National Women’s Education Center of Japan

The sixty-eighth Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) was held from March 11, to 22, 2024.

The sixty-eighth Session of the Commission on the Status of Women was held at United Nations Headquarters in New York. It brought together world leaders, including 2 Heads of State, 3 Vice-Presidents, over 100 ministers, and 4,800 representatives of civil society organizations. It was the second largest CSW meeting ever held. Centered on the priority theme "Accelerating the achievement of gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls by addressing poverty and strengthening institutions and financing with a gender perspective" and the review theme "Social protection systems, access to public services and sustainable infrastructure for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls (CSW63 Agreed Conclusions)," the meeting included ministerial roundtables, interactive dialogues, and interactive expert panels.

The priority themes discussed during the session included mobilizing and raising funds to achieve the SDGs, recognizing unpaid care work as essential work for the economy, addressing poverty and gender equality by ensuring equality in the labor market and fair compensation, intersectionality, and building systems for gender-disaggregated data collection. The interactive panels also focused on issues of access to new technologies, including AI, and the challenges arising from the technology itself. As in the previous session, an interactive panel with youth was incorporated into the plenary session, and youth representatives from Japan delivered a statement.

During the general debate on March 13th, Ms. KATO Ayuko, Minister in Charge of Women’s Empowerment and Minister of State for Gender Equality, made a statement in the form of a video message regarding Japan's efforts on priority themes. In the statement, Minister Kato said that in order to address the complexly intertwined structural barriers to realizing gender equality, it is necessary to adopt multifaceted approaches, including the women’s economic empowerment. The Government of Japan's efforts included setting a target for the ration of female executives for Tokyo Stock Exchange Prime listed companies to at least 30% by 2030 based on the "The Basic Policy on Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women 2023," the recommendation of formulation of an action plan to achieve the target, strengthening economic empowerment initiatives including labor mobility into digital and other growing sectors, support for women in acquiring digital skills, and support for the initiatives of the local governments to foster women entrepreneurs through grants.

In addition, at the Ministerial Roundtable Meeting (on March 13th), Ms. Asako Osaki, the representative of Japan, introduced the Government of Japan's efforts to address women's poverty, including the obligation of disclosure of employee’s Gender Pay Gap, which is imposed on employers with over 300 workers, and “Act on Supporting for Women Facing Difficulties”, as well as “Women Entrepreneurs Financing Initiative (We-Fi), which Japan has expressed its support as an international cooperation.

At the Interactive Panel with Youth (on March 14th), Ms. Riyuka Suzuki, the representative of Japan (Youth), pointed out that minorities, including women and sexual minorities, are not represented at the political and decision-making levels in Japan, and emphasized the importance of minority empowerment, including economic support, and representation at the decision-making level.

At the interactive dialogue (on March 21st), the participants exchanged views on the safe and equitable use of AI, given that AI is likely to be used as a tool of violence against women and girls, including sexual exploitation and invasion of privacy.

On March 15th, a side event entitled "Women's Multidimensional Poverty Challenges and Grassroots Responses: Insights from Japan, Sri Lanka, and Guatemala" was held, which was co-hosted by the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations and three Japanese women's organizations ((JAWW) Japan Women's Watch, the National Women’s Committee of the United Nations NGOs, and the International Women's Year Liaison Group (IWYLG)).

The CSW reviews past CSW agendas and assess their progress. This year, a progress report and a question-and-answer session were held on the "Social protection systems, access to public services and sustainable infrastructure for gender equality and the empowerment of the girl child" which was compiled as the CSW63 Agreed Conclusions. According to the UN Secretary-General's report, the implementation of various measures to empower women and girls, including social protection systems and public services, has been confirmed in member countries over the past 5 years. On the other hand, implementation has been uneven among countries and regions. In particular, it was pointed out that the goals of addressing extreme poverty, food security, and access to digital technologies have not been achieved. Each country reported that the empowerment of women and girls, including indigenous people, and gender-based violence remain challenges, and that each country will advance its own efforts under public-private partnerships, such as establishing a system of gender-disaggregated data collection to support women, providing social protection and public services based on data, and providing support that attentive to the details of women and girls with various experiences.

At the CSW, the Economic and Social Council has mandated that the results of discussions on the theme of the year be compiled into agreed conclusions. The agreed conclusions was adopted on the 22nd after lengthy discussions based on the draft agreed conclusions (zero draft).

Recognizing that women and girls have become the adjustment valves affected by crises, that greater efforts are needed to increase resources and resources to address poverty among women and girls, and that the international financial system has failed to address the crisis, the agreed conclusions called on countries to reform their mobilization of resources for gender equality, including debt relief and progressive taxation, and ensuring public resources to address the needs and rights of women and girls. It also recommended mobilizing resources from public and private funding sources, strengthening the international financial system, ensuring a gender perspective in national budgeting processes, preventing regressive taxation that disproportionately affects women and girls with low or no income, strengthening national capacities to collect and use disaggregated data on multidimensional poverty, and adopting new development strategies for sustainable economies. Recommendations also include strengthening comprehensive and gender-responsive social protection systems and increasing investment in the care economy to reduce women's time and income poverty and expand employment opportunities.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) -led resolution on HIV/AIDS was also adopted, calling for investment in gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls in the fight against HIV/AIDS. During the CSW, a number of government representatives and civil society organizations expressed concern about the impact of digital technologies, including AI, on women and girls, particularly their economic vulnerability in times of crisis, and called for increased protection for all women and girls.

Civil society organizations have been key drivers of the discussion to improve status of women during the CSW. This year, CSW/NY, an NGO that has supported the participation of civil society organizations in the CSW, prepared a venue inside and outside the United Nations Building and on the online platform, and held many events related to the priority themes and review themes. This year, more than 760 events were held, including parallel events organized by Japanese organizations.

The National Women's Education Center also set up an exhibition booth on the online platform to disseminate information about its efforts. At the booth, materials introducing the activities of the National Women's Education Center, including a speech by the president and a gender statistics leaflet, were posted. Virtual Open Houses were held 2 times during the session to introduce the roles and activities of the National Women's Education Center, and to network with participants.

NGO CSW68 Forum, NWEC virtual exhibit booth