• Over 20 years of international law has defined gender as a social construct. Gender-based crimes are used against victims to enforce gender regulations, for example, roles, behaviors, activities, or attributes.

• Accountability needs to be informed and led by survivors and their communities who have been affected by conflict or atrocity. There are many forms of accountability, ranging from restorative justice models to international tribunals to domestic court proceedings, and a first step to any justice process is agreement on what constitutes a crime or wrongdoing, including crimes that amount to gender persecution.

• Once established, accountability mechanisms should investigate gender persecution crimes. Entities tasked with creating accountability mechanisms should include gender persecution as a crime against humanity in the mandates of these mechanisms.

• These mechanisms should incorporate a gender analysis rooted in international human rights law in all stages of investigations and prosecutions, recognizing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination.

• Gender regulations often intersect with other discriminatory regulations used to reinforce systems of oppression, including, but not limited to, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, Indigenous status, immigration status, or disability status. When addressing gender-based violence, accountability mechanisms should also take into consideration other intersecting forms of discrimination that may also underlie a perpetrator’s intent to do harm.

• Accountability for gender persecution must include meaningful participation of survivors of gender persecution in peace and transitional justice processes. Survivors play a key role in creating sustainable peace and their rights to participation in redress mechanisms should be upheld.

• Accountability for gender persecution must include prevention strategies that address gender inequality and harmful gender stereotypes, and that enable women-led civil society organizations and human rights defenders to safely support their communities.

• States Parties should support the ICC in raising awareness of gender persecution, including through trainings of national and international accountability mechanisms on gender persecution, how to identify and support survivors, and the importance of meaningful survivor participation.