A/HRC/38/46 deployed to engage with all stakeholders. One of the aims of the present report was to comply with States’ requests in their responses to give its work and activities more visibility and to seek additional ways of improving its outreach. Unfortunately, due to limited resources, the Working Group has experienced challenges in sustaining meaningful cooperation strategies with all stakeholders, particularly with regional human rights mechanisms, or any outreach strategy ensuring that its work is duly disseminated. D. Setting the vision for the next years of the mandate 73. Despite considerable achievements in advancing women’s rights, overall progress towards an equal and just society where women are free from discrimination has been slow and uneven across the globe. Marginalized groups of women remain left behind, while political conflict and natural disasters have created new populations of women in situations of vulnerability. The recent resurgence of populism, xenophobia, religious fundamentalism and sexism pose complex challenges for women who continue to battle on many fronts for their rights and dignity (see A/HRC/35/29). 74. The extraordinarily challenging current context highlights the need to reassert the human rights of women so that every woman and girl can aspire to equality and live a life of dignity and respect. Achieving this vision requires a renewed focus on maintaining and building upon the gains already made, and preventing rollback. This means taking stock of the fulfilment of women’s rights globally, celebrating and learning from the progress that has been made, shining a light on areas where women’s rights remain fragile and under attack. Research from 70 countries over four decades has recognized the role of autonomous feminist organizations in advancing women’s rights as the most critical factor in the implementation of gender equality policies.43 As such, creating enabling environments for women’s human rights defenders and women’s organizations is vital for advancing gender equality, and sustaining positive change is a priority. 75. The Working Group will be guided by an overarching framework of preventing rollback and reasserting equality, and will focus on the areas outlined below in its annual thematic reports. 1. Women left behind: the causes and consequences of cumulative, multiple and intersecting discrimination against women, with a case study on women deprived of liberty 76. In the context of growing inequalities, the Working Group will explore the causes and consequences of multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination against women, examining the social, economic and political factors that push particular groups of women to the margins. It will also examine the causes and consequences of multiple deprivations experienced by some groups of women, which include a lack of access to basic services, economic insecurity, the lack of a voice in decision-making, vulnerability to violence and poor access to justice. To illuminate the causes and consequences of multiple deprivations experienced by women, the Working Group will present a case study on how the failure of States to protect the human rights of the most marginalized women results in the deprivation of their liberty through detention and imprisonment and other forms of confinement in the private and social context. 2. Protecting and realizing women’s rights in the changing world of work 77. The Working Group will examine women’s rights in the world of work in the context of the rapidly changing nature of work, including informal work, increasing automation, digital platforms, the so-called gig economy and job insecurity. While in recent decades, increasing numbers of women have been engaging in paid work across the world, this progress has not been matched with improving pay, conditions and the security of women’s work. In developing nations, many women work in informal and vulnerable forms of 43 16 S. Laurel Weldon and Mala Htun, “Feminist mobilisation and progressive policy change: why governments take action to combat violence against women”, Gender & Development, vol. 21, No. 2 (July 2013).