Special Procedures

This submission to the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance was sent in March 2025 in response to a call for input by the mandate to inform the report on this topic, which was presented to the Human Rights Council in June 2025. In this submission, SRI provided a critique of the trends and gaps observed over the recent years regarding steps taken to apply an intersectionality framework within the context of UN human rights bodies.

This joint civil society submission endorsed by SRI was submitted to the 30th Annual Meeting of Special Procedures in December 2024. It provides recommendations aimed at the institutional strengthening of the Special Procedures, including enhancing transparency, coordination, cooperation with all stakeholders, and civil society engagement.

In response to the Special Rapporteur’s call for inputs on racism and the right to health, SRI made a submission advocating for an analysis of racism and the right to health addressing both racism and colonialism as determinants of health and as structural violence.

This is a joint submission by Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights and members of its National Youth Advisory Board and the Sexual Rights Initiative to the UN Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls (DAWG).

In response to the Special Rapporteur’s call for inputs on violence and its impact on the right to health, SRI made a submission addressing violations of bodily autonomy and the operation of systems of oppression as structural violence

In response to the Special Rapporteur’s call for contributions, SRI made a submission locating the impact of COVID-19 on the right to sexual and reproductive health within a broader context of racial capitalism, patriarchy, colonialism, ableism and austerity.

In response to the Special Rapporteur’s call for inputs on housing discrimination and spatial segregation, SRI made a submission addressing the impact of discrimination based on gender and sexuality norms.

This joint submission in response to the questionnaire by the Special Rapporteur provides context to the analysis on laws on violence against women. As a critical aspect to understanding laws on rape and other forms of sexual violence, this submission locates penal laws within the larger structural paradigm that dictates and influences the enactment and implementation of these laws and policies. It provides critical analysis of the harms of carceral approaches or approaches that rely on punishment and incarceration, when addressing gender-based violence. It argues that the report of the Special Rapporteur is an opportunity to lay down clear frameworks on consent and to counter paternalistic and essentialist discourses.

SRI made this submission in response to a call for input by the Special Rapporteur on freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Clément Nyaletsossi Voule, to inform his thematic report focusing on the 10 years of the mandate.

This submission reviews bioethics and how it has related to the rights of persons with disabilities. It first highlights how bioethics constitutes its own authority and experts to have a say in the lives of persons with disabilities. Secondly it provides a brief overview of a global feminist approach to bioethics and its contributions to a critique of the field. After highlighting the contributions of women with disabilities to the so-called “bioethical discussions,” the submission recommends to move away from bioethics and adopt a human rights-based analysis.

In response to the Special Rapporteur’s call for input on the topic, SRI made a submission calling for domestic violence to continue being recognized as a form of gender-based violence that amounts to torture and/or degrading treatment. The submission outlines relevant human rights standards and challenges the public/private dichotomy that has historically underscored international human rights law.

Prepared in response to the call for inputs issued by the Special Rapporteur to review the 25 years of the mandate and current challenges, this submission uses the principles identified by the Special Rapporteur to discuss the following challenges to ending violence against women and girls: the increasing attention and resources directed towards engaging men and boys and the consequent impact on feminist organising; racist, misogynist and xenophobic discourse that seeks to undermine human rights norms and standards on gender based violence and women’s and girls’ rights more broadly; and finally the urgent need to move beyond individualizing experiences of gender based violence towards a focus on structural violence condoned or perpetrated by states.

Deprivation of liberty of women and girls by the State, institutions and families is often the result of the need to control women and girls, accompanied by the fear of sexuality, its expression and assertion.

In response to the Special Rapporteur’s call for input on nationalist populism, the submission makes the links between the resurgence of white supremacist, racist and xenophobic discourse in mainstream, right-wing and populist movements, related discriminatory laws and policies, and States’ complicity in furthering violence. It looks at the impact of racial discrimination in the area of sexuality and gender, and advocates for an intersectional approach to these issues.

In response to the Special Rapporteur’s call for input on the right to health, SRI made a submission focusing on the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of persons with disabilities. The submission challenges stereotypes surrounding sexuality and disability, outlines some of the common barriers to SRHR experienced by women and girls with disabilities, and advocates for an approach centered on autonomy.