A/HRC/38/46 discrimination in family, cultural and sexual and reproductive rights, there will be no lasting progress in the other fields. 3. Strengthening the system to better promote and protect women’s rights in a comprehensive manner 44. In its resolution 35/18, the Human Rights Council expressed profound concern about the backlash against the progress made by civil society to fulfil women’s human rights. Throughout its mandate, the Working Group has witnessed the resurgence of a very conservative and retrogressive narrative in international forums and at the national level, and attempts to reinstate policies or legislation that are harmful to women. Such laws or policies particularly affect women’s enjoyment of their right to equality in the family and their rights to health and autonomous decision-making. 45. As reported in a study on the impact of conservative actors in the international arena, there have been concerted efforts to water down existing agreements and commitments and to introduce regressive language in international human rights documents. There have also been attempts to undermine United Nations agencies, treaty monitoring bodies and special procedures. Anti-rights actors’ discourses and strategies have led to deadlock in negotiations and had a substantive impact on the human rights framework and the progressive interpretation of human rights standards, especially those relating to gender equality and sexuality.30 46. Furthermore, the Working Group has observed that the women’s human rights agenda is significantly fragmented. The selective prioritization of the less controversial issues means that gender equality is not addressed in a comprehensive manner, neglecting the interdependence and indivisibility of women’s human rights. The Working Group recognizes the considerable progress made in terms of mainstreaming gender within the United Nations system. However, the impact of such efforts will remain insufficient as long as the United Nations system shies away from addressing the nuclei of resistance that are negatively affecting women’s rights. 47. The Working Group concurs with the Special Rapporteur on cultural rights, who emphasized that all such anti-rights trends, whether on the part of States or non-State actors, at the international or national levels, must be met with a vigorous international human rightsbased challenge, which must centre women’s human rights (see A/72/155, para. 3). In this context of backlashes, devoting adequate resources to mechanisms working to achieve women’s human rights is crucial. So too is enhancing communication and collaboration between all stakeholders and avoiding any inconsistency within the system. 48. At a time when the world should be moving relentlessly forward towards ever greater equality and the elimination of discrimination, women’s rights activists find themselves far too often confronted by those who would use the specious justifications of tradition, culture, religion or State sovereignty to keep women from taking their rightful place in society and family as equals, or from exercising full control over their bodies and their personhood. Despite the principle, upheld in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, that human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent, the Working Group has observed efforts by conservative actors and fundamentalist groups to undermine the foundation on which the whole human rights system is based. The Working Group insists that global leadership, including international human rights bodies, States, United Nations entities and civil society, needs to guard against the backlash, to ensure that the human rights legal framework is not undermined. The Working Group considers that the time has come to review with a critical lens the unfulfilled commitments made to women and to take corrective action. 30 See www.awid.org/ours-report. 11