The United States has expressed its intent to work with partners to remove Iran from the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. The message from the White House reads:

“The United States continues to stand with the brave women of Iran as they protest peacefully for their fundamental rights and basic human dignity. All people in Iran must have the right to freedom of expression and assembly, and Iran must end its use of violence against its own citizens simply for exercising their fundamental freedoms.

The United States believes that no nation that systematically abuses the rights of women and girls should play a role in any international or United Nations body charged with protecting these very same rights.  The UN Commission on the Status of Women and its members are charged with “promoting women’s rights” and addressing “urgent problems requiring immediate attention in the field of women’s rights.”  Iran has demonstrated through its denial of women’s rights and brutal crackdown on its own people that it is unfit to serve on this Commission; Iran’s very presence discredits the integrity of its membership and the work to advance its mandate.  This is why today the United States is announcing our intention to work with our partners to remove Iran from the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

To all of those protesting I say again, we see you and we hear you. I am inspired by your bravery, as are people around the world. We will continue to hold accountable the Iranian officials and entities responsible for the violence against protestors.”

This statement comes after more than a month of security forces crackdowns on hundreds of thousands of Iranian protestors who took to the streets after the killing of Mahsa Amini on September 16th, 2022 by Guidance Patrol for not wearing the hijab properly.

The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW or UNCSW) is a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), one of the main UN organs within the United Nations. CSW has been described as the UN organ promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women. Every year, representatives of Member States gather at United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide. In April 2017, ECOSOC elected 13 new members to CSW for a four-year term 2018–2022.