engaging with Special Procedures country visits and communications.
We will use the Universal Periodic Review to highlight how conflict, extractivism, neocolonialism, and other aspects of the political economy impact sexual rights. We will be watching closely the group sessions and adoptions for Angola, Bosnia Herzegovina, Bolivia, Kenya, Armenia, Sweden, Albania, Bhutan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia, all countries to which we have submitted alternatives reports in collaboration with our partners. Interested in partnering with us to produce a report for the UPR of your country? Contact [email protected].
SRI will also closely follow discussions, debates and opportunities for inputs into some treaty monitoring bodies such as CEDAW, CESCR and CERD. We will also work towards supporting partners on the implementation and use of CERD’s General Recommendation No. 37 on racism and the right to health, while also working to address its gaps.
We stand at a pivotal moment in history where the very foundations of global governance and human rights are under threat. The time has come to reclaim and revitalise international institutions, transforming them into powerful engines of public good and human rights protection. The current crisis of confidence in the multilateral system isn't just a challenge – it's an opportunity to reforge these institutions into more equitable, just, and accountable entities that can effectively tackle global crises and safeguard human dignity.
The moment is urgent: there is a pressing need to reinforce cross-movement solidarity and ensure that the UN human rights system remains fit for purpose. In 2025, SRI will continue to forge unbreakable links between sexual rights and tangible, material conditions, and in doing so create a new paradigm. We hope to advance our work on sexual rights by providing activists and advocates from the majority world with powerful, practical tools to drive change in their own communities and nations. We aim to lay the groundwork for a human rights framework that truly reflects the diverse needs and aspirations of all people to shape a more just and inclusive global future.