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The assessment serves to document and review the situation in relation to the current human rights and gender related programmatic responses being implemented across the country, aimed at reducing barriers to services for key populations. For the purpose of this assessment the main key populations in Bangladesh include female sex workers (FSW), people who use drugs and populations with diverse sexual orientation, gender identity, and sexual characteristics and expression (SOGIESC) such as men who have sex with men (MSM), male sex workers (MSW) and Transgender people/Hijra/Third Gender (TG).

This issue brief shares lessons and reflections on enabling legal environments, including decriminalisation, to inform the implementation of key commitments in the 2021 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS and the Global AIDS Strategy. These include a shared understanding of the harms caused by the overly broad and unjust application of criminal laws; sensitization of key stakeholders and their engagement in legal review processes; A well-informed judiciary; Coordinated, multi-pronged and multisectoral legal advocacy; and, global and regional advocacy to advance national-level changes to HIV-related punitive and discriminatory laws, including decriminalization.

This issue brief shares lessons and reflections on the role of the judiciary in advancing rights-based HIV responses, to inform the implementation of key commitments in the 2021 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS and the Global AIDS Strategy. These include an understanding of the critical nature of judicial decisions in shaping the HIV-related legal environment; the important legal implications of evolving HIV science; sensitizing judges to people’s lived experiences is key; and safe spaces for respectful discussion and learning among justice sector peers.

This issue brief shares lessons and reflections on the importance of regional spaces for strengthening responses, to inform the implementation of key commitments in the Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS and the Global AIDS Strategy. These include an appreciation that convening stakeholders in regional spaces can be safer than in national spaces; regional-level discussions can foster peer-to-peer knowledge exchanges; regional level networking can lead to a network of in-country allies; and importance of regional economic communities for aligning national HIV-related laws with human rights commitments. 

This issue brief shares lessons and reflections on the importance of safe and open civic space for advancing rights-based HIV responses and informing the implementation of key commitments in the 2021 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS and the Global AIDS Strategy. These include an understanding that early and broad engagement helps to facilitate the buy-in of key and diverse stakeholders; creating and maintaining safe, open and enabling spaces is critical for civil society to fully contribute to the HIV response; the relationships between governments and civil society are complex and require careful navigation; and capacity strengthening and sensitization of stakeholders is needed for meaningful engagement.

Migrant women human rights defenders include women, girls, and gender-diverse persons of all ages who promote and protect the human rights of people on the move, whether they are migrants themselves or not, regardless of their migration status, and irrespective of whether they self-identify as a woman human rights defender. These recommendations are a call to action to all stakeholders to recognize and address the risks facing migrant women human rights defenders and put in place measures to promote and protect human rights unhindered so that migrants in all their diversity can live, work, and move safely and with dignity.

The Strategy outlines how UNOV/UNODC will accomplish this over the coming five years. The implementation of the Strategy will continue to strengthen the work of UNODC throughout its five thematic areas in ensuring stronger analysis of stakeholders and understanding the different impacts of criminal justice, organized crime, terrorism and corruption on the whole of society. The Strategy also recognizes that women are disproportionately underrepresented at the policy, decision-making and at the managerial level, being particularly acute in the criminal justice and law enforcement sector as well as legislative and parliamentary bodies. UNODC will therefore continue to engage with Member States to remedy instances of gender inequality and exclusion.

Gender related issues can arise in any judge’s court, in any level of court, by any of the actors in the court and at any stage of a judge’s career, for both men and women. Gender issues are often dismissed as women’s issues or only thought to be relevant in cases related to the family or when women are litigants. Court staff, police officers, expert witnesses and lawyers all might bring a gendered stereotype into their conduct or the way they present evidence.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has developed a 10-Point Action Agenda for Advancing Gender Equality in Crisis Settings (10PAA), a roadmap to guide its development programming towards results that will help transform and advance gender equality in crisis contexts and achieve the Women, Peace and Security agenda. The 10PAA is central to UNDP’s new Crisis Offer, as well as its new Gender Equality Strategy 2022-2025. It represents a strong corporate commitment to addressing the most stubborn roots of gender inequalities.  

Despite a challenging year in 2021 and difficult working conditions, UNFPA across Asia and the Pacific, rose to the challenge by making significant progress towards our transformative results of zero maternal deaths, zero unmet need for family planning, and zero gender-based violence and harmful practices against girls and women. We continued to build resilient health systems, and lobby governments to keep their commitments to uphold universal sexual and reproductive health and rights by investing more in long-term social norm change to prevent gender-based violence and in ensuring gender inclusive population policies that are embedded in human rights.