In early March 2026, Another Development Foundation’s Meg Donevan attended the 70th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70) in New York , one of the UN’s most significant annual forums for advancing gender equality, human rights, and freedom from violence.
The Equality Model 2.0: Women for Sale in the Digital Era
Meg spoke at a parallel side event organised by the Swedish Women’s Lobby (Sveriges Kvinnoorganisationer), Unizon, ROKS, and Svenska Kvinnors Vänsterförbund. The event opened with a keynote by Reem Alsalem, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, whose landmark report — the first of its kind from the UN — recognises prostitution as violence against women and girls and calls on states to adopt the Equality Model. Alsalem was unequivocal: pornography must be understood as technology-facilitated prostitution, and when survivor voices are centred, the reality of prostitution becomes impossible to ignore.
Meg followed by tracing the origins of the Equality Model and unpacking Sweden’s updated legislation, the so-called ”OnlyFans law,” or Equality Model 2.0, making the case for why this reform is essential in an era when digital technologies are rapidly outpacing the legal frameworks designed to protect women and girls. Upholding human rights in the digital era requires that we name and confront the systems driving harm, not obscure them behind neutral-sounding language.
Technology-Facilitated Violence Against Women and Girls
Meg also participated in a panel on technology-facilitated violence against women and girls, hosted by Apne Aap International, Microsoft, and partners. The panel addressed why it should come as no surprise that AI is amplifying and extending violence against women and girls on an industrial scale: pornography has helped condition precisely this outcome. Naming and dismantling these systems is not optional; it is central to any serious commitment to gender equality and human dignity.
As Susannah Sjöberg of Sveriges Kvinnoorganisationer put it with striking clarity:
”Laws are slow. Technology is fast. Misogyny is never-ending.”
From Survival to Leadership: What Justice Really Means
Meg also joined ADF partner Yvonne Anyango of the Cooperation Arena for Sustainable Development in Africa (CASDA) at the online parallel event ”Changing Narratives: From Survival to Leadership.” The session brought together organisations working at the intersection of human rights, legal reform, education, and economic justice, with a focus on what it truly means to move women and girls from survival to agency and leadership.
Meg’s contribution centred on what justice must look like for survivors: not only the accountability of perpetrators, but the equally vital work of societal recognition — acknowledging the harm done, believing survivors, and building the systems of support that make genuine recovery and participation possible.
CSW70 was a week of important conversations and renewed resolve. The forces defending the status quo are powerful, but so is the movement pushing back.