In Focus: UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW62)
Date:
The 62nd session of the Commission on the Status of Women took place at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 12 to 23 March 2018.
Representatives of Member States, UN entities and ECOSOC-accredited non-governmental organizations from all regions of the world attended the session. The Commission addressed its priority theme “Challenges and opportunities in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls”. In addition, it evaluated progress in the implementation of the agreed conclusions from the forty-seventh session (2003) on “Participation in and access of women to the media, and information and communications technologies and their impact on and use as an instrument for the advancement and empowerment of women”. The agreed conclusions of the 62nd session of the Commission of the Status of Women can be found here.
An official delegation of the Government of Georgia took part in the session. The delegation comprised representatives of the executive and legislative branches of government, as well as non-governmental organizations, and was chaired by Ms. Tamar Chugoshvili, First Vice Speaker of the Parliament and Chair of the Parliamentary Gender Equality Council.
Within the framework of the session, UN Women Georgia co-sponsored and participated in two side events. On 15 March, the event “Domestic Violence Risk Assessment Development in Georgia - GRADA” was organized by the US-based NGO Global Rights for Women in partnership with UN Women and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia. The event offered insights into developing GRADA (Georgia Risk Assessment Domestic Abuse), a domestic violence risk assessment instrument created in 2017 for Georgian law enforcement under the EU-funded project “Unite to Fight Violence against Women”. GRADA was developed jointly by UN Women, Global Rights for Women and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia and is set out to become an integral part of the management of domestic violence cases. The tool will enable law enforcement officers to evaluate risks for lethality and recidivism in each individual domestic violence case, thus ensuring improved management of perpetrators and safety planning for victims.
Other side event, organized by the Turkish Enterprise and Business Confederation (Türkonfed) and co-sponsored by UN Women on 15 March, focused on knowledge-sharing from the implementation of the Women’s Empowerment Principles - Equality means business (WEPs) in Brazil, Georgia, Pakistan and Turkey. UN Women Georgia presented its experience working with the private sector in Georgia, focusing on the role of private business in the empowerment of women in communities and in the corporate value chain. In partnership with the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and with their generous financial support, the work of promoting the WEPs and women’s economic empowerment in Georgia currently continues under the project “A Joint Action for Women’s Economic Empowerment in Georgia” (JAWE).