Attachments
Executive Summary
Pauliina Parhiala, Felm Executive Director
Rudelmar Bueno de Faria. ACT Alliance General Secretary
The Beijing Platform for Action, adopted at the 1995 United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing, remains one of the most significant ‘blueprint’ in the global advancement of women’s rights. Its impact on the promotion of women's rights has been immense and enduring. Over the past 30 years it has been a catalyst for progress, but also serves as a reminder of the continuous need to affirm the human rights of women and girls in all their diversity worldwide.
Faith leaders and communities can be powerful drivers of change, particularly as trusted voices from within their own communities. Many faith-based actors have contributed a significant role in promoting equality and justice, they can be advocates for human rights, duty bearers, service providers for health and education and legislators. Crucially, faith-based actors have real-life influence on social norms that shape the uptake and acceptability of gender equality laws, policies and practices. Around the world, many faith leaders are active agents for change, in dismantling harmful social norms and promoting justice, equality, and human rights.
Over the last 30 years, we have also witnessed how faith-based actors have contributed to maintaining patriarchal structures and practices and pushing back against gender equality. Faith communities have the potential to either promote or restrict progress towards advancing gender equality and the human rights for women and girls. Due to the diversity of faith-based actors and the subsequent diverse ways that they can contribute to the Beijing Platform for Action, faith-based actors are a critical stakeholder.
This report focuses on how faith-based actors are provoking social norm change to advance human rights and gender equality. Social norms profoundly shape the behaviour and thinking of our societies, and they are an essential part of cultural and religious life. It is crucial to understand how social norms influence practices and how locally led faith-based action can play a transformative role.
The report spotlights the work by ACT Alliance members and partners, who are using faith-based methodologies to promote gender equality. Specifically, we focus on how faith communities can be a transformative force in ensuring human rights and dismantling patriarchal power. The report concludes with a series of recommendations and calls to actions to Member States, UN Agencies, and wider civil society, including faith-based actors, to catalyse collective action for sustainable development.
Our aim and hope for this report is to be a conversation starter, in both advocacy and programmatic spaces, to strengthen partnerships with faith-based actors, who are strategically advancing gender equality and human rights. As this report evidenced, sometimes we need to shine a light on the social norms and beliefs that fuel ‘taboos’ to be able to unlock the power for collective and transformative change.