Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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381. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the measures or new initiatives being taken at a national and European level to address the persecution of women and the abuse of female human rights across the world; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23566/16]

Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael)
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‘The Global Island: Ireland’s Foreign Policy for a Changing World’ and ‘One World, One Future: Ireland’s Policy for International Development' reaffirm Ireland’s commitment to advancing gender equality globally through our international engagement and development assistance programmes. In line with these policies Ireland is actively engaged in the strengthening of international standards aimed at addressing gender inequality and promoting women’s empowerment at the United Nations and other regional organisations.

Our participation in discussions at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) and the Third Committee of the General Assembly enable us to influence and express our support for resolutions on such issues including: the elimination of discrimination against women; violence against women; female genital mutilation; the right to education by every girl; and strengthening efforts to prevent and eliminate child, early and forced marriage. We also raise our concerns regarding the situation of women in specific countries through our interventions at the HRC’s Universal Periodic Review where the human rights records of individual states are reviewed by other UN Member States.

Ireland has also played an important part in supporting UN bodies specifically aimed at addressing gender equality and played a key role in the establishment of UN Women. During the 60th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in March 2016, Ireland supported side events on: prostitution and the role of men and youth in mobilising its abolition; preventative approaches to Gender Based Violence; the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women; and on Women, Peace and Security, as part of our longstanding advocacy on this issue. Our election to serve on the CSW from 2017 to 2021 provides an opportunity to enhance our contribution to the promotion of gender equality.

Discrimination against women is a central driver of extreme poverty and food insecurity and addressing this is an integral part of our international development policy. The OCED has commended Ireland for having, “consistently played an important agenda-setting role on gender equality and women's empowerment”and ensuring that gender equality and women’s empowerment are a significant objective of our bilateral overseas development assistance. Both bilaterally and at the UN, we consistently emphasise the importance of gender mainstreaming as a key aspect of ending poverty, hunger and discrimination. During the 30th session of the UN Human Rights Council in September 2015 Ireland addressed the issue of gender and mainstreaming and called for the full and equal participation of women at all decision-making levels in UN bodies.

At the annual full-day discussion on the human rights of women at the 32nd session of the Council in June 2016, Ireland’s statement focused on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, highlighting the importance of implementation of the Agenda to ensure that the poorest and most vulnerable women and girls are not left behind.

Ireland supports EU engagement to promote and protect women’s human rights as part of its external actions. In June 2016, the EU Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) adopted the report on the implementation of the EU Action Plan for Human Rights and Democracy (2015-2019) which outlines the actions taken by the EU to promote the human rights of women in 2015. These include the adoption of a Gender Action Plan (2016-2020) and the policy for Strategic Engagement for Gender Equality (2016 – 2019) as well as a commitment to provide €100 million over the next seven years to support gender equality and women's and girls' empowerment projects.