The Commission on the Status of Women

The CSW was established in 1946 by the U.N. Economic and Social Council. CSW is defined by the U.N. as the “principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.” Every year, the U.N. hosts a session of the CSW at the U.N. headquarters in New York, at which member states, civil society organizations and U.N. entities gather to discuss progress and work that needs to be done to execute the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action as well as other international agreements pertaining to the advancement of gender equity. The U.S. has had a tradition of leading resolutions at CSW to address maternal mortality, increase access to sexual and reproductive health services and combat gender-based violence—with the exception of the Trump administration, which stacked its delegation to CSW with anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ extremists who used their platform at CSW to work to roll back reproductive rights globally.