July 28, 2025
Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, Dr. Amanda Dale, Fellow, Human Rights Research and Education Centre, University of Ottawa, and John Humphry Centre for Peace and Human Rights welcome the adoption by consensus of the latest Canada-led UN Human Rights Council resolution on violence against women and girls (VAWG) A/HRC/RES/59/20 and its advancement of critical human rights standards related to gender equality.
Around the world, including here in Canada, women, girls, and gender-diverse people continue to experience widespread and escalating forms of violence. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about one in three women have experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime1. This resolution affirms the global standard that “VAWG” encompasses any act of gender-based violence that is rooted in discrimination, unequal power relations, gender stereotypes and harmful social norms.
While the Council has previously addressed VAWG, the emphasis has largely been on response and survivor support. We therefore strongly welcome this resolution’s focus on prevention through the fulfilment of economic, social and cultural rights, a crucial yet often under-addressed pillar in eliminating the root causes of gender-based violence.
The resolution, adopted at the 59th Session of the UN Human Rights Council in July 2025, recognizes that structural gendered inequalities, such as limited access to education, healthcare, housing, and decent work, contribute to the perpetuation of gender-based violence and that States have an obligation to consider these material conditions in their efforts to eliminate violence against women, girls and gender diverse people. The resolution further recognizes that entrenched systems of oppression, such as patriarchy, racism, classism, ableism, colonialism and others, intersect to exacerbate violations of economic, social and cultural rights leading to disproportionate risks of gender-based violence among marginalized groups.
The resolution calls upon States to: fulfill their obligations to ensure the full, equal and meaningful participation of women and girls in the development, implementation and monitoring of laws, policies and programmes to address gender- based violence; allocate sufficient resources to enable the equitable realization of rights to health, housing and education; integrate gendered analyses into urban and rural planning and infrastructure to create safer public spaces and public transportation; prioritize universal access to social protection; expand access to health services that respects each person’s dignity and autonomy; and, to ensure women’s economic security including through the recognition of care work.
Despite efforts from some States and anti-rights actors to weaken language on gender based violence, sexual and reproductive health and rights, the right to bodily autonomy and access to comprehensive sexuality education during the informal negotiations and through amendments, the adopted text unequivocally affirms that violence against women and girls is a manifestation of entrenched discrimination on the basis of gender and the human rights of women and girls include sexual and reproductive health and rights.
We remain deeply concerned by the efforts of some States and other actors to reject the gendered foundations of violence against women and girls and by extension, their emphasis on protectionist approaches that limit women’s, girls’ and gender diverse people’s autonomy, agency and dignity. Such an approach represents a retrogression in human rights standards by ignoring the structural causes of violence against women as well as the lived experiences of people subjected to gender-based violence.
While welcoming Canada’s leadership on this resolution, we regret that its spirit and content is undermined by the Canadian Government’s refusal to join a cross-regional statement supporting the International Criminal Court during the Council session and the forecasted reductions to Canada’s Ministry of Women and Gender Equality (WAGE). This Ministry has supported strong civil society mobilization to address gender based violence, however, without new budget allocations and meaningful engagement with feminist organizations, critical progress will be stalled. Such policy incoherence and selective application of human rights is contributing to the delegitimization of multilateralism, mistrust in democracy and the weakening of mechanisms necessary for the realization of human rights. We call on Canada to follow the lead of its own resolution and align its international commitments with domestic policy implementation, join the more than 50 other countries speaking out in support of the ICC, and invest in the feminist programs and organizations in Canada and around the world that are the backbone of gender equality, social progress and the defense of human rights. We look forward to working with policy makers and civil society organizations to see this resolution become a reality, and we urge Canada to strengthen the institutions that make this possible.