A/HRC/38/46 elimination of discrimination against women and gender equality, not to dilute States’ human rights obligations. 88. Today, the human rights community needs more than ever to unite forces to preserve the democratic space. The fight against all forms of discrimination against women must continue until women everywhere obtain full equality in public, political, economic, social, family, cultural and religious life and in health. Practices such as polygamy, child marriage, female genital mutilation and “honour” killings have no place in any democratic society. The voices of women human rights defenders must not be silenced. 89. It has been 70 years since women’s right to equality was enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, nearly 40 years since the ground-breaking Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women came into existence and 25 years since the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action established that women’s rights are an indivisible part of human rights. The Working Group calls for immediate action: waiting for the next century to achieve equality is intolerable, as is rolling back hard-fought gains. There is no acceptable justification for waiting for the elimination of discrimination against women; it is a long overdue political commitment that must be fulfilled without delay. B. Recommendations 90. The Working Group recommends that States: (a) priority; Give the issue of women’s right to equality high visibility and top political (b) Systematically integrate into legislation and policy the recommendations contained in the Working Group’s thematic and country reports and its communications in order to ensure that obligations to eliminate discrimination against women are met; (c) Repeal all discriminatory laws and practices, including those that discriminate against women on traditional, cultural or religious grounds and laws that exclusively or disproportionately criminalize action or behaviour by women and girls, taking into account the multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination faced by many women and girls; (d) Give priority to establishing, strengthening and investing in institutions devoted to the advancement of women’s rights and gender equality; (e) Create an enabling, supportive environment for civil society and other stakeholders to combat the backlash against women’s human rights and to resist all anti-rights trends and movements with a definitive response grounded in binding human rights obligations, with women’s and girls’ rights at the centre; (f) Counter the narratives around gender ideology used by conservative lobbies to misinform societies and undermine the advancement of women’s rights and gender equality; (g) Promote recognition of the fact that cultural, religious and family values are not incompatible with women’s and girls’ human rights, and recognize the equality of women and girls as a fundamental tenet of international human rights law that must be protected, respected and fulfilled in all States and at all levels of society, including within the family; (h) Continue promoting and protecting the fundamental principle that all rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated; (i) Ensure respect for women’s rights to make decisions about their own bodies and to receive comprehensive sexuality education so they can enjoy their right to sexual and reproductive health, including safe, legal and affordable access to contraception and termination of pregnancy; 19

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