A/HRC/43/48 High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva and in Tunisia, and officers from several United Nations agencies, including the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, and the World Health Organization. The Special Rapporteur is grateful to those who participated in the consultations for taking the time to travel great distances – at times at peril to their security – in order to engage with him. 12. The Special Rapporteur also invited civil society, faith-based actors and other stakeholders to submit information about laws, policies and activities affecting the right to freedom of religion or belief for women, girls and LGBT+ persons, as well as information about the intersection of freedom of religion or belief and other rights. Dozens of reports and studies were submitted by monitors, researchers and rights organizations. IV. Key findings 13. The Special Rapporteur has received a great deal of information alleging that women, girls and LGBT+ persons have experienced gender-specific violence and discrimination that impedes their ability to fully enjoy their human rights – including the right to freedom of religion or belief – by State and non-State actors relying on religious “justifications” for their actions. Additionally, civil society and faith-based actors who engaged in a series of consultations for the present report highlighted the varied ways in which women, girls and LGBT+ persons were denied equal personhood in both the private and the public spheres in States where interpretations of religious doctrine that promote gender-based violence and discrimination were enforced through law and policy. 14. To date, much attention regarding gender-based discrimination in the name of religion or belief has focused on practices such as female genital mutilation, marital rape, early and forced marriage, and polygamy, all of which are rightly condemned as harmful traditional practices by the human rights community. At the same time, consultation participants across four regions also noted the increasing use of religion or belief to deny reproductive health and sexual rights, to criminalize protected conduct and deny the equal personhood of LGBT+ persons, or to undermine the right to freedom of religion or belief to women, girls and LGBT+ persons. 15. The Special Rapporteur shares the concern expressed by other United Nations human rights mechanisms about legislation in force in many countries that imposes standards of conduct allegedly prescribed by a religion or belief on the entire society and that have the effect of discriminating against women, girls and LGBT+ persons. Through the consultations held in preparing the present report, a number of additional such cases were identified and the Special Rapporteur’s attention was drawn to the significant role of religious actors and groups in mobilizing Governments to adopt such legislation. A. 1. Gender-based violence and discrimination resulting from State laws and policies that are grounded in religious “justifications” Reservations 16. Many States have submitted reservations to provisions of international human rights treaties that protect rights that advance gender equality, often asserting that, in the event of a conflict between national laws that are informed by religious teachings and obligations under the human rights treaty, the legally protected religious norms prevail (A/HRC/37/49, para. 41; and A/HRC/29/40). A significant number of such religiously grounded reservations are contrary to the object and purpose of the relevant treaties and invalid under international law. Among States that have adopted such reservations, many also impose significant restrictions on freedom of religion or belief and often discriminate against persons belonging to religious minorities, converts or apostates and non-believers, as well as women, girls and LGBT+ persons. 4