Introduction to the Guidelines BACKGROUND NHRIs in the Asia Pacific have made a commitment to advance gender equality and to promote and protect the human rights of women and girls in their respective countries. The APF Strategic Plan 2015–2022 identifies gender equality as one of six key strategic functions. Implementation of this strategy involves a ‘twin-track’ approach, utilising both gender specialisation and gender mainstreaming initiatives. The APF recognises that gender-led human rights empowerment is critical to the realisation of human rights for everyone. The APF Gender Strategy includes a combination of gender specialisation and mainstreaming measures that are designed to: • Support the APF’s membership to prioritise and focus on the human rights of women and girls • Support gender mainstreaming processes within the APF’s membership • Mainstream gender within the operation of the APF secretariat. These Guidelines have been developed to support APF members and prospective members to mainstream gender within their institutions and across their external work. NHRIs may also wish to adopt or adapt these Guidelines as the basis for their own institutional mainstreaming strategy. The Guidelines include a step-by-step gender mainstreaming process and make reference to resources, tools and case studies. The APF also facilitates a gender mainstreaming capacity building program for its members and prospective members using various tools such as these Guidelines, an online community of practice, blended learning opportunities, roundtables and videos and fact sheets. The capacity building program will be followed by support for NHRIs, where requested, to apply the Guidelines at the national level. It is anticipated that the Guidelines will continue to develop as they are used by NHRIs. The APF will review and, if required, update the Guidelines on a regular basis. SCOPE The APF recognises that the term ‘gender’ refers to socially constructed roles of, and power relations among, men, women and gender diverse people, all of whom may be affected differently by an NHRI’s activities. The APF also recognises the multiple discrimination faced by many women, girls and people of diverse gender identities because of additional factors such as race, disability, age, socio economic status/ class, caste, indigeneity, sexual orientation, sex characteristics, rurality and migrant and refugee status. Considering that women and girls have historically experienced discrimination as a result of patriarchal norms and power structures, these Guidelines focus on advancing gender equality between women and girls/men and boys, including cisgender and transgender. The models and strategies included in the Guidelines can also be used for gender equality work involving diverse gender identities. They can be considered alongside other APF resources aimed at addressing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and expression and sex characteristics. 5