Dismantling Systemic Barriers to Equitable Participation in Local Governance and Public Life
2026-03-09 10:30 - 12:00 (America/New_York) | Church Center for the United Nations (Drew Room)
The Asia Dalit Rights Forum, in collaboration with the The Inclusivity Project, Feminist Dalit Organisation (FEDO Nepal), and Dalit Women Forum/Nagorik Uddyog, will host an in-person parallel event during CSW70.
This event addresses the systemic barriers that prevent Dalit, Roma, Quilombola, and Palenque women — particularly those from communities discriminated on work and descent (CDWD) — from fully participating in local governance and public decision-making processes. Despite global commitments to gender equality and justice, these women remain severely underrepresented in leadership roles and excluded from shaping policies that directly affect their lives.
Failure to confront these structural inequalities threatens progress toward SDG 5 (Gender Equality) and SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions). The discussion will explore transformative legal reforms, inclusive justice systems, and strategies to dismantle discriminatory laws, policies, and practices. Speakers will highlight the urgent need to strengthen representation and meaningful participation of marginalized women at all levels of governance.
Bringing together young Dalit, Roma, and other marginalized women leaders, this dialogue will foster cross-regional solidarity and generate actionable strategies to advance women’s full and effective participation in public life and improve access to justice.

Women from Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent Claim Climate Justice
2026-03-11 10:30 - 12:00
Climate change disproportionately impacts women from Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent, compounding entrenched structural inequalities. Caste- and descent-based discrimination, landlessness, inherited livelihood insecurity, and poverty intensify their exposure to climate shocks. The consequences include loss of livelihoods, displacement, increased unpaid care responsibilities, heightened risks of gender-based violence, and exclusion from relief, recovery, and climate finance.
Convened by The Inclusivity Project (TIP) in collaboration with GFoD, ADRF, CONAQ, and the ERGO Network, this parallel event will center lived experiences and grassroots resilience while examining critical gaps in climate policy and justice frameworks that overlook caste- and descent-based exclusion.
Grounded in a rights-based and intersectional approach, the session will promote inclusive climate governance and strengthen the leadership and meaningful participation of historically marginalized women in shaping equitable and sustainable solutions.
The session will be held in English, with interpretation available.
Click here for the Zoom Link to the event.

Hidden and Normalized Inequality and Violence: The Realities of Women from Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent
2026-03-16 08:30 - 10:00 | Drew Room, UN Church Center
Across the world, women from communities discriminated on work and descent (CDWD)—including Dalit, Quilombola, Haratine, and Roma women—continue to face extreme, multidimensional, and often invisible forms of gender-based violence. Despite decades of international commitments, the violence they face remains under-reported, under-researched, and absent from global policy dialogues.
The new UN Women Policy Paper on Women from Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent provides the first-ever UN system guidance to understand and address the structural, gendered, and systemic violence affecting these communities. This side event will showcase lived experiences, evidence, and grassroots strategies from CDWD women leaders and will highlight policy gaps in national, regional, and global responses to gender-based violence.

Algorithmic Bias, Gender Justice, and Descent-Based Discrimination: Ensuring AI Works for All Women and Girls
2026-03-18 11:30 - 12:45 | Conference Room E, UN Headquarters, New York, United States
Gender discrimination remains deeply rooted in many societies and is often experienced through intersectional forms of inequality shaped by factors such as descent, race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, and digital access. As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly embedded across sectors, these intersecting inequalities risk being replicated and amplified through algorithmic systems.
Tools like risk prediction algorithms, forecasting-based law enforcement, automated welfare allocation, and online judicial processing are transforming decisions on entitlements, aid delivery, and legal remedies. Without global guidelines, openness, redress mechanisms, or
rights protections, these technologies frequently amplify entrenched gender disparities, embedding biases from past records, enforcement histories, and bureaucratic routines.
For women and girls from communities discriminated against on work and descent (CDWD)—including Dalit, Roma, Quilombola, Haratine, Burakumin, and other similarly affected groups—the risks are particularly severe. These communities already experience structural discrimination, over-policing, exclusion from services, biased judicial treatment, and chronic under-reporting of violence. When AI models are trained on biased data reflecting caste-, ethnicity-, or descent-based prejudices, the resulting systems risk:

Disproportionately flagging CDWD youth as “high-risk”
Intensifying surveillance of CDWD neighbourhoods
Automating exclusion from welfare or social-protection schemes
Misclassifying or deprioritizing CDWD women’s cases of violence
Reinforcing discriminatory employment and labour-market barriers

This session delves into AI’s influence on women’s and girls’ pathways to justice, emphasizing compounded vulnerabilities from overlapping discriminations. It will also provide a timely platform for discussion ahead of the Working Group’s forthcoming thematic report to be presented to the Human Rights Council in June 2026.
Objectives

Analyse how current uses of AI in governance, justice systems, and policing
reproduce gender, caste, ethnicity, and descent-based inequalities.
Highlight lived experiences of women and girls from CDWD communities regarding
AI-driven exclusion, surveillance, and barriers to justice.
Discuss safeguards and regulatory frameworks needed to ensure AI
strengthens—rather than undermines—women’s access to justice and protection
from violence.
Examine opportunities for AI to expand legal empowerment and support for survivors
when human-rights-based digital governance is applied.

To join this event please register here.
Partners
Permanent Mission of Albania to the UN New York
UN Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls (WGDAWG)
The Global Forum of Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent (GFoD)
The Inclusivity Project (TIP)
European Union Delegation to the United Nations in New York
