A/HRC/38/24 to Justice,78 which addresses judicial gender stereotyping and bias as one of its conceptual frameworks. H. Social and community mobilization 36. Efforts to promote social and community mobilization for gender equality were reported. For example, at the global level, the HeForShe campaign of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), 79 launched during the sixty-ninth session of the General Assembly in September 2014, aims to mobilize men and boys globally to stand up and take action for the achievement of gender equality. 37. At the national level, the White Ribbon Volunteers Network of China organized a series of public dialogue forums entitled “Men talk stories” in 2014. The forums aimed to strengthen social norms, promote non-violent masculinities and gender equality and facilitate the elimination of gender-based violence and homophobia. Based on these dialogues, the network produced a documentary and published a book entitled The Voices of Men.80 38. In the Plurinational State of Bolivia, networks of men who call themselves “Tupac Katari” organized themselves at municipal level to fight against gender-based violence against women and girls in 30 municipalities, in partnership with women community promoters.81 Some other initiatives, such as Promundo’s Programme H, target or include young men and boys, engaging them in peer or group education, communication campaigns, community mobilization and activism. 82 39. At the same time, it was stressed in some submissions that regressive narratives in relation to gender equality were an impediment to engagement with men and boys. For example, in several countries in Europe and Latin America, “gender” terminology is opposed by political and religious leaders. 83 Such narratives postulate a “complementary role” for women in relation to the role(s) of men, both in family and society. They are structured around supposed innate differences between women and men, and thus seek to embed a “natural” or “traditional” basis for gendered roles. It was observed that such a discourse undermined efforts to promote gender equality, including efforts to engage men and boys.84 Likewise, concern was expressed that, in some settings, affirmation of women’s human rights was being met with counter (but false) narratives asserting that upholding the rights of women meant a “loss” of rights for men.85 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 See https://rm.coe.int/training-manual-final-english/16807626a4. See www.heforshe.org/en. UNFPA, “UNFPA engagement in ending gender-based violence” (New York, 2016), p. 15. Available at https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/resourcepdf/UNFPA_Brochures_on_GBV_Prevention_and_response.pdf. Submission by Plurinational State of Bolivia. Such initiatives include: Programme H by Promundo and the Gender Roles, Equality and Transformation project in Uganda by Georgetown University. See also the submission by Georgetown University and the police campaign against “party rape” referred to in the submission by Norway. See, for example, for Europe, CEDAW/C/SVK/CO/5-6 and CEDAW/C/POL/CO/7-8. For the Americas, see the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, press release of 8 March 2018, “On International Women’s Day, the IACHR urges States to refrain from adopting measures that would set back respect for and protection of women’s rights”. Available at www.oas.org/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2018/044.asp. Submission by the Slovak National Centre for Human Rights. E.g. submission by the MenEngage Alliance. 13

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