A/HRC/40/60 I. Introduction 1. Women the world over have played a crucial role in advancing human rights. Not only have they shaped the architecture of the current international human rights system and held leadership roles in government, civil society and business but they also engage in daily acts “in small places, close to home”1 that result in the enjoyment of a wide range of human rights. 2. Although often ignored, women have been at the forefront of social change throughout history. Eleanor Roosevelt was the driving force behind the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 1956, 20,000 women of diverse backgrounds mobilized to protest apartheid in Pretoria. Tawakkol Karman in Yemen and Asmaa Mahfouz in Egypt played critical roles in sparking the mass uprisings in 2011 that led to regime change. Eleven-year-old Malala Yousafzai wrote about her life under the Taliban in 2009 and continues to be a passionate advocate for the right to education. In 2016, on what was known as Black Monday, thousands of women and girls in more than 60 Polish cities took to the streets, successfully stopping a total ban on abortion. In 2017, women and girls launched the powerful #MeToo movement, which continues to reverberate globally. 3. Women of diverse backgrounds promote and protect rights in very different contexts. There are, for instance, women calling for gender equality, indigenous women fighting for land and environmental rights, women in rural areas pressing for socioeconomic rights, girls campaigning on social issues, trans women speaking up against discrimination, lesbians calling for equality, migrant and refugee women advocating for their rights and security, homeless women demanding the right to housing and shelter, women fighting for justice for the disappeared, gender non-conforming persons resisting gender-based violence, women promoting choice and bodily autonomy, women expanding digital rights, women with disabilities fighting for independent living and women involved in peace processes. 4. They include women human rights lawyers representing victims in court, women journalists exposing issues of interest to the public, women union leaders calling for labour rights, women politicians and parliamentarians debating public issues, women judges upholding rights though the law, women in the police and the military protecting populations, women in the civil service developing policies, women in academia teaching and researching human rights, women leading communities, non-profit organizations and social movements for transformative change, women in intergovernmental organizations working with States to fulfil rights obligations, and women humanitarian workers, development workers and health workers providing access to essential services. 5. Because of decades of action by feminist defenders, women in many places now enjoy greater equality, including before the law, in politics, education, workplaces and marriage and at home. Because of feminist defenders, more women are able to enjoy the right to vote, the right to bodily autonomy, the right to privacy, the right to family life, sexual and reproductive rights and many other rights. 6. Nevertheless, many women defenders continue to face significant risks in their human rights practice. They often face the same risks that defenders who are men face, for women defenders, too, are subject to restrictions on rights and fundamental freedoms and live in the same social, cultural and political milieux that shape responses to human rights. However, women defenders often face additional and different risks and obstacles that are gendered, intersectional and shaped by entrenched gender stereotypes and deeply held ideas and norms about who women are and how women should be. Women, for example, can be stigmatized for the very same actions for which men are venerated. Women are often perceived not as agents of change but as vulnerable or victimized persons in need of protection by others, typically men. The rights of women to promote and protect human 1 2 Eleanor Roosevelt, “Where do human rights begin?”, in Courage in a Dangerous World, Allida M. Black, ed. (New York, Columbia University Press, 1999), p. 190.