W7 participated in the Ministerial discussion at the G7 Gender Equality Ministerial Meeting in Nikko

NEWS 07.03.2023

photo: G7 Gender Equality Ministers and W7 Representatives (2023-06-25, Nikko, Japan)

At the G7 Gender Equality Ministerial Meeting held on June 24-25, 2023 in Nikko City, Japan, W7 was invited as the official delegation and had several opportunities to make interventions at the same table with the Ministers.

W7 Co-Chair Fumie Saito (Japan), W7 Advisor Diana Sarosi (Canada) and Martina Rogato (Italy) participated on behalf of W7. Fumie spoke up W7 responses to the G7 Leaders’ Communique and posed questions to the Gender Ministers (Dialogue with the W7 and the GEAC), Diana commented after the Ministers’ speeches on “Leveraging the Lessons Learned from the Pandemic” (Session 1), and Martina spoke on the Women’s Economic Empowerment” (Session 2).

This was the first time that W7 was invited independently to the Ministerial Meeting. The W7 representatives actually had a chance to sit down with the Ministers and discuss about our requests. W7 made a clear request that the inclusion of W7 should continue in the future G7 Meetings.

Dialogue with the W7 and the GEAC

W7 Representative: Fumie Saito, W7 Japan Co-Chair, JOICFP

W7 Talking Points
We call for G7 Gender Equality Ministers to:

  1. Announce policy commitments with clear financial pledges to advance gender issues that were affirmed in the G7 Leaders’ Communique, such as resilient, inclusive and gender-transformative education, unpaid care work, treatment of care workers, and changing social norms.
  2. Address the care crisis issues through the public provision of a full range of care services, that include decent work for care workers.
  3. Demonstrate strong leadership to fight against the rollback of the bodily autonomy and rights of women’s, girls’ and LGBTQIA+ people, including transgender bashing, hate speech, discrimination, and criminalization of sexual and reproductive rights based on the agreed principle of the “Rule of Law” by G7.
  4. Promote the ratification of the Istanbul Convention, CEDAW, its Optional Protocol, and relevant ILO Conventions.
  5. Announce to support Pride7(P7) to be an official engagement group to the G7 Summit.
  6. Make a commitment to achieve Goal 5 as well as all the gender-related issues of all the other goals of 2030 Agenda as we stated in the C7-P7-T7-W7-Y7 Joint Statement on “Reigniting the 2030 Agenda: Achieving Gender Equality Now and For Future Generations”, and lead the global discussion on the 2023 SDGs Summit through gender-responsive approach.
  7. Improve the G7 Dashboard on Gender Gaps by adding effective indicators to serve as a robust accountability mechanism: (i) ratio of improvement from the previous year of each indicator, (ii) government budget allocated for gender equality, and (iii) percentage of bilateral ODA with gender equality as their primary objectives.
  8. Last, but not least: continue supporting W7 as the platform to engage with the civil society, including (i) inviting W7 to Ministerial Meetings and (ii) ensuring country-level funds to the W7 secretariat.

Session 1: Leveraging the Lessons Learned from the Pandemic

W7 Representative: Diana Sarosi, W7 Advisor, Oxfam Canada

W7 Talking Points

Session 2: Women’s Economic Empowerment

W7 Representative: Martina Rogato, W7 Advisor, Human Rights International Corner

W7 Talking Points

Unfortunately, the Joint Communique did not include concrete policy proposals, except for the commitment to publishing the first Implementation Report by the end of the year, and funding.

JOINT STATEMENT OF THE G7 GENDER EQUALITY MINISTERS: NIKKO STATEMENT

W7 responses to the joint statement.