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). In doing so, we join other civil society groups in making plain the growing threat to women’s rights and sex-based protections in Australia: a reality that is too often glossed over in official and mainstream media reporting. Though governments — including our own — continue to laud their record on women’s equality, our on-the-ground experience tells a harsher story. Our report aims to ensure the true situation for Australian women is placed squarely before the international community.
Fighting for women’s rights in an age of legal uncertainty
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.
Authorities largely remain silent on this conflict, while vital questions about access to female-only spaces, entitlements to services, and safety have been left unanswered.
Our report presses the government to confirm that women in Australia continue to enjoy sex-based protections wherever vulnerability on the basis of sex is recognised, such as in crisis centres, hospitals, prisons, and sport.
Loss of women-only services, data visibility, and meaningful special measures
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 arecalling for urgent government action to reinstate sex-disaggregated data and to safeguard special measures intended to benefit women, as clearly mandated by international law.
Gender stereotypes, trafficking, and the commodification of women
Education policies now promote gender identity frameworks that reinforce, rather than dismantle, sex stereotypes. This trend is not the challenge to regressive ideas that advocates claim; rather, it embeds old ideas under new language.
In the context of prostitution and surrogacy, government inaction and inadequate laws allow the commodification and exploitation of women to persist and, in some cases, worsen.
Our report urges a meaningful policy shift to address these systemic failures and protect vulnerable women and children.
Women’s participation and the right to public life
Our submission details the exclusion of women from legislative consultations on critical policy changes (including birth certificate reforms and sporting guidelines) where the main stakeholders — us, women — affected have been given little opportunity to participate or contribute. Women’s advocacy groups are often left out, with consultation periods reduced to the bare minimum. These practices violate our right to participate in public life and undermine democratic accountability.
Sport, leadership, and the dilution of women’s rights
Australia’s obligations require not just formal equality in sport, but effective protection for women’s fair and safe participation. Current‘gender equity’ policies diminish reserved places for women and allow male-born athletes to compete in female categories, eroding hard-fought gains in leadership and competition alike. Our coalition’s shadow report calls for the Australian Government to champion and clarify the sex-based exemption in sport and guarantee female representation across decision-making roles.
The call for transparent consultation … before it is too late
Above all, the inadequate timeframes allowed for public consultation — including just 21 days for responses to the CEDAW Committee’s questions — demonstrate a disregard for the voices of ordinary women’s groups, most of which are volunteer-run and resource-limited.
If democracy is to mean anything in Australia’s human rights processes, women’s voices must be not only heard but central to every review of our nation’s obligations.
We stand by our submission to the UN Human Rights Council and reaffirm our coalition’s resolve to fight for legal clarity, genuine consultation, and the restoration of women’s rights at every level.
Read the full report, below.
