US Stands Alone Against UN Women's Rights Conclusions as CSW70 Closes

The United States was the only country to vote against the agreed conclusions adopted by the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) at the close of its 70th session on March 19. The 37-to-1 vote, with six abstentions, broke a near seven-decade streak in which the commission's conclusions had always been adopted by consensus.

Washington objected to language on abortion rights, artificial intelligence regulation, and what the Trump administration has called "gender ideology." The US delegation also introduced a draft text seeking to narrow the definition of "gender" in UN documents to mean strictly "men and women" — a proposal the commission rejected after the European Union, led by Belgium, successfully moved a "no action motion" to block it from reaching a vote.

The CSW70 Showdown

The two-week conference, held at UN headquarters in New York, focused on ensuring access to justice for all women and girls, including eliminating discriminatory laws and addressing structural barriers. The agreed conclusions call for reviewing laws related to child marriage, family law, and property rights, and for stronger protections against violence toward women both online and offline.

Six countries — Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Mali, Mauritania, and Saudi Arabia — initially abstained from an earlier procedural vote, voicing support for some US objections. All six ultimately voted in favor of the final document.

The US also cast the lone vote against a separate resolution on women, girls, and HIV/AIDS, presented by South Africa on behalf of the Southern African Development Community. That measure passed 43 to 1.

UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous said in her closing remarks: "Without women's equal, meaningful participation, without their equal access to justice, to economic opportunity, to a life free from violence, without their leadership in governments, the private sector, in peace negotiations — our nations will not progress."

Reproductive Rights Battles in US States

Domestically, the fight over reproductive access continues on multiple fronts. In Ohio, state Republicans are advancing legislation that critics say defies a 2023 voter-approved constitutional amendment protecting reproductive freedom. Multiple Republican-led states are moving to shield crisis pregnancy centers from requirements to inform patients about abortion services or contraception, using model legislation that has already advanced in Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

Senator Josh Hawley has introduced legislation seeking to revoke FDA approval of mifepristone, the most commonly used medication for early pregnancy termination. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered a review of the drug after a paper by the Ethics and Public Policy Center — whose methodology reproductive health researchers have challenged — called its safety profile "alarming."

Virginia is also seeing a legal fight over an abortion rights ballot measure planned for November 2026, with a county supervisor filing a lawsuit to block it from appearing on the ballot.

Femicide Data Reveals Persistent Patterns

In Canada, the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability reports that 30 women and girls were violently killed in the first 10 weeks of 2026. The observatory's 2025 annual report documented 147 women and girls killed, marking the first decrease since 2019 after a sustained rise during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The accused in 34 percent of 2025 cases was a current or former intimate partner. Seventy-two percent of victims were killed in private locations — typically their own homes. Eighteen percent of male suspects in intimate partner femicides died by suicide.

"Since we started collecting data in 2018, it's 1,500 women," said Myrna Dawson, founder of the observatory and a University of Guelph sociology professor. "That is the tip of the iceberg."

In Northern Ireland, UK minister Jess Phillips noted that femicide rates there exceed those in "quite a lot of the world." In Belgium, a physician in Namur sparked legal debate after breaking patient confidentiality to alert authorities to a potential femicide — leading to the husband's conviction and a 45-month sentence.

World Water Day Links Gender and Water Access

Today, March 22, is World Water Day. The 2026 theme is "Water and Gender," with the slogan "Where water flows, equality grows." The UN campaign highlights that women and girls are the primary water collectors in many households worldwide, often sacrificing education and personal safety to secure this basic resource.

The Food and Agriculture Organization emphasizes structural barriers rural women face in accessing water for domestic use, irrigation, livestock, and economic activities. The theme connects water infrastructure gaps directly to gender inequality — a linkage that development organizations say remains underrecognized in policy discussions.

Equality Now Report Warns of Global Regression

Equality Now's latest "Words and Deeds" report, presented during CSW70, tracks laws that discriminate against women and girls across the world. The report finds that budgets for gender equality are being cut globally, and ministries dedicated to women's empowerment have been merged, marginalized, or dismantled in several countries.

The pattern is not confined to any single region. From the US withdrawal from gender consensus at the UN to budget cuts affecting women's ministries in multiple nations, the report describes what it calls "a perilous moment of global regression in women's rights."