Agenda | 2021
Beijing +25 consultative forumGeneration Equality: Realising Women’s Rights for an Equal Future
Abstract
abstract In order to measure progress with the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfa), countries have to report back to the United Nations (UN) Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) every five years. Country reports are compiled by national governments, but civil society plays an important role to expose discrepancies in country reports through shadow reports. Women’s organisations and other stakeholders in the struggle for gender justice therefore act as a corrective to official views of the state of gender equality/justice in countries. Ilitha Labantu, a South African women’s rights organisation, organised a South African consultative forum in 2020 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Beijing conference and reflect on what progress has still to be made, particularly foregrounding the younger generation of feminist leadership in 2020. An objective of the gathering was to provide a forum for women to share their experiences of the struggle for gender equality across generations and to make recommendations on the six action coalitions identified by the Beijing +25 UN Generation Equality campaign to catalyse and drive action and new commitment to gender equality. The consultative meeting was held in preparation for the sixty fourth session of the United Nation’s Convention on the Status of Women (UN CSW64), where civil society feedback and discussion were derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The reportback focusses on the meeting’s deliberations on youth recommendations on the action coalition themes: gender-based violence; economic justice and rights; bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive health and rights; feminist action for climate change; technology and innovation for gender equality; and feminist movements and leadership, that will include handing over of the reins to a younger generation of feminists. Recommendations included a greater space for the inclusion of a younger generation of feminists in the Beijing +25 processes through the use of modern digital technologies, a focus on intersectionality and tackling patriarchal attitudes that impede progress toward gender equality.