Women's rights face 'full-on assault' due to UN and aid funding cuts

By Olivia Le Poidevin and Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) -Four major international reports on women's rights, including recommendations on how to prevent domestic violence and discrimination, will not be published this year, a U.N. document showed, part of what rights groups describe as a broader backlash against gender equality.

Voluntary funding for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is down $60 million this year due to unpaid contributions and major U.S. foreign aid cuts under President Trump, around 14% of its total income last year.

An OHCHR document circulated to member states and reviewed by Reuters shows that 13 human rights reports have been delayed, four of them specifically concerning women, putting off both investigations and discussions on how policies can be improved.

"We're silencing policy dialogue," Pooja Patel, Programme Director at the International Service for Human Rights in Geneva, told Reuters.

One in four countries reported a backlash on women's rights last year, a U.N. report in March said, something rights groups said made monitoring and recommendations all the more important.

"It really does affect the everyday lives of women and girls when these reports and mechanisms are not functioning," said Claire Somerville, a lecturer and Executive Director of the Gender Centre at the Geneva Graduate Institute.

Several countries raised concerns at the 59th Session of the Human Rights Council on Tuesday, where the resolution to pause the mandates was passed by consensus. Ecuador warned in a informal HRC meeting in Geneva in June the decision could send the wrong message amidst a "huge backlash" against the rights of women and girls.

The OHCHR faced new calls on Tuesday to increase transparency regarding the criteria behind its funding decisions after earlier criticism of its choice to halt the launch of a U.N.-mandated commission investigating suspected human rights violations and war crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk and his office would provide a comprehensive update on the feasibility of implementing the paused mandates before the next session in September, according to the U.N. document.

In a letter seen by Reuters, Turk told Council members the situation was "deeply regrettable" and expressed concern about the impact funding cuts would have on the protection of human rights.

In May the leading U.N. agency for gender equality, U.N. Women, reported that 90% of women's rights organizations in crisis-affected countries have been hit by cuts.

"They signal a broader de-prioritisation of gender equality at a global level," said Laura Somoggi, Co-CEO of Womanity, a private foundation in Geneva for advancing gender equality.

The OHCHR announced on Friday that the next meeting of the Commission on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, ongoing since 1979, would not take place due to liquidity issues with future ones "to be confirmed". Somerville called it a "huge setback" among many others.

"We can describe this as a full-on assault on gender and the rights of women and girls," she said.

(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin and Emma Farge in Geneva, editing by Philippa Fletcher)