Engender blog

How can ICESCR impact women's human rights in Scotland?

Engender recently joined with women's, equalities, health and carer's organisations to submit our shadow report to the Seventh periodic report of the government of the United Kingdom on measures taken to give effect to ICESCR. In this blog, we take a look at our submission and how ICESCR can be a key tool for improving women's lives in Scotland.

For many years, Engender and other women’s equality advocates have been campaigning for the incorporation of the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (often known as the ‘women’s bill of rights’) into Scots Law, but CEDAW isn’t the only UN Convention which is essential when it comes to the protection of women’s equality and rights. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which ensures the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights, was adopted in 1966.

A statement from Scottish civil society organisations on the UK Government’s intervention on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill

This week, the UK government announced their intention to block the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, which was recently passed overwhelmingly in the Scottish Parliament, from becoming law. We, the undersigned, wish to make clear our strong opposition to this intervention and to any suggestion that these reforms would have an adverse effect on the Equality Act or women’s rights.

The cost of living crisis and women: read our new report

Today Engender has released a report setting out how the deepening cost of living crisis will have a devastating impact both on different groups of women in Scotland, and on women's equality as a whole. Covering issues including fuel costs, unpaid care, housing, women's safety, mental health and social security, the report details how marginalised women will be disproportionately affected by this latest cost of living crisis. We make recommendations for immediate action to ensure that Scottish Government policy and budgetary responses to the cost of living do not risk entrenching gender inequality even more deeply in Scotland.

Crisis after Crisis, women pay the price

Women, particularly those facing intersecting marginalisation, pay the price in times of crisis because there is very little safety net when the fault lines of deep inequality in the UK are exposed. This is largely due to of a gendered ‘crisis of incomes’ across the UK that ensures women do not have equal access to financial resources compared with men. The egregious impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has already placed women at greater risk of economic insecurity, and the current cost of living crisis will further exacerbate women’s existing economic inequality, pushing many into poverty.

Higher prices, lower income, less security

While many people across Scotland are experiencing hardship as a result of the cost of living increases, women are far more likely to take responsibility for spending on children and purchasing non-durable items like food and domestic products that are susceptible to price hikes during periods of inflation. Alongside these increased costs, the UK Government decision not to uprate Universal Credit in line with inflation mean that hundreds of thousands of people in Scotland will experience a real terms income cut of £570 per year. Households impacted by the benefits cap face even more severe losses. Women are the majority of those on Universal Credit and impacted by the benefit cap.

Women make up the majority of many groups with high energy needs, including older people, disabled people, unpaid carers, and those looking after children in the home, and are also the majority of those in temporary work and on zero-hours contacts in Scotland. Soaring energy bills for households and business will therefore have a disproportionate impact on women, both as the managers of increasingly tight household budgets, and as those first in line to face unemployment, underemployment or the negative mental health impacts associated with precarious work.

Delivering Equally Safe: The importance of primary prevention

Last year, Engender was awarded funding from the Delivering Equally Safe fund of the Scottish Government, for work on primary prevention of violence against women. We are now at the end of the first year of this funding and our Policy Officer for the Delivering Equally Safe project, Hannah Brisbane, shares an update about the project so far.

As you may know, Equally Safe is Scotland’s strategy to prevent and eradicate violence against women and girls. The strategy uses a feminist analysis of violence against women and girls (VAWG) by recognising it as a cause and consequence of gender inequality.