What to Expect at HRC38
The 38th session of the UN Human Rights Council will take place from June 18 to July 6, 2018.
Find below information about anticipated sexual rights-related resolutions, panels, reports, UPR outcomes, and parallel events taking place during the 38th session.
Click here to access the full programme of work for HRC38
Expected Resolutions Relevant to Sexual Rights
- Eliminating discrimination against women and girls. Focus on obstacles to women’s progress or empowerment in economic life. (Mexico, Colombia)
- Accelerating efforts to eliminate violence against women: Preventing and responding to violence against women and girls in digital contexts (Canada)
- Elimination of female genital mutilation (Burkina Faso, Togo)
- The protection of human rights in the context of HIV/AIDS (Brazil, Mozambique, Colombia, Portugal, Thailand)
- Human rights, climate change and its impact on women (Vietnam, Bangladesh, Philippines)
- Civil Society Space (Ireland, Chile, Japan, Sierra Leone,Tunisia)
- Human rights on the Internet (Sweden, Brazil, Nigeria, Tunisia, US)
Sexual Rights Related Panels
Annual full-day discussion on the human rights of women
Panel 1: Impact of online violence on the work of women human rights defenders
The panel will provide an opportunity to address the specific impact of online violence on the work of women human rights defenders and to discuss existing experiences and promising practices to address this violence. Click here to download the concept note »
Panel 2: Advancing women’s rights in the economic sphere through access and participation in information and communication technologies
The panel will discuss the potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs), in particular the internet, to accelerate the advancement of women’s rights in the economic sphere. Women’s meaningful access to and participation in ICTs is vital to advance gender equality and women’s and girls’ rights in practice towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As ICTs continue to transform the way society operates, this will be an opportunity for States, United Nations entities, civil society and other stakeholders to discuss ways to ensure women have equal access to online resources and are able to seize opportunities that participation in ICTs offers. Click here to download the concept note »
Annual thematic panel discussion on technical cooperation in the promotion and protection of human rights
Theme: Human rights and the Sustainable Development Goals: Enhancing human rights technical cooperation and capacity-building to contribute to the effective and inclusive implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The panel discussion will aim to facilitate an exchange of views and sharing of concrete experience on how human rights technical cooperation and capacity-building can contribute to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, while framing the discussion within the findings of the OHCHR report and the concrete experience of the representatives of Member States and other expert panellists. Furthermore, the panel will focus on ways of fostering and enhancing such cooperation and sharing concrete examples. The panel will address the existing and envisaged roles of United Nations human rights bodies and mechanisms, United Nations Country Teams and other parts of the United Nations system, notably OHCHR, in contributing to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and will specifically endeavour to identify innovative ways forward. Click here to download the concept note »
Click here for a list of all panels and concept notes
Sexual Rights Related Reports
A/HRC/38/18
Procedures and practices in respect of civil society engagement with international and regional organizations – Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Highlights the important role played by civil society in terms of advocacy, expertise and implementation as well as the challenges they encounter in its engagement with regional and international organizations.
Click here to read the report »
A/HRC/38/24
Review of promising practices and lessons learned, existing strategies and United Nations and other initiatives to engage men and boys in promoting and achieving gender equality, in the context of eliminating violence against women – Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The report highlights key lessons learned and promising practices on engaging men and boys to promote and achieve gender equality.
Click here to read the report »
A/HRC/38/25
Contribution of parliaments to the work of the Human Rights Council and its universal periodic review – Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Focuses on the role of parliaments in the field of human rights and contains recommendations regarding the setting up of a parliamentary human rights committee and the strengthening of engagement with the international human rights mechanisms, especially the universal periodic review. Report not available at this time.
A/HRC/38/36
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Highlights the relationship between the right to health and specific forms of deprivation of liberty and confinement in penal and medical regimes.
Click here to read the report »
A/HRC/38/43
Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Overview of violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, including hate speech and hate crimes, the role of the media, and the impact of criminalization and discriminatory laws and regulations.
Click here to read the report »
A/HRC/38/46
Report of the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice. Highlights lessons learned from the first six years of the working groups’s mandate, identifies opportunities to strengthen the international women’s human rights machinery & sets out the vision of mandate for future years.
Click here to read the report »
A/HRC/38/47
Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences. Analysis of online violence and violence facilitated by information and communications technology (ICT) against women and girls from a human rights perspective Click here to download the concept note »
Click here for a list of all reports
UPR OUTCOMES
Outcomes from the 29th session of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) will be adopted during this session of the HRC. The 29th session of the UPR was held from the 15th to the 26th of January 2018.
Fourteen countries were reviewed: France, Tonga, Romania, Mali, Botswana, Bahamas, Burundi, Luxembourg, Barbados, Montenegro, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Liechtenstein, Serbia
All Reports from the Working Groups, containing all recommendations received by States Under Review can be accessed here.
Sexual Rights-related Parallel Events
18 June
Mainstreaming Gender Identity
Swedish Federation of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
and Transgender Rights – RFSL
15:00-16:30, Room XXIV
19 June
Safeguarding Trans People’s Rights
United Nations Research Institute for Social Change
13:30-15:00, Room XXIII
Women HRDs & Civic Space
International Service for Human Rights
15:00-16:30, Room XXIII
Online Gender-Based Violence
Association for Progressive Communications
15:30-17:00, Room XXV
20 June
Engaging men and boys to end VAW
OHCHR, Canada, Uganda, Netherlands
10:00-11:30, XXV
The Right to Health and the Criminalization of Impartial healthcare
Colombia and Switzerland
12:00-13:00, Room XXIII
Legal Frameworks to end Female Genital Mutilation
African Union, Burkina Faso, European Union, Egypt, Italy, Norway, Portugal, UK, UNFPA, UNICEF,
WHO, OHCHR, UN Women, Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices
13:00-14:45, Room XXIII
Violence against Women and Social Media
Amnesty International
16:30-17:30, Room XXV
21 June
Eliminating Online, Digital and ICT-facilitated Violence against Women
Canada, OHCHR, Due Diligence Project
13:00-14:30, Room XXIV
Yogyakarta Principles plus 10
International Lesbian and Gay Association
15:00-16:30, Room XXIII
22 June
Switching on, Switching off: Respecting, Protecting and Fulfilling Sexual Rights Online
Denmark, The Danish Family Planning Association, UNFPA
11:30-13:00, Room XXIV
Discrimination against Women
Association for Women’s Rights in Development
13:00-14:00, Room XXVI
Ending Child, Early and Forced Marriage: the Roles of Regional Organizations
Women’s Rights and Gender Section (WRGS) and National Institutions and Regional Mechanism
Section (NIRMS)
13:30-15:00, Room XXVII
25 June
Access to Justice for Women and Girls: Rule of Law in Action
International Development Law Organization, UK, Mexico, Italy, Japan, Ethiopia, Morocco
13:00-14:30, Room XXIV
26 June
Human Rights in Egypt: Women
The Association of the Egyptian Female Lawyers
11:00-12:00, Room XI
Civil Society Participation and Human Rights of Women and Girls in the 2030 Agenda
UN Women
13:30-15:00, Room XXIII
02 July
Mainstreaming Women’s Rights: Perspectives from Southeast Asia
Philippines
12:00-13:30, Room XXVII
Violence against Women
Indigenous People of African Coordinating Committee
14:00-15:00, Room XXIII