Gender-progressive policies around the world are facing significant backlash. Gender justice activists and women’s rights organisations are having to mobilise quickly to counter these attacks.
This backlash is being challenged, documented, and researched by the IDS-hosted programmes Countering Backlash and SuPWR, in several countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. Research of backlash against gender-equality policy gains in the focus countries includes Uganda’s 2019 Sexual Offences Bill, Bangladesh’s Domestic Violence Act, and discrimination against transwomen in Peru’s labour market. They also look at Pakistan’s laws (and non-existent laws) about unpaid work for home-based women workers and India’s Shaheen Bagh protests.
This event for International Women’s Day 2023 discussed how organisations, informal collectives and individuals are standing up and fighting to protect and further gender-progressive policies joined by those working in the midst of national and regional struggles in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Uganda, and Peru. Maheen Sultan, Senior Fellow of Practice and Head of Gender and Social Development Cluster, BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) and Pragyna Mahpara, Senior Research Associate, BIGD shared the nature and source of obstacles that gender justice actors face, what it looks like in policy areas, and how they are attempting to counter this backlash.
Gender-progressive policies around the world are facing significant backlash. Gender justice activists and women’s rights organisations are having to mobilise quickly to counter these attacks.
This backlash is being challenged, documented, and researched by the IDS-hosted programmes Countering Backlash and SuPWR, in several countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. Research of backlash against gender-equality policy gains in the focus countries includes Uganda’s 2019 Sexual Offences Bill, Bangladesh’s Domestic Violence Act, and discrimination against transwomen in Peru’s labour market. They also look at Pakistan’s laws (and non-existent laws) about unpaid work for home-based women workers and India’s Shaheen Bagh protests.
This event for International Women’s Day 2023 discussed how organisations, informal collectives and individuals are standing up and fighting to protect and further gender-progressive policies joined by those working in the midst of national and regional struggles in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Uganda, and Peru. Maheen Sultan, Senior Fellow of Practice and Head of Gender and Social Development Cluster, BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) and Pragyna Mahpara, Senior Research Associate, BIGD shared the nature and source of obstacles that gender justice actors face, what it looks like in policy areas, and how they are attempting to counter this backlash.
