The OHCHR Women’s Human Rights and Gender Unit (WRGU) – conceptual framework and main priorities

As reflected in her Plan of Action and the OHCHR Strategic Management Plan, the High Commissioner for Human Rights is committed to placing gender and women’s rights at the core of the work of the Office as a whole. To this end, a specific Women’s Human Rights and Gender Unit was established in 2006. The work of the newly created unit flows from the role that the High Commissioner for Human Rights can play in legal standard setting with respect to the inequalities in relation to accessing justice in its broadest sense.

Following extensive consultations within the Office and with a range of governmental and non-governmental stakeholders, the initial focus area for the unit was identified as being the gender sensitive administration of justice. A broad chapeau which is intended ensure a gender analysis of justice, what it means from a gender perspective and whether the present concept accurately reflects the different experiences of men and women, boys and girls. The approach adopted by WRGU is to examine justice from a women’s perspective, to assess if what exists has provided justice and if not, what are the issues and how can human rights law be used to ameliorate the existing situation. This means examining formal justice mechanisms, as well as rights of access to, and enjoyment of, the plethora of social and economic rights which are fundamental to the enjoyment of a diversity of civil and political rights.

The methodology adopted by the Unit is through legal analysis and standard setting, with the commissioning and production of position papers and guidelines on specific issues and aimed at a wide audience, from the legal profession, NGO’s other UN agencies and member states. The initial focus has been on the question of the prosecution of sexual violence in the context of conflict and the commensurate social and economic rights that need to be addressed.

In order to maximize the potential of the human rights mechanisms within the UN system to actively address “gender justice”, the Unit works across the OHCHR system and the UN generally to promote the legal principles developed, including through the work of the Human Rights Council, Special Rapporteurs, Treaty Bodies and field offices.

Thematic issues such as: honour killings, FGM, violence against sexual minorities, forced abortion, trafficking (in cooperation with OHCHR’s anti-trafficking programme) and sexual exploitation, are considered in the context of country engagement.