26 September 2016: At the UN Human Rights Council’s (HRC) annual discussion on addressing gender concerns in its work and mechanisms, panelists and participants discussed: eliminating gender-based discrimination in nationality; meeting the gender-specific needs of female offenders and prisoners; and learning from the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process to implement country-specific approaches to Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5) on gender, among other topics.

The 33rd HRC session convenes from 13-30 September 2016, in Geneva, Switzerland. In opening remarks to the gender discussion, Kate Gilmore, UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, emphasized the importance of gender integration for advancing human rights, as well as all aspects of prosperity, peace and development. She reported that a study of 850 resolutions adopted in the past ten years showed the proportion of resolutions integrating a gender perspective or focusing on women’s rights had risen from 7% (in 2006) to 59% (in 2015). She called on the international community to consider the differing impacts of conflict and crisis on women and men, and to turn their widespread condemnation of gender-based violence into concrete action.

Algeria highlighted the responsibility of States to prevent statelessness, and announced its reform of nationality law to allow the transmission of nationality through maternal descent, and to guarantee nationality to all children born in Algeria, including the children of single mothers. The Republic of Korea proposed that SDG 5 on gender could be effectively implemented through a country-specific approach, as has been done in the UPR process.

UPR Info, an NGO that seeks to promote and strengthen the UPR process through awareness raising, capacity building and connecting various actors, suggested that mid-term reporting in the UPR process should include mention of SDG implementation. UPR Info also called on all States to collect, disseminate and analyze disaggregated data to help monitor progress on gender-related issues.

Italy posed the question of how the HRC can accelerate its addressing of gender concerns within the wider framework of the SDGs. Pakistan queried how States can share best practices of implementation.

Juan Ernesto Méndez, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, noted the adoption of the UN Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders in 2010 as a crucial step in addressing the gender-specific needs of female offenders and prisoners. Other speakers called on the HRC to tackle issues of sexual coercion, forced pregnancy, female genital mutilation (FGM), child marriage and early marriage, and gender-based and sexual violence from a human rights perspective. [HRC Press Release] [HRC 33rd Session Web Page]