IWRAW Asia Pacific

International Women's Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific is a feminist organisation committed to the full realisation of women's human rights through the pursuit of equality.
We act to disrupt structures, systems and institutions that violate women's human rights, and we engage in movement building that amplifies women’s voices and activism to create alternative political narratives and spaces.

From the Blog

Beyond the UN’s walls: The impacts of the UN budget cuts on accountability mechanisms

On 17 February 2026, the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) released a statement sharing its concerns on the United Nations Financial and Liquidity Crisis, in light of the crisis’s impact on the operations of their mandate. IWRAW Asia Pacific has supported the CEDAW Committee and the Office of […]

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GSWF 2025, Rightfully Ours: IWRAW Asia Pacific’s position paper on the Global South feminist analysis and critique of multilateralism

Global South Women’s Forum 2025: Rightfully Ours!   “We commit to creating a strategic space that is both living and growing; that is organic, dynamic and symbiotic” – Outcome document of the inaugural Global South Women’s Forum, 2016   For over 30 years, IWRAW Asia Pacific has lived its mandate of advancing the realisation of […]

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Resources

The UK’s Extraterritorial Obligations and the Right to Health in a Time of Polycrisis

This report was submitted on behalf of the Feminists for a People’s Vaccine Campaign, of which IWRAW Asia Pacific is a member, and the Campaign Against Racism, to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD Committee) in advance of its review of the UK. It focuses on the right to health in the context of the ongoing ‘post’-pandemic crisis regarding access to medicines; a growing global debt crisis; and the crisis of impunity in relation to the Palestinian genocide.

Read the report in Word or PDF format.

Joint Civil Society Statement: Repeal punitive laws against poverty and inequality

In June 2024, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights and the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing issued their study Breaking the cycle: Ending the criminalization of homelessness and poverty. This study was welcomed by the International Drug Policy Consortium, the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, the Women and Harm Reduction International Network, Harm Reduction International, IWRAW Asia Pacific and the Sexual Rights Initiative, who jointly prepared a statement of support.

Watch the video or read the text of the statement.

CEDAW Sessions

94th CEDAW Pre-Sessional Working Group

Cook Islands, Brunei Darussalam, Cameroon, Croatia, Eswatini, Ghana, India, Liberia, Madagascar, Sierra Leone, Vanuatu (October 2025)

92nd CEDAW Session – CANCELLED

Cabo Verde, Czech Republic, El Salvador, Iraq, Lesotho, Lithuania, Netherlands, Vietnam (October 2025)

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