Our coalition of independent feminist organisations has submitted its shadow report to the United Nations Human Rights Council as part of Australia’s fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR).
Legal reforms in Australia have left women in a state of deep uncertainty about our rights. The law’s failure to clarify the definition of ‘woman’ (thanks to the widespread adoption of sex self-identification) has created confusion and forced women to bear the cost of litigation merely to test the boundaries of our rights in practice.
Legal ambiguity is undermining essential spaces and services for women, especially those escaping violence or seeking trauma support. The erosion of clear data collection by sex further hampers our ability to address male violence or develop evidence-based policy. We are calling for urgent government action to reinstate sex-disaggregated data and to safeguard special measures intended to benefit women, as clearly mandated by international law.
Read the full report, below.