Women and Women's Rights

This post is part of the Council on Foreign Relations' blog series on women's leadership in peacebuilding and non-violent movements, in which CFR fellows, scholars, and practitioners highlight new security strategies. This post was authored by Habiba Sarabi, a member of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan negotiations team engaged in peace talks with the Taliban.

This post is part of the Council on Foreign Relations’ blog series on human trafficking, in which CFR fellows and other leading experts assess new approaches to improve U.S. and global efforts to curb trafficking and modern slavery. This post was authored by Laura Gauer Bermudez, director of evidence and learning at the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery; Yuki Lo, head of research and evaluation at Freedom Fund; and Jacqueline Joudo Larsen, chief operating officer and head of global research at Walk Free. Women and girls comprise an astonishing 71 percent of the estimated 40.3 million people living in modern slavery, and the problem may be getting worse. The deep roots of gender discrimination and the pandemic’s disproportionate social and economic harm on women is increasing their vulnerability and exploitation. Their risk of modern slavery is inextricably linked with gender inequality, as noted in Walk Free’s Stacked Odds report. If we are to address modern slavery at scale, we should then also confront the gender inequality and power imbalances that perpetuate it. One entry point is building the economic agency of women and girls. Significant evidence suggests that when women hold greater decision-making power and agency over their own economic resources, positive benefits reverberate across societies. These benefits are significant, helping to advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to prevent modern slavery. So what is economic agency, how does it relate to modern slavery, and what interventions should be prioritized to maximize gains?   Economic agency can be defined as having power and choice over how one earns, saves, manages, and spends his or her money—a seemingly simple concept but one that is not afforded to millions around the globe. For those who are victims of human trafficking, forced and bonded labor, forced marriage, and commercial sexual exploitation, the freedom to choose has been denied. Work is extracted involuntarily, debt bondage has appropriated ultimate control over a laborer, marriage is agreed upon without consent, and sex is a traded commodity directed by a third party. At the center of these scenarios are individuals whose agency has been strategically minimized, ensuring they have limited control over their circumstances, including their livelihood and earnings. The link between economic agency and modern slavery was highlighted in the United Nations University (UNU) recently released report Developing Freedom, which argues that an economic agency lens would help to bind modern slavery concerns into broader development agendas. This connection furthers the work of development economist, Amartya Sen, who argues that development should not be viewed solely through the lens of GDP, but should also be measured in opportunities and freedom of choice. In his book Development as Freedom, Sen argues for the use of economic, social, and political freedoms as indicators of successful development. In Sen’s vision, development does not come at the expense of people’s rights and freedoms; rather, these rights and freedoms are integral to development. Modern slavery is the explicit restriction of an individual’s rights and freedoms, and this restriction currently affects women and girls at a greater rate than men and boys. This is largely due to entrenched gender norms that continue to put women and girls in a position of diminished power. Discriminatory laws and social customs can prevent women from inheriting land and assets, opening bank accounts without a male signatory, accessing loans, holding identification documents, traveling freely, and working without spousal permission. This power dynamic affords women fewer opportunities for formal employment and channels them into unpaid or low-wage work, much of which is in unregulated or poorly regulated sectors, such as domestic work, residential care, apparel and textile factory labor, hospitality, and cleaning services, among others. Gender discrimination and lack of autonomy affect a girl from birth. In some communities, decisions about how long to stay in school, who to marry, and how to earn a livelihood are made for adolescent girls and young women, not by them. Based in a prejudiced belief that women have limited economic value, every decision made for her, across her life span, further limits her ability to gain economic independence (Fig.1). To disrupt this discriminatory system, we need to recognize and transform the power imbalances that devalue and exploit the contribution of women and girls to our economy and society. This may sound like a lofty goal, but there are specific gender-focused interventions that can improve the economic agency and broader autonomy of the world’s women and girls. These interventions can advance progress on the SDGs while simultaneously and substantially reducing modern slavery:  Remove legal and procedural barriers so that women and girls can claim due protection and entitlements, including an equal right to hold identification documents, own assets, and access basic healthcare and education. Lack of birth registration certificates and other identification documents often limit the ability of women and girls to access protective entitlements, such as cash assistance, vouchers, subsidies, and fee waivers. Access to social insurance and the formal financial system is often dependent upon these identification documents, making this a necessary first step to building the economic agency of women and girls and reducing their vulnerability. Transform social norms and establish role models to raise the aspiration of girls, broaden employment options for women, and increase their decision-making power. Non-profit organizations such as Promundo have established grassroots campaigns to rethink gender stereotypes and promote gender equality, tackling issues that include child marriage and commercial sexual exploitation. The private sector can also play a role in developing more diverse role models by showing women in non-traditional jobs, such as engineers and machine operators, as well as encouraging male employees to balance work with more caregiving duties. Expand financial inclusion efforts such as financial literacy, micro-savings, and access to credit to allow women greater independence and control over their financial health and futures. One billion women remain excluded from the formal financial system. While mobile money platforms decreased the number of unbanked individuals significantly over the past decade, there is still much work to be done to integrate women into the formal financial system, including by changing business rules that treat women as inherently “riskier” customers than men, providing universal access to mobile phones, and increasing representation of women working in financial institutions.  Improve conditions in female-dominated industries that rely on a chronically underpaid and precarious labor force, especially in the garment, domestic work, and adult entertainment industries. For example, government efforts to formalize an informal sector would grant women workers access to protections such as occupational safety and health regulations, minimum wage, and health care. Further, training and certification programs can upskill women into higher paying roles, while on-site childcare enables many women an opportunity for labor force participation. For migrant workers, products such as SafeStep provide women greater transparency and control in the recruitment and migration process while also establishing a mechanism for filing a grievance if one’s rights have been violated. Reform judicial systems that ignore the plight of female victims of exploitation, trivialize their testimonies, and deny women and girls’ access to fair compensation. Training of police officers can help undo biased norms that lead to victim blaming and affect their decision to report, file, and prosecute violations suffered by female victims. When prosecuting cases of sexual exploitation and forced marriage—where women and girls make up the majority of victims—special measures should be put in place to protect the identity and dignity of victims. Also, harms caused by sexual and psychological abuses, which can be difficult to quantify, should be factored into sentencing and compensation decisions. Women and girls, especially those with lived experiences of exploitation, should play a principal role in deciding how these interventions are delivered and not simply as advisors and participants. Inclusive monitoring mechanisms should also be in place so that women and girls can provide feedback, and if necessary, hold organizations to account if well-intended plans fail to materialize. Men and boys should also join as allies in these efforts, as they often perpetuate unhealthy norms and are also harmed by the restricted economic agency of women and girls, which is estimated to cost between 7.9 and 21.3 percent of GDP in low- and middle-income countries. By highlighting the linkages between ending modern slavery and the economic agency of women and girls, we hope to show that modern slavery is not simply a human rights or law enforcement issue. Having millions of women and girls whose labor is chronically undervalued and prone to exploitation is an impediment to economic growth and shared prosperity. Breaking the cycle of modern slavery requires collaboration between anti-trafficking and development actors and joint investment in the independence, freedoms, and opportunities of women and girls.

This post was authored by Population Council's Nicole Haberland and Timothy Abuya. Progress in girls’ education has been faltering for years. For decades, the global education system has not been educating the majority of its children adequately, largely because we have failed to connect how policies and programs can leverage data and evidence to reduce inequalities and get all children in school and learning. In low-income and lower middle-income countries, up to one in five children are not in primary school—including six million more girls than boys. And globally, more than half—56 percent—of children are unable to meet minimum proficiency standards in reading and math, with rates far higher—90 percent—for girls in sub-Saharan Africa.  Today, however, the COVID-19 pandemic is amplifying this crisis. While the full educational repercussions of the pandemic are just beginning to unfold, an additional eleven million primary and secondary students are projected to drop out of school due to COVID-19. Even before the pandemic, 53 percent of primary students suffered from learning poverty—either not in school or below the minimum proficiency level in reading—but the COVID-19 pandemic is projected to drive an additional 10 percent into learning poverty. COVID-19’s impact is not equally distributed. Instead, it is hitting those who are already at greater disadvantage hardest, including girls living in poverty. More than ever, we need to make sure investments are effective, smartly targeted, and driven by a lens of equity and justice. To ensure that the millions of girls at risk of dropping out are back in school and learning, we need better alignment and coordination among researchers, practitioners, advocates, donors, and policymakers. That’s why the GIRL Center created the 2021 Girls’ Education Roadmap. In a first-of-its-kind report, Population Council researchers reviewed who’s doing what, what’s working where, and what the biggest needs facing girls are. The Roadmap links education indicators with other structural drivers, because barriers to schooling, especially for girls, often lie outside the education sector. For instance, we examine low levels of attainment and literacy as they intersect with poverty, violence, and child marriage. The Roadmap brings together three bodies of data that are critical to pave the way forward—the needs, evidence, and practice in global girls’ education. Our evaluation of needs, evidence, and practice finds a diverse and vibrant ecosystem of programs and research, but also discloses striking gaps. For example, although child marriage and early childbearing play a direct role in school dropout for girls, and often occur closely together, only 22 percent of mapped gender and education programs focus on one or both of these barriers. Similarly, evidence is lacking on some of the most commonly used approaches in the field, often because we have not conducted research in settings with highest need, or not designed studies to tease out whether and how these approaches can be most effective for improving education—especially learning—outcomes. COVID-19 did not create the learning crisis, nor did it create inequality in access to education, but it has laid bare the failures of the education system to address gender-related barriers to schooling and challenges us, urgently, to do better. Doing so requires critical examination of these gaps and greater accountability for addressing them. We need to ensure that government and donor policies are guided by rigorous evidence on what works, for whom, and in which settings. While our goals are shared, this is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. As schools shuttered by COVID-19 reopen, children need to get back to school and build back their literacy and numeracy skills. The Population Council’s ongoing COVID-19 studies show how the pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing vulnerabilities and disparities that are distinct from one setting to the next. Before school closures in Kenya, over half of adolescents (59 percent) had received at least one meal a day at school. Due to COVID-19, three out of four adolescents in most study sites reported skipping meals: 78 percent in Nairobi, 79 percent in Kisumu, 76 percent in Kilifi, and 55 percent in Wajir. As Kenyan schools re-open, 16 percent of girls and 8 percent of boys did not re-enroll. The main reasons for drop out are school fees (reported by 47 percent of girls and 21 percent of boys) followed by pregnancy (10 percent) for girls and work (14 percent) for boys. What can we do to prevent declines in learning and exacerbation of disparities? We know that addressing financial barriers to schooling through tuition and fee waivers or through cash transfers increases enrollment and attainment, as does providing food in school or take-home rations. These proven interventions map directly on the needs we see in Kenya and elsewhere. Similarly, in every country across the globe, we are all asking how we can support teachers to meet the learning needs of returning students—needs that are likely more diverse than ever given uneven and sometimes non-existent remote learning during the pandemic. For example, while most Kenyan girls reported learning from home, the most common method reported (57 percent) was reading books not provided by school. These needs—and solutions—differ by gender, setting, and socioeconomic status, but again, we know a bit already about what can address learning loss. For example, matching teaching to students’ learning levels and providing academic support boost learning outcomes. We don’t need to guess what might work. The pandemic has laid bare the enormity of the global learning crisis. It's on us to step up and fix it.

This post was coauthored by Melanne Verveer, executive director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and former U.S. ambassador for global women’s issues, and Lucina Di Meco, cofounder of #ShePersisted Global Initiative. Addressing the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in March, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris remarked that “the status of women is the status of democracy” and provided a strong message to the international community about America’s renewed commitment to gender equality and human rights. Twenty-five years after Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton’s historic “women’s rights are human rights” speech in Beijing, important progress has been made in terms of women’s representation in decision-making, but new challenges to women’s rights and democracy have risen and remain largely unaddressed. Technological innovations, initially celebrated for their democratizing potential, have come under increasing scrutiny for their harmful effects on democracy, social cohesion, and women’s rights. While being part of a global online community has helped female activists rally against repressive governments, raise awareness on injustices, and call out sexual abuse through global movements like #MeToo, #NiUnaMenos and the Women’s March, women’s rights activists and some of Silicon Valley’s most astute critics are increasingly calling out social media platforms for enabling sexism, misinformation, and violence to thrive, concealed by premises of freedom of speech and inclusivity. Although online harassment against women manifests across the globe, it is particularly pernicious in the Global South. According to a recent analysis from the Economist Intelligence Unit, over 90 percent of the women interviewed in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East experienced online attacks—with misinformation and defamation as the most common tactics. Women in politics and journalists, particularly women of color, have experienced relentless, overwhelming volumes of online abuse, threats, and vicious gendered disinformation campaigns, framing them as untrustworthy, unintelligent, too emotional, or sexual. In the United States, a coordinated campaign of disinformation and harassment was at work against then-Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris throughout the 2020 election cycle, disseminating lies about her record as a prosecutor and claiming she used sex to gain power—per the oldest, tritest tune in the misogyny playbook. What happened to Harris is not an exception—it is the norm, as large social media companies often do not grant public figures with the same (already very small) level of protection from abuse granted to other citizens. Loopholes in platform guidelines have allowed some authoritarian world leaders to use social media to “deceive the public or harass opponents despite being alerted to evidence of the wrongdoing." While most women restrict their online activity as a result of social media’s toxicity, silence does not grant protection, as First Lady of Namibia Monica Geingos stated in a powerful video released on International Women’s Day: “When there was a clear social media campaign of anonymous WhatsApp messages specifically targeting me in the most disgusting ways, and I was told not to respond but to ignore and I did. But it was a mistake, your silence will not protect you; the insults just got worse and the lies became a lot.” The consequences are far-reaching. The disproportionate and often strategic targeting of women politicians and activists discourages women from running for office, pushes them out of politics, or leads them to self-censor and disengage from the political discourse in ways that harm their effectiveness. The psychological toll on them and their families is incommensurable. While sexist attitudes are integral to understanding violent extremism and political violence, they are just a part of the story. Research has shown that women’s political leadership often represents a challenge to entrenched illiberal and autocratic political elites, disrupting what are often male-dominated political networks that allow corruption and abuse of power to flourish. As women have been among the most outspoken critics of populist authoritarian political leaders in many countries, state-led gendered disinformation campaigns have been used to silence and deter them, stifling their calls for better governance. Vladimir Putin in Russia, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Viktor Orban in Hungary, Narendra Modi in India, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey are just some of many leaders who have used gendered disinformation campaigns to attack political opponents and erode liberal values and democratic principles all together. Building on sexist narratives and characterized by malign intent and coordination, gendered disinformation has also been employed by Russia to exercise influence and undermine foreign elections. The targeting of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, and, more recently, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in Belarus and Svitlana Zalishchuk in Ukraine are prominent examples. These types of attacks do not only represent a threat to the women they target. Weaponized by malign foreign and domestic actors, these attacks threaten democratic institutions and have important ramifications for global peace and security and the broader human rights system. Yet while authoritarian leaders have heavily invested in troll factories that cynically take advantage of a technology that is particularly good at spreading misogyny and lies, female politicians and activists have largely been left to fend for themselves in an online world that is increasingly toxic and violent. America has a crucial role to play in promoting a new digital social contract that upholds  democratic values and promotes women’s rights, through a three-pronged strategy. First, we need better standards for digital platforms that take into account the real-life harms and abuses that women face and to proactively address them from a product design and risk assessment perspective—as opposed to content moderation only. Convening the National Task Force on Online Harassment and Abuse, proposed by President Joe Biden on the campaign trail, will be an important milestone in that direction. Second, we must make sure that women leaders and activists are deeply involved in the conversations on establishing new internet and social media standards and regulations, and that their unique perspectives are reflected in key fora like the Summit for Democracy. Similar to how women’s participation in peace negotiations is essential for successful outcomes, women’s leadership in designing a new digital social contract between tech companies, governments, and citizens will be key in building an online world that works for everyone. Third, we must buttress women in politics and journalism, particularly those who are working in fragile democracies and often become targets of vicious state-sponsored disinformation and hate campaigns as a result of their engagement, such as Maria Ressa in the Philippines. Women working in politics and journalism must be provided with the tools, information, and the support network they need to respond to gendered disinformation campaigns. In many fragile democracies, women are the beacons of liberal values. Ensuring that the internet is not used as a tool to defame, silence, threaten and de-platform them must be a priority for anyone who seeks to advance democracy, peace, and security.

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post covers April 17 to April 30.

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post covers April 10 to April 16.

New data from CFR’s Women’s Power Index shows that in countries such as the United States, Belgium, and Lithuania, more women are in power than ever before.

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post covers April 3 to April 9.

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post covers March 27 to April 2. 

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post covers March 13 to March 26.

Including the SDF-held Northeast in the UN peace talks would be a way to accomplish both.

Latin America and the Caribbean remains the most violent region in the world. Overwhelmed police and military forces stand to improve their effectiveness and accountability by unleashing a secret weapon: more female recruits.

This post was authored by Wale Osofisan, senior director, governance technical unit at the International Rescue Committee. When we analyze leadership in the humanitarian sector, we often see images of mostly white men, a few white women, and, if one looks hard enough, one may be lucky to spot a few black and brown men and women working within western cities such as New York, London, Paris, Geneva, or Washington, DC. This is not exclusive to the aid sector. As of 2020, a review of FTSE 250 companies found that 69 percent have no ethnic diversity on their boards. These are the people who have the privilege of making decisions that affect millions of people around the world, particularly those who are seen as living “over there,” in conflict and crisis-affected countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Power and how we use it are central to our ability to enact meaningful and lasting change, irrespective of where a person may live. Yet, we often see examples of decisions affecting people thousands of miles away, with little to no input from the people these decisions are meant to serve, especially women and girls who are disproportionately impacted by crises. It is no secret that decision-making powers in the international aid sector mostly sit in western capitals. This is understandable to the extent that resources from richer countries to poorer countries come from a combination of individual donors, taxpayers through their aid institutions, and shareholders in the case of private sector donors. However, the connection between the individual donors, taxpayers, and shareholders to the clients meant to receive these resources is either non-existent or, at best, cosmetic in nature. What will it look like for taxpayers in a donor country to develop a relationship with refugees and internally displaced persons thousands of miles apart? What does it mean for refugees and internally displaced people to have power? These are questions not easily answered in the humanitarian sector. When we think about the power of a voter to choose and remove their leaders, we think of their ballot. When we think about a consumer, we think of their wallet and their choice to purchase an item. What the voter and consumer have in common is choice and voice. Refugees and internally displaced persons don’t have the same type of power. Some are recipients of cash, which in theory should accord them the freedom to spend as they wish, but often there are conditions attached to what they can purchase with this money. While refugees and internationally displaced persons can try to make their voices heard through project suggestion boxes and complaint and grievance mechanisms, they don’t have the power to ensure there are consequences if they are not satisfied with donor services, or if donors do not keep their promises. At the International Rescue Committee, where I lead our work in governance programming, we measure our success in terms of our impact on the lives of the people we serve. This means that we take an intersectional approach to working with local partners, including by amplifying the voices of women and girls whose lives have been affected by conflict and crisis; championing their rights to influence the issues that affect their cities, towns, and communities; and ensuring their priorities and preferences inform program design and implementation. To create real, transformational change, we must be comfortable with power being shared, given, and even lost. Such a dramatic change is likely to provoke some pushback, but to ease the transition, there are several things that people working within the humanitarian sector can do. The sector should prioritize respecting people and communities as sources of knowledge and decision makers on issues that directly affect their lives. How do we do this in practice? One approach is to ensure a gender lens in every program, hearing directly from affected women and girls about what works best in their communities.   Humanitarian agencies should also skew donor accountability downwards. Who determines what a successful development program or project looks like? Evaluators frequently come from wealthy, western contexts, often from the donor country itself. What if we shifted to a model where the people and, in particular, women and girls from the marginalized groups we serve, make the final judgments, further influencing where future donations can be spent? This could also take the form of an independent network where representatives of refugees and internally displaced people dictate the greatest needs for their communities. This type of initiative would not only give refugees and internally displaced people a voice, but also generate direct voting and purchasing power on their behalf. To make this work, a solidarity alliance of taxpayers or shareholders could be established to connect directly with representatives of refugees and internally displaced persons. The donors and clients could form an alliance where the former transfer their power to the latter. This would require an overhaul of current accountability practices, where real power currently flows upward. As we move forward in 2021, the humanitarian sector has the opportunity not only to avoid making the same mistakes, but also to chart a new course where power is developed among a new generation of leaders—including women and girls. If we are serious about enacting lasting and meaningful change, it is time for us to create accountability mechanisms that put people, their families, and communities at the forefront.