National Statement by ECOSOC Ambassador, Katarina Fridh, Permanent Mission of Sweden to the UN, at the 17th plenary meeting - Commission on the Status of Women Seventieth session, 9 March 2026
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Thank you Chair for giving me the floor. Sweden aligns itself with the statement of the European Union and like to add a few words in our national capacity.
This year’s priority theme offered a unique opportunity to address the critical issue of access to justice for women and girls across the world. It is an issue of pressing importance. Globally, women have 64% of the legal rights of men.
The adopted conclusions send a strong signal that this situation must be rectified. Thank you chair and co-facilitators for your leadership in securing a text that makes it plain that barriers to justice entrench inequality.
We reject attempts to undermine the agreement, cast doubt on the process, and criticize the co-facilitators and the chair.
During the negotiations of CSW conclusions, it is standard practice, whenever we can’t agree on what language to use, to revert to the exact phrasing used in the Beijing declaration and platform for action. When in doubt, the commission goes with the language used since 1995.
What was demanded last Monday and today – by a small group of Member States – is to go below what we agreed in the Beijing declaration. We don’t think it’s reasonable to use the consensus tradition as a cover to turn back the clock 30-40 years and retroactively change the language in the document.
Chair,
Let me make one more point. Sweden is also disappointed in the agreed conclusions. They do not mention the specific needs of adolescent girls. They say nothing about inheritance laws or rules regulating land rights. We couldn’t even include a reference to conflict-related sexual violence, due to the opposition of some countries – many of whom have spoken with such fervor this morning.
The conclusions arealready a huge compromise and fall below what could’ve been possible. Instead, we will today have to endure long discussions on definitions that the international community had long since moved on from.
This is too bad. We hope future CSW’s center on the lived realities and needs of all women and girls without procedural diversions.
Thank you.
