A/HRC/41/42 21. The rise in authoritarianism, populism and fundamentalism have all had a negative impact on efforts to eliminate violence against women and have been bolstered by an increasing trend of denying and challenging international standards concerning women’s human rights and gender-based violence. A growing wave of conservatism is also threatening to renounce established women’s human rights norms and standards. At the national level, some States are passing laws and by-laws restricting women’s rights, agency and mobility, including State authorities permitting so called “morality police” to use violence against women. 22. Increased stigmatization and undue restrictions in relation to gaining access to funding and resources for women’s non-governmental organizations (NGOs), combined with increasing violations and reprisals perpetrated against women’s human rights defenders, are shrinking civil society space and are set to threaten the considerable gains achieved by those NGOs on the rights of victims of gender-based violence. 23. In addition, digitalization and the use of new information and communications technology has generated new forms of online violence against women. In her 2018 thematic report on online violence against women (A/HRC/38/47), the Special Rapporteur warned that the use of information and communications technology without adopting proper human rights-based approach could contribute to an increase in gender-based discrimination and violence against women and girls. She recommended that States, in accordance with the principle of due diligence, address new forms of online violence against women and girls as human rights violations that are interrelated with the broader framework of discrimination against women and girls, and that Internet intermediaries uphold women’s human rights standards. 24. At the sixty-third session of the Commission on the Status of Women, the SecretaryGeneral reflected on the aforementioned “pushback” movements against women’s rights and called upon all States to “push back against the pushbacks and to continue pushing back”. In response to that call, the Special Rapporteur initiated a joint statement with members of the Platform of independent mechanisms on violence against women and women’s rights.10 25. Within that context, and as the mandate celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary, the Special Rapporteur considers that it is a key moment to reflect on the role of the mandate with a view to ascertaining how it can address those challenges and assist States and other stakeholders in addressing them. B. International legal framework on women’s human rights and violence against women and the expanding role of the mandate 26. Over the past 25 years, violence against women has come to be recognized as a violation of women’s human rights and a form of gender-based discrimination. The struggle by the women’s rights movement to persuade the international community to view discrimination against women and gender-based violence against women as human rights violations came about gradually and was reinforced by the evolution of the international legal framework on women’s human rights and violence against women, including with regard to domestic violence, along with the growing role of independent expert mechanisms established to monitor its implementation, including the mandate of the Special Rapporteur, as well as other relevant United Nations and regional mechanisms that contributed to such developments. 27. At the time of the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995, many women’s human rights monitoring mechanisms had only recently been established, including the mandate of the Special Rapporteur, and at that time some were only taking their first steps. For example, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women had been in place for 13 years, while the mandate of the Special Rapporteur had 10 6 See www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24380& LangID=E.