Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69) 2025 Guide
A special edition CSW69 newsletter, March 2025, from Women Beyond Walls
THIS GUIDE WILL BE UPDATED THROUGHOUT CSW: This guide is being sent by email on 6 March 2025, but will be updated throughout CSW69, so please feel free to return to browser link version of this newsletter and stay up to date on all that is going on. We will also share updates on Women Beyond Wall’s social media channels.
LAST UPDATED 17 MARCH 2025
Women Beyond Walls has created this CSW69 Guide to spotlight and raise attention to events focused on addressing the mass-incarceration and criminalisation of women and girls.
We recognise that due to expense and visa restrictions, Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is not an accessible space for many, especially formerly incarcerated women and women from Global Majority countries. However, given its prominence in setting global gender equality priorities and the 30 year anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, we wanted to make sure that visibility was given to voices addressing the criminalisation of women which has historically been overlooked at high-level forums on women’s rights.
If you are able to attend CSW, it is a privilege and we encourage you to use your voice and position to push back against anti-rights movements and spotlight overlooked issues and communities - sharing this Guide is a simple step! If you are not in New York, some of the below activities and events are hybrid or taking place entirely online.
LIVE GUIDE – CSW69 AND BEYOND
6 March 2025
Beyond the Bars Conference
Columbia University will be holding its annual Beyond the Bars Conference. Though not a CSW event, it’s a fantastic conference that brings together students, faculty, activists, advocates, practitioners, those who have experienced and/or been impacted by incarceration, community members and more to connect, galvanize, and deepen the work of building justice and equity and ending mass incarceration.
11 March 2025
Feminist Legal Empowerment: Grassroots Justice Defenders Advancing Gender Justice
📅 March 11 | 8:30 EST
📍 Register here (online event): https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMlceCtpjkjE9AOgM_ShDIKxTSVbaBQ6Pzz
Systems of oppression don’t work in isolation—they reinforce each other. That’s why real justice means unbraiding power and weaving new possibilities.
The #BraidedJustice toolkit, shaped by 15 grassroots organisations, offers strategies to challenge inequality, shift power, and make legal empowerment more gender transformative.
Join us to hear from those who created it and learn how to bring these approaches into your work.
Interpretation available in French, Spanish, English & Burmese.
11 - 12 March 2025
AWID events various - #FreezeFacisms
📍 Live events in New York 11 - 12 2025, a lots of online resources: https://www.awid.org/awid-csw69-beijing30-freezefascisms
“Around CSW69, we're co-organizing horizontal, brave spaces on-ground and online, to share strategies and build feminist power beyond Beijing+30. Our collective presence disrupts institutional practices of exclusion in such spaces while supporting movements to organize around feminist alternatives to systems of oppression.
Join the conversations from March 10-21, 2024, as we collectively transform CSW69 into spaces for and about resistance and solidarity.”
13 March 2025
CSW69 Parallel Event: Including sex workers in policy frameworks for gender equality
📅 March 11 | 12:30-14:00 EST
📍 Salvation Army Building, Lower Level, 221 E 52nd St, New York, NY 10022
NSWP is co-hosting a parallel event with Amnesty International and IWRAW Asia Pacific at CSW69. In this panel, sex worker activists and allies from the Global South will discuss the impact of excluding sex workers from gender equality policy frameworks, highlighting gaps in the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Panellists will also present examples from their regions of the benefits of sex worker inclusion in gender-responsive policymaking, particularly in the areas of health, anti-violence and economic empowerment.
Moderated by:
Carolyn Eisert, Amnesty International
Speakers:
Phelister Abdalla, President, Global Network of Sex Work Projects (Kenya)
Bayarmaa Batjargal, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Perfect Ladies (Mongolia)
Shaunna-May Trotman, President, Guyana Vulnerable Populations Alliance (Guyana)
Lilit Martirosyan, President, Right Side NGO (Armenia)
Vashti, Programme Officer for Marginalised Groups of Women, IWRAW Asia Pacific
Funded by: Love Alliance and Urgent Action Fund
Breaking Barriers: Advancing the Right to Reintegration for Women Deprived of Liberty
📅 March 13 | 17:30-19:00 EST
📍 New York City Bar Association, 42W, 44th St, New York, 10036
Umbrellas in the Storm: Strengthening feminist solidarity for sex workers rights
📅 March 14 | 09:00-10:15 EST
📍 Blue Gallery (7 minute walk from UN)
14 March 2025
Where will be money for feminist organizing? Activists reflection & solidarity circle on the state of feminist resourcing organised by AWID
📅 March 14 | 12:30-14:00 EST
📍 Blue Gallery (7 minute walk from UN)
Register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc11sfszT_kEIyN323i5Uigj4eJcMGE6_i-bEF62-1vU1h8dQ/viewform
To learn more about this issue, read Women Beyond Walls report Forgotten by Funders
17 March 2025
CSW69: Promising Practices to Reduce the Harmful Impact of Imprisonment on Women – a key step forward in implementing the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action
📅 March 17 | 10:00-11:05 EST
📍 United Nations Headquarters, Conference Room 9
Register and learn more: https://www.womenbeyondwalls.org/event
This official side event at CSW69, sponsored by the Mission of the Kingdom of Thailand and the Mission of Colombia to the United Nations, and co-organised by Women Beyond Walls with the Thailand Institute for Justice, Penal Reform International and the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies, is one of the first to address how to reduce the harmful impact of imprisonment on women from a global perspective. Read more HERE.
We are excited to launch our groundbreaking report - From Poverty to Punishment: Examining Laws which Criminalise Women Due to Poverty and Status - with Penal Reform International at this event. Use the button below to sign up to the regular Women Beyond Walls newsletter to receive a copy of the report and social media pack.
Intersection of Gender, Socioeconomic Class, and Race/Ethnicity: Mothers Behind Bars or Caring for Their Children While Partners are in Prison
📅 March 17 | 08:30 EST
📍 Online Event: https://teams.live.com/meet/933995096423?p=KB4dAFvIMl1fuw
Organised by International Coalition for Children with Incarcerated Parents (INCCIP). “Our discussion will focus on how the prison system criminalises social issues rooted in racial and gender inequality, perpetuating cycles of poverty. We will explore these challenges while advocating for policy reform, community engagement, and accessible services. Together, our goal is to develop actionable strategies to support incarcerated women, mothers, and their families.”
18 March 2025
Seeking Just Futures: Reflecting on criminalization and the gender justice agenda at Beijing+30
📅 March 18 | 08:30-10:00 EST
📍 CCUN 11th Floor
Register here: https://limesurvey.apc.org/index.php/264929?lang=en
“As we mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, we invite human rights, feminist, and justice-focused groups—those fighting for gender, economic, climate, and social justice—to reflect on progress and challenges with regard to our relationship with criminalization.”
Beijing+30 and Justice for Women and Girls
📅 March 18 | 08:30-10:30 EST
📍 Registration for Virtual Event: https://jjay-cuny.zoom.us/meeting/register/XzMWlOSjT9CzUiUymSxcfg
Why Drug Policy is a Feminist Issue
📅 March 18 | 10:30-12:00 EST
📍 Online Event: https://zoom.us/j/91536557054pwd=CrGdgWiWQMevjP0J6z3tBVQafpPyRh.1
“Join us for a critical discussion on how drug policies are weaponized against women, girls, and gender-expansive people, particularly within Black, Brown, Indigenous, and other racialized communities.
From the femicide crisis to the militarization of law enforcement in rural areas, favelas and peripherias; from mass incarceration worldwide to the alarming rise in transphobic violence—prohibition fuels violence, state repression, and the breakdown of communities. This is about more than drug policy. It is about racial, economic, and social justice. It is about the right to live without fear. It is about our collective freedom. The war on drugs is a war on women and gender expansive people. It must end now.
Feminists must take a stand against punitive drug policies and demand investment in transformative, community-led solutions. We are doing this alongside the community and from the grassroots—join us! It's time to dismantle prohibition—because it is killing us.”
From Justice to Freedom: Innovative Global Approaches to Address Challenges Faced by Women in the Criminal Justice System
📅 March 18 | 16:00-17:00 EST
📍 Winston & Strawn LLP, 200 Park Avenue, New York, 10166
Women Beyond Walls will be speaking at this event and highlighting some key findings from our report From Poverty to Punishment: Examining Laws which Criminalise Women Due to Poverty and Status - with Penal Reform International.
19 March 2025
Beijing+30, Women, and Criminal Legal Systems
📅 March 19 | 14:30-16:00 EST
📍 Church Center of the United Nations, 1st Floor, 777 United Nations Plaza, NYC or to participate by Zoom, please register here: https://lnkd.in/e-w39iJt
21 March 2025
From Do No Harm to Inclusion: Funding for Sex Worker Rights (hybrid event)
📅 March 21 | 08:30-10:00 EST
📍 Church Center of the United Nations, 11th Floor, 777 United Nations Plaza, NYC or to participate by Zoom, please register here: https://lnkd.in/e-w39iJt
Hosted by Sex Worker Donor Collaborative, co-hosted by IPPF
“This session is designed for funders and co-implementers who are interested in exploring how their funding impacts people who trade sex. We hope to create an open door where all kinds of funders can come to ask questions and wade through the often complex issues surrounding sex work, and with practical steps you can take to develop a principled and human rights based approach to grantmaking, moving towards fuller inclusion and equity.”
As well as these events, here are some people attending that you may want to meet:
Maria Alesi, Legal Empowerment Fund
Caroline Bispo, Elas Existem Mulheres Encarceradas, Brazil
Laura Cook, Communications and Strategic Partnerships, Women Beyond Walls
Hamed Farmand, Founder and President of Children of Imprisoned Parents International (COIPI)
Commissioner Simitie Lavaly, Human Rights Commission, Sierra Leone/ Board member of AdvocAid Sierra Leone (Member of Campaign to Decriminalise Poverty and Status)
Cate Nyambura, Athena Network, Kenya (Member of Campaign to Decriminalise Poverty and Status)
Lydia Stazen, co-chair of the NGO Working Group to End Homelessness (Member of Campaign to Decriminalise Poverty and Status)
Luca Stevenson, IPPF Community Engagement and Partnership Global Lead
Flavia Zalwango, Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF), Uganda (Member of Campaign to Decriminalise Poverty and Status)
Teresa Njoroge, Founder and CEO of Clean Start Africa
If you would like to add your name to this list, let us know! Are you in New York for CSW and want to learn more about Women Beyond Walls’ work? Drop us a line at communications@womenbeyondwalls.org
For more news, resources and opportunities, sign up to our monthly newsletter.
This newsletter will be updated daily until 20 March 2025. If you have more updates, events, or other CSW related activities that are not in here, please let us know at communications@womenbeyondwalls.org.
Thanks for the knowledge and awareness