In a powerful intervention timed for the eve of critical
global diplomacy, Eliva Press today (12th August 2026)
released “Justice Unbound: Feminist Voices on Gender
Equality, Health Rights, and Inclusive Futures,” an
exclusive compilation of 14 hard-hitting reports by veteran
feminist, health and development justice advocate Shobha
Shukla. Written between January and June 2026, the book
documents the “nefarious pushbacks” against gender
equality and the human right to health across Africa and the
Asia-Pacific region. With only about 53 months remaining to
meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, Shukla’s work
arrives as a stark warning and a call to action.
Its
publication comes just weeks before world leaders gather in
New York for the 81st session of the United Nations General
Assembly.
The timing gives the book a significance
beyond its launch. It arrives as a challenge to governments:
will global leaders continue to merely make commitments on
equality and health, or finally build the accountability,
financing and political will required to deliver
them?
A feminist record of a world pushing
back
The 72-page book’s 14 reports range from
patriarchal resistance in Africa and the value of women’s
unpaid care work to menstrual justice, the rights of older
persons, female genital mutilation/cutting, access to
justice, antimicrobial resistance under gender lens, and the
effectiveness of UN accountability mechanisms.
Across
these diverse subjects runs a common argument: gender
equality and the human right to health cannot be treated as
optional development objectives. They are human rights, and
governments have responsibilities to make those rights
real.
Advertisement – scroll to continue reading
Shukla’s central concern is the widening gap
between promises and lived reality. Her book notes that the
world is already slipping behind on the Sustainable
Development Goals, while anti-rights and anti-gender
movements seek to reverse progress made for girls, women and
gender-diverse communities.
That warning is
particularly stark with 2030 approaching.
“Gender
equality” cannot mean merely the presence of women in
policy documents or conference halls. It must mean equality
in law, access to healthcare, bodily autonomy, economic
opportunity, political participation, safety, dignity and
justice.
From Africa’s pushbacks to a global
warning
One of the book’s opening reports examines a
controversial and regressive draft African Charter on
‘Family’, ‘Sovereignty’ and ‘Values,’ which supposedly got
support by 20 African countries at an inter-parliamentary
conference in Ghana in June 2026.
The report warns
that the proposed framework could undermine established
rights protections by privileging narrow definitions of
family, sovereignty and tradition over equality, bodily
autonomy and accountability. It also raises concern about
attempts to weaken commitments such as the legally binding
Maputo Protocol, which protects women’s rights and
reproductive and health rights across Africa.
The
broader warning is global: a rollback in one region can
become a precedent elsewhere.
The book cites feminist
and human rights voices arguing that gender equality and the
right to health are not negotiable or reversible. As the
doctrine of non-retrogression states, under international
human rights law and constitutional jurisprudence, once a
government grants, recognises, or improves healthcare and
gender rights protections, it is legally barred from rolling
back or reducing those established human rights
standards.
Shukla’s book also highlights the need for
international solidarity because human dignity cannot be
selectively protected according to geography, culture or
political convenience.
For world leaders, that should
be a warning ahead of the UN General Assembly: rights once
weakened are difficult to restore.
Justice must
recognise the work women have always done
The book
also records a striking development from India’s Supreme
Court, which in June 2026 substantially increased
compensation in a case concerning the death of homemaker
Reshma, recognising the economic value of unpaid domestic
and caregiving work. The Court established that the loss of
unpaid domestic care is a distinct economic loss and set
30,000 (approximately USD 313) per month as a minimum
stand-in for a homemaker’s domestic contribution when
calculating compensation.
Shukla uses the judgment to
expose a larger contradiction: women routinely perform
essential care work while that labour remains economically
and socially undervalued.
The lesson for governments
is straightforward. Gender equality cannot be achieved
without confronting the unequal distribution and valuation
of care.
The same principle applies to health. Women
and girls frequently carry the burden of caring for families
and communities while encountering barriers to healthcare
themselves. The book’s discussion of antimicrobial
resistance (AMR – which is threatening health and food
security, environment and our economies) shows how gender
inequality, gender-based violence, gender stereotypes and
harmful social norms, stigma and unequal access to health
services can influence health outcomes.
A health
system that relies on women’s unpaid labour while denying
women equal access to care is not equitable.
The
right to health must include everyone
The book
repeatedly challenges governments to move beyond symbolic
commitments toward inclusive, rights-based public health
systems.
It calls for healthcare that is
non-discriminatory and accessible to people in all their
diversities, including comprehensive sexual and reproductive
health and rights services and gender-affirming care. It
also stresses the need to protect women and LGBTQIA+ human
rights defenders facing legal and judicial
harassment.
The message is particularly urgent as
political debates increasingly seek to narrow the meaning of
gender, sexuality and bodily autonomy.
The book also
highlights a landmark January 2026 judgment by India’s
Supreme Court recognising menstrual health as an integral
component of fundamental rights and linking it to the
constitutional right to life, dignity, health and
self-respect.
Such developments show what rights-based
governance can achieve. But a judgment, law or treaty has
little value if implementation stops on paper.
That is
why the book repeatedly returns to accountability.
UN
accountability cannot remain a promise
One of Justice
Unbound’s most direct messages is that international
commitments require mechanisms capable of following
governments from promise to performance.
The book
highlights the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) as an
important accountability mechanism through which all 193 UN
Member States are periodically reviewed against human rights
obligations. It argues that UPR recommendations are public
and can create a pathway linking international commitments
to national policies, budgets and service
delivery.
That message should resonate strongly in New
York next month.
The 81st UN General Assembly should
not become just another summit where governments repeat
familiar language about equality, inclusion and health
before returning home to business as usual.
Instead,
leaders should use the session to establish measurable
commitments, timelines and accountability for delivering SDG
5 on gender equality and SDG 3 on health and
wellbeing.
As Shukla’s book puts it, governments need
to be pushed to deliver on promises already made at the
global level.
FGM/C shows the cost of promises
without delivery
Few examples demonstrate the
consequences of implementation failure more starkly than
female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C).
The book
notes that world leaders promised in 2015 to end FGM/C by
2030 under SDG target 5.3. Yet Shukla reports that the
number of girls and women affected increased from about 200
million in 2016 to more than 230 million in 2024 — a 15%
increase over eight years.
The book argues that FGM/C
cannot be isolated from wider gender-based violence and
systems controlling women’s and girls’ bodies. It calls for
community-led solutions, stronger protection systems and
accountability.
The principle is powerful: ending
FGM/C is not charity; it is justice.
The same
principle applies to healthcare, education, freedom from
violence, bodily autonomy and equal participation in public
life.
A message for the leaders of the 81st UN
General Assembly
When presidents, prime ministers and
ministers arrive in New York next month, Justice Unbound
offers them a simple but urgent test.
*
Deliver.
* Deliver on gender equality.
* Deliver
on the human right to health.
* Deliver on bodily
autonomy and sexual and reproductive health and
rights.
* Deliver on protection from gender-based
violence and harmful practices.
* Deliver on equal
justice.
* Deliver on inclusive public
healthcare.
* Deliver on the rights of older persons,
persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and
gender-diverse communities.
* And above all, deliver
on the promise to leave no one behind.
The book argues
that feminist movements and human rights defenders should be
recognised as rights holders, and not treated merely as
petitioners asking governments for favours. Young feminist
movements, in particular, need meaningful participation in
decision-making and protection from reprisals.
That
should become a defining principle of the 81st General
Assembly.
World leaders should listen not only to
governments but to the women, girls, health workers,
indigenous communities, survivors, older persons, human
rights defenders and gender-diverse people whose lived
realities reveal whether international commitments are
working.
From declarations to justice
The
launch of Justice Unbound therefore comes at a critical
moment.
Its title is both a description and a demand:
justice must not remain bound by patriarchy, political
expediency, narrow definitions of family, discriminatory
laws, stigma or unequal access to power.
The book’s
concluding call is uncompromising. Gender equality and the
right to health are fundamental human rights, yet the world
remains far from achieving them despite decades of effort.
Stronger accountability mechanisms are needed to ensure that
governments deliver on their global commitments.
The
81st UN General Assembly now has an opportunity to turn that
call into action.
The leaders meeting in September
should leave New York with more than speeches. They should
leave with funded plans, measurable targets, stronger
accountability, protection for human rights defenders and a
renewed commitment to universal human rights.
Because
the question facing the world is no longer whether gender
equality and the right to health are worthy aspirations. The
question is whether governments will finally treat them as
what they are: rights owed to every human being.
And,
as Justice Unbound makes clear, rights delayed, denied or
rolled back are not merely policy failures. They are
failures of justice.
Justice Unbound, published by
Eliva Press, is both a record of resistance and a roadmap
for the action required. The question now is whether leaders
at UNGA 81 will listen—and deliver.
Bobby
Ramakant – CNS (Citizen News Service)
–
Shared under Creative Commons
(CC)
