Reem Alsalem

Reem Alsalem (born 1976) is a Jordanian independent consultant and former civil servant. Since August 2021 she has served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls. She is gender-critical, and has been accused of being anti-trans by LGBT+ and women's groups.^[1][2][3][4]

Alsalem was born in Cairo, Egypt in 1976.^[5] She was educated at the American University in Cairo where she completed a master's degree in International Relations in 2001. She subsequently graduated from the University of Oxford in 2003 with a Masters in Human Rights Law.^[6]

She was employed for 17 years as an international civil servant by the UNHCR where she worked with refugees in 13 countries.^[7][8] She left in 2016 to work as an independent consultant on humanitarian and gender issues.^[9] She speaks Arabic, English, French, German and Spanish.^[7]

Alsalem was appointed United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls and took up the role in July 2021.^[9][10] She listed five priorities for her work there:

• intersections between gender-based violence against women, sexual orientation and gender identity and expression;
• violence against indigenous women and girls;
• gender-based violence in the context of disaster risk reduction and climate change;
• psychological violence against women; and
• relationship between the condition of statelessness, gender, and gender-based violence.^[10]

Alsalem has expressed support for the abolitionist approach to prostitution and voiced opposition to the pornography industry. She developed these views in her thematic report titled Prostitution and violence against women and girls, presented to the Human Rights Council in June 2024. She says prostitution is a consequence of patriarchal structures, economic inequalities, and conflict situations. She also highlights the intersection of racism and prostitution, saying that women and girls from marginalised groups, particularly those facing multiple forms of discrimination, are disproportionately affected and often enter the sex trade due to socioeconomic precarity.^[11]

Legal and feminist scholars Susana T. Fried, Alice M. Miller, Rupsa Mallik, Ivana Radačić and Esteban Restrepo-Saldarriaga criticized Alsalem, saying that she misused evidence and ignored dissenting voices in her report on "prostitution and violence"; they wrote that "there is no agreement in international human rights law about what laws best protect the rights of people who sell sex" and that "evidence is strong that criminal law making both the buying and selling of sex a crime hurts the very people who are most at risk".^[12]

Core to her work as special rapporteur are her claims that sex and gender should not be conflated, and that both should be recorded in data.^[4] She considers that in some situations there may be a clash between women's rights and transgender rights.^[4]

She opposed the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill and claimed it could "open the door for violent males."^[13] Her views were disputed by the United Nations Independent Expert on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor Madrigal-Borloz, and the spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights who said that "everyone (...) should have access to legal recognition of their gender identity based on self-identification."^[13] Six feminist organizations in Scotland—Engender, JustRight Scotland, Scottish Women's Rights Centre, Scottish Women's Aid, Amnesty International Scotland and Rape Crisis Scotland—also expressed disappointment by Alsalem's comments, accusing her of failing to speak with Scottish human rights or feminist organisations before her statements.^[14]

In 2023 Alsalem attended the gender-critical FiLiA conference, amid protests against the conference.^[15]

According to the New Statesman, "her insistence on recognising the difference between sex and gender has landed her in trouble."^[4] In 2023 an open letter published by the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID),^[16][17][2] endorsed by over 550 NGOs and women's groups, accused her of being "anti-trans", which she denies.^[17][4] Alsalem asks why is it "problematic" for people to say: "This is important; many of our needs emanate from being female, or male, and there are certain instances where it’s proportionate, legitimate and perfectly necessary to keep a space single sex".^[4] Legal scholar Jens Theilen said that Alsalem "is using women's rights as a tool to undermine trans rights" and considered her actions "a stark example of individual politics furthering rather than contesting oppression," citing the AWID letter.^[1] In 2024 website 4W reported that Alsalem's visit to Brazil had been effectively cancelled by Brazil's Minister of Women Cida Gonçalves due to her gender-critical views and what Maria Aquino, an adviser to the Brazilian Women’s Ministry on LGBT affairs, referred to as her "anti-trans" position.^[3] German LGBT+ magazine Queer.de reported that Alsalem has long been considered anti-trans by LGBT+ organizations, saying that she was strongly criticized by hundreds of women's rights organizations as well for her anti-trans views.^[2]

Alsalem has supported gender-critical views, opposing President Biden’s Title IX policies for transgender youth in the U.S. and the World Health Organization’s support for self-determined gender identity.^[18][19]

In 2024 Alsalem released a report that called for "sex screening" in sport to allegedly protect a "female-only category" and exclude those not born female.^[20]

In 2024 Alsalem also criticized the Self-Determination Act that entered into force in Germany.^[21] International law scholar Selin Altay criticized Alsalem for her position on the Self-Determination Act, saying that Alsalem has long faced criticism for holding anti-trans views. Altay argues that Alsalem fails to fulfill her mandate as special rapporteur if she does not actively defend the right to gender self-determination. According to Altay, Alsalem is responsible for addressing all forms of violence against women at the international level, including violence against trans women. She emphasizes that "the right to gender self-determination is a fundamental human right, and it falls within her mandate to uphold this principle." Altay contends that Alsalem must clarify misconceptions and ensure that discussions on gender identity are not distorted by unfounded and transphobic anxieties about cis women's safety. Her role, Altay writes, is "not to validate fears that undermine human rights but to affirm that self-determination is a recognized and protected right." She concludes: "Contrary to Alsalem’s claims, ensuring the safety and well-being of both trans and cis women is not a conflicting goal."^[22]

In 2025, Alsalem supported Donald Trump's executive order "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports," which calls transgender women "men" and attempts to ban them from women's sports, and which had been condemned by Amnesty International as "yet another cruel attack on transgender people."^[23]

In 2025 Alsalem presented her report "Sex-based violence against women and girls", that called for a ban on legal and social gender transition for children. It also called on states to "ensure that the terms ‘women’ and ‘girls’ are only used to describe biological females and that such a meaning is recognised in law" and referred to trans women as "males who identify as women or girls."^[24] Alsalem was praised by Alliance Defending Freedom for resisting "gender ideology".^[25]

In January 2024, Alsalem criticised the composition of a World Health Organization (WHO) committee, saying that most committee members had "strong, one-sided views in favour of promoting hormonal gender transition and legal recognition of self-asserted gender" and that none of them was an expert in adolescent development.^[26] Author Helen Joyce supported Alsalem, emphasising from her letter "the short time-frame given for comments, the unbalanced group developing the guidelines and the uncritical endorsement of gender self-ID".^[27]

Alsalem was criticised in 2023 by Claire Waxman, London's Victims' Commissioner, as she did not speak out on reports of sexual and gender-based violence in the 7 October attack on Israel against Israeli women during and following the Hamas-led attack.^[4] In response, Alsalem said she had condemned "what happened on 7 October", had contacted NGOs in Israel without reply, and said she could not make "sweeping statements" without receiving evidence.^[4]

In 2024, Alsalem said that "grave violations of international human rights and humanitarian law" had been committed in Gaza by Israeli troops.^[4] In a formal statement, she described "credible" allegations of "multiple forms of sexual assault", such as rape and strip-searches, against Palestinian women and girls.^[4][28] When asked to provide the source for her allegations, Alsalem cited unsubstantiated reports by Richard A. Falk.^[29] Israel denied the allegations.^[4][30]

In February 2024, Alsalem criticised the UK's strategies for combatting violence against women and girls. She said: "Entrenched patriarchy at almost every level of society, combined with a rise in misogyny that permeates the physical and online world, is denying thousands of women and girls across the UK the right to live in safety, free from fear and violence."^[31]