At Beijing 25+ Battling the Backlash in the Post-COVID World: A Perspective from the Third World

Abstract

In this paper, I am interrogating the global women’s human rights paradigm envisioned under BPfA from my location as a feminist researcher and a practitioner situated in the Global South, connecting it with the ground realities here. At the outset, I convey that twenty-five years back an extraordinary event took place that has not only created a space for advocating women’s rights while paving the way for new resolutions, conventions, and declarations that deal with significant issues relating to the life and everyday realities of each woman. This framework of rights reaffirmed a commitment to substantive equality, intersectionality, inclusivity, and challenging stereotypical norms. Indeed, the language of rights and justice has raised hopes and optimism to transform women’s lives.However, when I locate the framework of the BPfA in the Global South, I realize that the narratives of progress are interwoven with the realities of oppression. At the ground level, the advancement made at the front of women’s rights seems illusory. The promise of emancipation and universalism appears to be myopic as seemingly progressive laws and policies boomeranged resulting in an environment that severely oppresses women. The dissidence and rebellious spirit of women’s rights are being crushed by the grand ambitious developmental projects, that occupied the spaces for rebellion and resistance while suppressing the voices and the agency of women. More specifically, from the Third World perspective, the human rights projects led to NGO-ization of resistance and have harmed the women’s rights agenda brutally.