A/HRC/41/43 I. Introduction A. Context 1. In the present report, the Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises provides guidance to States and businesses on how to integrate a gender perspective in implementing the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, in order to apply the “protect, respect and remedy” framework to the realization of the rights of women in the context of business-related human rights abuses. All references to “women” in the present report should be understood to include girls as well as transgender and intersex women. 2. The overall context of the report is provided by three main factors. First, as the Working Group noted in the report it submitted to the General Assembly at its seventysecond session, rights holders are not a homogenous group.1 Therefore, measures to implement the Guiding Principles in the form of laws, regulations, policies, plans, practices and decisions must be responsive to differences among rights holders. Women experience adverse impacts of business activities differently and disproportionately. They may also face additional barriers in seeking access to effective remedies. Moreover, because of intersecting and multiple forms of discrimination, different women may be affected differently by business activities in view of their age, colour, caste, class, ethnicity, religion, language, literacy, access to economic resources, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, residence in a rural location, and migration, indigenous or minority status. 3. Second, since women’s human rights are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights,2 both States and business enterprises should take concrete steps to identify, prevent and remedy gender-based discrimination and inequalities in all areas of life. In this vein, there are several references to gender and women’s human rights in the Guiding Principles, as described below. However, neither States nor business enterprises have paid adequate attention to gender equality in discharging their respective obligations and responsibilities under the Guiding Principles. The limited integration of a gender perspective in existing national action plans on business and human rights3 and the genderneutral nature of current modern slavery legislation 4 illustrate this. Consultations convened by the Working Group revealed that many businesses relegated gender to a “tick-box exercise”, without meaningfully addressing structural forms of inequality. Therefore, States and businesses could benefit from specific and practical gender guidance in implementing the Guiding Principles. 4. Third, pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 17/4, the Working Group has an explicit mandate to integrate a gender perspective throughout its work. In line with this mandate, the Working Group has been paying attention to gender equality issues in its reports and during country visits. 5 The gender-lens project it launched in 2017, from which the present report stems, is aimed at embedding gender as a cross-cutting issue in the business and human rights field.6 1 2 3 4 5 6 2 A/72/162, para. 26. Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, part I, para. 18. See https://globalnaps.org/issue/gender-womens-rights/. Surya Deva, “Slavery and gender-blind regulatory response”, Cambridge Core blog (8 March 2019). Available at http://blog.journals.cambridge.org/2019/03/08/slavery-and-gender-blind-regulatoryresponses/. See, e.g., A/72/162, A/HRC/41/43/Add.1 and A/HRC/38/48/Add.1. See www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Business/Pages/GenderLens.aspx.