Ready, Set, Pull Back? European Backsliding Gender Policies During ‘Constructing Dialogues’ with the CEDAW Committee

The status of gender-based violence as a violation of human rights has been confirmed by several international human rights documents. One of the most relevant instruments is the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), ratified by 189 countries, including all European states, which calls on States to modify the social and cultural patterns that sustain gender stereotypes and prejudices. The CEDAW Committee, which has adopted several general recommendations addressing gender-based violence, elaborating on its multiple dimensions, and has also recommended States to ratify regional human rights instruments, particulary the Istanbul Convention. Despite all this, the backsliding of democracy and the erosion of gender equality policies in Europe is today an undeniable process. The monitoring process of the Committee, which brings activists, civil society and regional organizations in ‘a constructive dialogue’ with the States to accelerate the compliance with the Convention, can reveal the claims and notions being resisted and the justifications used by States and other parties. This presentation consists of a longitudinal systematic analysis of the state reports, civil society submissions and the CEDAW Committee’s concluding observations adopted during the monitoring process of European states during the last 10 years, exploring the tensions between the human rights commitments and anti-gender discourses raised by different actors. The aim of the analysis is two-fold. Firstly, to identify the notions and narratives used to resist gender-equality policies and the critiques toward gender-based violence frameworks, along with the main actors raising them. And secondly, to distinguish between European states where a gender-policy backlash is taking place, from those in which principles of gender equality, and the elimination of non-discrimination and violence have not yet sufficiently permeated laws and policies.