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Taking a stand on tax justice for women's rights at the CSW

Region:
Global

The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) was held in New York March 13-24, with the theme of women’s economic empowerment. The CESR team participated in various CSW events to underline that progressive tax policies and tax justice more broadly must be a central pillar of any efforts to tackle women’s economic marginalization and disadvantage.

Niko Lusiani, Director of our Human Rights in Economic Policy program, joined allies from the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) and the Global Alliance for Tax Justice for a special side event, ‘Women’s Economic Empowerment Through Tax Justice,” hosted by the government of Ecuador to explore how tax haven countries pose structural barriers to women’s rights and how an inclusive UN tax body could help tackle these obstacles.

On March 16, the Director of our Human Rights in Development program, Kate Donald, participated in a discussion on Women, Work, Mobility, Development and Economic Justice which has been convened by the Women in Migration Network and others. Later in the day, she will also speak at a special Tax Justice for Women's Rights Forum. This meeting, which was co-convened by CESR and its partners in the women’s rights, tax justice and development fields, highlighted the role unjust fiscal policies and cross-border tax abuses continue to play in exacerbating stark gender inequalities around the world.

Taking advantage of this coming together of women’s rights defenders from all over the planet, CESR is co-organized a strategy session with AWID and the Gender and Development Network on challenging orthodox macroeconomic policy to promote gender equality and women’s rights.

These important meetings come against the backdrop of not only the CSW, but also the Global Days of Action on Tax Justice for Women’s Rights, an initiative by the GATJ and partners including CESR, AWID, Christian Aid, Action Aid, Oxfam, the Tax Justice Network and the Global Unions.

As CESR has shown through its cutting-edge work on the role tax havens play in fuelling abuses of women’s rights, this is an issue that is essential to meaningfully empowering women and moving towards gender equality.

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Photo by J Lucy / Flickr