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Thirty years ago, nearly 200 governments and tens of thousands of activists and civil society organisations from around the world gathered in China to hash out a historic global commitment to equal rights and equal opportunities for all women and girls. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA) was signed by 189 governments at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, held between 4-15 September 1995. It outlined 12 critical areas for action, covering everything from jobs to the environment and political participation, as well as ending gender-based violence and harassment, and provided governments with concrete steps to ensure the actualisation of these goals.

Every March, at the United Nations headquarters in New York, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) holds a two-week session to discuss progress and gaps in the implementation of the BPfA, as well as other issues that affect the rights of women and girls. This year is critically important: not only does 2025 mark the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the BPfA (Beijing +30), but CSW69 (which is taking place from 10-21 March 2025) also reminds us that there are just five years left to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a far-reaching plan to deliver peace and prosperity for people and planet. At a time of rising authoritarianism, ever-increasing inequality and the rollback of basic human rights the world over, this moment presents a final push for universal progress.

• What impact has the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action had on women’s rights globally?

It has been huge. BPfA was not only unprecedented in putting the spotlight on feminism, women’s rights and feminist leadership but it also gave rise to a whole new wave of feminist organisations, networks and leaders. It has increased legal protections for women and girls exponentially, bolstered gender quotas in political leadership and supported the economic empowerment of women, to name but a few achievements.

• How does the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action intersect with other global rights frameworks such as the 2030 Agenda?

According to UN Women, the full implementation of the BPfA will “turbo charge gender equality and sustainable development” and this is being articulated in policy terms through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Although there is a stand-alone goal focusing on gender equality (Goal 5), the achievement of all 17 SDGs is directly linked to gender equality and as a result, gender is mainstreamed throughout its framework.

• Are we likely to see gender equality by 2030?

No, we are not. Although significant, life-changing progress has been made over the past 30 years thanks to the BPfA, there is still an incredibly long way to go. To date, no country has achieved full legal equality between women and men and not one single indicator under SDG Goal 5 on gender equality has been met. In addition, there has been, for a number of reasons – the endless cycle of economic crises and global conflicts, as well as the rapidly escalating climate emergency and the lingering fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic – huge pushback against all human rights in recent years, and women and girls have borne the brunt of this attack. In Afghanistan and Iran, this looks like ‘gender apartheid’ codified in law. In warzones such as Gaza and Sudan, this looks like devastating violence visited upon women and girls. In countries like Bangladesh and Kenya this looks like women and girls on the frontline of the climate crisis. In the US, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Poland, this is embodied by the restriction of abortion access. In countries such as Guatemala and Colombia, this looks like the murder of female trade unionists. And everywhere, the rollback of women and girls’ rights is accompanied by the forward march of right-wing, patriarchal, populist leaders such as Vladmir Putin in Russia, Donald Trump in the US, Narendra Modi in India and Viktor Orbán in Hungary.

• What is the situation like for working women?

Working-class women are disproportionately impacted by all of these interconnected crises, in addition to, as noted in a new ITUC report on Beijing +30 “the added pressures caused by structural gendered barriers to entering, remaining and progressing in the world of work, unequal pay, and completely imbalanced care responsibilities”. Globally, women are estimated to earn, on average, 77 cents for every dollar men earn for work of equal value and according to the International Labour Organization, just 47 per cent of women are part of the global workforce (for men, that figure is 72 per cent). Gender segregation in the labour market means that jobs where women dominate is undervalued and underpaid. And the lack of affordable, quality childcare coupled with the disproportionate amount of time women spend undertaking unpaid care, cooking and cleaning means that women find themselves locked out of decent work and into low-paid, precarious jobs.

• Is gender equality really a trade union issue?

Is water wet? Gender inequality impacts everything from the disparity in the amount of money on average that men and women earn to violence and harassment in the world of work, the quality of jobs that will be available in a just transition to a carbon-zero economy and the occupational hazards faced by women workers. However, through freedom of association, collective bargaining, social dialogue and the power of collective action, trade unions offer working women some of the tools needed to correct this structural inequality.

• What demands are trade unions making on the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action?

Representatives of the international labour movement will be present at CSW69 to demand progress in five key areas: gender equality for social justice, democracy and peace; women’s labour rights as human rights; decent work for women; equal pay for work of equal value; a world of work free from gender-based violence and harassment. You can read more about the trade union position for CSW69 here.

- You can read the full text of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action

– Watch footage and interviews from the Fourth World Conference on Women

– Read the ITUC’s latest report Beijing +30: Trade unions mobilise for gender equality, published ahead of International Women’s Day 2025.

– Read The Crucial Role of Trade Unions in the Implementation of the Beijing Platform For Action: Beijing +25, published by the ITUC in 2020.

Equal Times is a trilingual news and opinion website focusing on labour, human rights, culture, development, the environment, politics and the economy from a social justice perspective.