... the EHRC has never ceased its work to protect and promote equality and human rights.
Unfortunately, our road to reset and renewal now faces another obstacle. This comes as <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/tX2xg/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/27/britain-faces-un-blacklist-over-trans-rights-lobby-ehrc/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">a challenge, originating from UK campaign groups, to our UN accreditation as an “A” status national human rights organisation.
Accreditation is reviewed regularly by the relevant body on behalf of the UN, to ensure that the highest standards of human rights protections are upheld. The EHRC went through a successful reaccreditation only last year, which confirmed our “A” status for the next five years.
... But after our advice to government on the functioning of the Equality Act this April, we experienced targeted action by a group of campaign organisations, who again used the UN accreditation process as a means to undermine our statutory role – which involves a legal duty to advise on the effectiveness of equality laws. These allegations about us followed a letter we sent in April to the minister for women and equalities, who asked for our advice on the definition of the <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/tX2xg/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/04/biological-women-protected-equality-law-change/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">protected characteristic of “sex” in the Equality Act.
Our advice on this complex and divisive issue made clear that government should lean towards a biological definition of sex as the fairest way of protecting everyone’s rights, but that it should carefully identify and consider the potential implications of any such change.
We were saddened to see that Stonewall and other campaigners chose to “go low” with unsubstantiated claims about matters which have little to do with the daily lives of the people or groups who we are there to protect, instead of engaging with us to discuss our proposals to improve the balance of rights and protections.
... As part of the case made against us to the SCA, we were accused of being “in cahoots” with the UK Government in allegedly seeking to erode the rights of trans people. We absolutely refute this assertion. Our positions on sex and gender have received support from parliamentarians across the party-political divides. We take great pride in our independence from government and continue to demonstrate our impartiality through our willingness to robustly challenge them.
These are a few paragraphs from quite a long Comment article in the Telegraph by Kishwer Falkner https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/27/ehrc-will-strike-the-right-balance-when-upholding-rights/
Available to read via https://archive.ph just paste in the Telegraph link above into the box provided.