HRC59 - Iceland GC - A/HRC/59/L.25: Women’s economic empowerment

Human Rights Council – 59th Session
Adoptions: General comment delivered by Iceland on resolution A/HRC/59/L.25
Accelerating efforts to achieving women’s economic empowerment

Mr. President,

Women’s economic empowerment is essential for respecting, protecting and fulfilling women’s human rights, and benefits the whole of society.

Economic empowerment is necessary for women to have access to and control over resources, as well as the agency to make decisions about their lives, including their economic lives.

Draft resolution L.25 calls on states to address root causes of the feminization of poverty, such as gender stereotypes and negative social norms, and underscores the importance of agency and autonomy for women and girls.

Investing in girls' education; ensuring access to sexual and reproductive health services; and recognizing, reducing, redistributing and valuing unpaid care, support and domestic work provides a life-course approach to ensuring an enabling environment for the realization of not just economic human rights, but full range of women’s and girls’ human rights.

Iceland welcomes references to the importance of laws, regulations and measures that uphold the principle of equal pay for work of equal value, references to the promotion of shared parental leave between parents, and the sharing of household responsibilities.

For these reasons, Iceland joins consensus on draft resolution L.25.