The rights of refugee, asylum-seeking, and stateless women and girls must be protected on International Women's Day, and every day

March 8, 2025

Joint statement of the Platform of Independent Experts on Refugee Rights integrated by the Rapporteurship on Human Mobility of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

Geneva (7 March 2025) – On this International Women's Day, the Platform of Independent Experts on Refugee Rights (PIERR), a group of UN and regional human rights experts, remind States of the challenges and necessity of ensuring the rights of refugee women and girls.

As we celebrate International Women's Day, we reflect on the human rights situation of the over 60 million women and girls who have fled or are fleeing violence and persecution and the need to ensure that the rights of all women and girls are respected, protected, and fulfilled under international law, including at all stages of forced displacement.

Situations of conflict and persecution, and the particular risks of violence and human rights violations that women and girls face, can cause forced displacement. Ensuring access to territory, protection-sensitive entry systems, and quality asylum processes that take into account the specific needs of women and girls, in all their diversity, are essential to ensure effective access to the protections of refugee status, including for those fleeing gender-based persecution.

The contexts of conflict or persecution that drive refugees from their homes also amplify the risks of violence against women and girls during the flight. These risks are significant. Many women and girls are forced into precarious circumstances where the likelihood of gender-based violence, human trafficking, and other human rights violations are increased.

Nearly one in three women experience gender-based violence in their lifetime and one in four women who have been in a relationship will, by the age of 19, have suffered physical, sexual, or psychological abuse at the hands of a partner. In research conducted by the World Bank, it was found that displacement can increase the risk of intimate partner violence by up to 20 percent. Many women and girls face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination during forced displacement, including women and girls with disabilities, women and girls of diverse gender identities, trans, minority and indigenous women and girls.

Importantly, International Women's Day 2025 coincides with the 30^th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (widely known as Beijing+30). Adopted by the United Nations in 1995 at the Fourth World Conference on Women, the Beijing Declaration outlines 12 areas of concern associated with women's rights and gender equality that demand urgent action, including gender-based violence. Thirty years later, the declaration continues to operate as a key benchmark for assessing the status of women's rights worldwide, while also serving as a progressive blueprint for women's and girl's empowerment. We must ensure that the specific challenges faced by forcibly displaced women and girls continue to be fully considered in its implementation.

This day also coincides with the recent adoption (February 2025) by the African Union of a new Convention on Ending Violence against Women and Girls, with specific provisions on States' obligations to address the multiple and interrelated factors that exacerbate violence against women and girls, including ensuring special protection for stateless, internally displaced, asylum-seeking and refugee women and girls.

The PIERR encourages States to ensure systems that provide for the identification and protection of women and girls' unique needs and rights and redouble efforts to empower forcibly displaced women and girls to pursue opportunities to engage meaningfully in key decision-making forums.

This International Women's Day, we must acknowledge that to fulfill the vision that underpinned the Beijing Declaration, much work remains ahead. With new crises emerging across the world and the continuous push backs against gender equality, and the gains for women and girls' rights since Beijing, we, the members of the PIERR, reaffirm our commitment to working vigilantly alongside refugees, asylum-seekers and stateless persons and with governments, NGOs, and community leaders to protect and fulfil the rights of refugees and asylum-seekers, women and girls.

The IACHR is a principal and autonomous body of the Organization of American States (OAS), whose mandate stems from the OAS Charter and the American Convention on Human Rights. The Inter-American Commission has the mandate to promote the observance and defense of human rights in the region and acts as an advisory body to the OAS on the matter. The IACHR is made up of seven independent members who are elected by the OAS General Assembly in their personal capacity, and do not represent their countries of origin or residence.

About the PIERR: The PIERR is currently composed of the mandates of the United Nations Special Rapporteurs on the human rights of migrants and on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, the Working Group on arbitrary detention, the UN Committee against Torture, the Special Rapporteur on refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons and migrants in Africa of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights and the Rapporteurship on Human Mobility of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Siobhán Mullally, PIERR Chair and UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children; Gehad Madi, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants; Matthew Gillett (Chair-Rapporteur) and Priya Gopalan (Vice-Chair on Follow-Up), UN Working Group on arbitrary detention; Jorge Contesse, Member of the Committee against Torture; Selma Sassi-Safer, Commissioner and Special Rapporteur on refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons and migrants in Africa of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, and Andrea Pochak, Commissioner and Rapporteur on Human Mobility of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

The Platform is supported by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

For more information on the PIERR, please refer to www.pierr.org

No. 051/25

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