State the place of Gender Justice in global political agenda. (150 words) (2007, 2013, 10 Marks)
Gender justice goes beyond gender equality: equality asks for equal shares within existing institutions, justice asks whether those institutions were built on a gendered division of the world. Since the 1970s it has moved from the margins to the formal centre of the global agenda, though its place in resources and enforcement remains far weaker.
How it entered the agenda
- 1975–85: the Mexico City conference opened the UN Decade for Women; CEDAW (1979) set the standard of substantive equality; Copenhagen (1980) and Nairobi (1985) gave Southern women’s groups a voice.
- 1990s: Vienna (1993) declared women’s rights human rights; the Cairo population conference (1994) put reproductive choice above demographic targets; the Beijing Platform (1995) made gender mainstreaming the method, a diffusion that Jacqui True and Michael Mintrom (2001) traced to transnational feminist networks rather than states.
- 2000 onwards: Resolution 1325 (2000) made women a matter of peace and security; the Rome Statute made rape and gender persecution international crimes; UN Women (2010) unified the machinery; SDG 5 (2015) set targets including unpaid care.
Why it is urgent today
- Stalled progress: the 2026 Global Gender Gap Report puts parity about 120 years away, with only 22.1 per cent of the political-empowerment gap closed; women held 27.5 per cent of parliamentary seats in January 2026.
- Violence: UN data record about 50,000 women and girls killed by partners or relatives in 2024, some 137 a day.
- Rollback: an organised anti-gender movement contests Cairo and Beijing language at every negotiation; in March 2026 the Commission on the Status of Women adopted its conclusions on access to justice by vote, not consensus; the US reinstated and widened the Global Gag Rule (2025–26).
- Gender apartheid: in Afghanistan girls are barred from secondary schooling, and on 8 July 2025 the ICC issued arrest warrants against Taliban leaders for gender persecution.
- Funding collapse: UN Women reported in July 2026 that aid cuts had cost at least a million women and girls in crises access to support.
The gap between promise and practice
CEDAW carries more substantive reservations than any other human-rights treaty, there is still no global treaty on violence against women, and the Beijing+30 Political Declaration of March 2025 reaffirmed old commitments rather than adding new ones. India illustrates both sides: the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam (2023) reserves a third of legislative seats, but takes effect only after delimitation, and a bill to bring it forward failed in the Lok Sabha in April 2026.
Conclusion
Gender justice now holds a settled normative place on the global agenda but an insecure political one. The urgent task is less to write new norms than to defend and fund existing ones.