A/HRC/43/48 expression in communal practices, are a concern for the State and international human rights law. Secondly, feminists argue that the State cannot address the religious commitments of a community as fixed monoliths.37 In many instances, deference to institutional traditions on the grounds that these traditions are shared by, and integral to, the existence of the community, contradicts the reality that religious communities are far from homogenous, and instead consist of individuals with diverse beliefs. 50. Consultation participants working within religious communities noted that the ability of women, girls and LGBT+ persons to belong to a faith of their choice, or, more often, a faith into which they were born that comprises their social and cultural connections, without being discriminated against, was vital to realizing myriad human rights, including the right to freedom of religion or belief. As such, many individuals within religions and across traditions, they reported, were increasingly rejecting patriarchal interpretations of religious doctrine and demanding equal rights within their religious traditions. They further asserted that religion should not be “all or nothing” – either you choose to take part in a religion and must accept its inequalities, or you must cease to belong to that religion. However, as consultation participants across regions attested, women and LGBT+ persons often had little influence over the rules of the community in which they lived. They noted that those who pursued gender equality, including gender equal beliefs, could risk violence, shunning and stigma from their religious communities. 51. These consequences are particularly stark for those who often cannot leave, or do not want to leave, their religious community due to economic reasons. Furthermore, the response that one has the “option to leave”, they asserted, could fail to appreciate that many individuals were born into a religion and their religious community, and that membership in a religious community could become part of one’s identity, family, and social and economic structure before choice in beliefs was introduced and developed. Individuals further noted that the unequal treatment and social status of women and girls in many societies, including in education and assigned gender roles, meant that women were routinely less able than men to exercise their independence and exit their groups of origin. As such, leaving a faith community in many cases is impractical or impossible, particularly where a woman has little or no social, economic or personal independence from a religious group, or where she risks losing custody of her children or faces other forms of coercion. An effective right to exit is contingent on a form of unfettered autonomy and freedom from external control38 that rarely exist in such cases. 52. The Special Rapporteur asserts that this overlap between freedom of religion or belief and the right to non-discrimination needs to be addressed not by trade-offs or a hierarchy, but by producing the “practical concordance” of all human rights involved, to the maximum degree possible,39 based on reasons accessible to all. As duty bearers, States must become more clear-eyed about the root causes of gender inequality and intentional about the multilevel, transformational approaches that are necessary to “solve” such a complex problem. Anchoring freedom of religion or belief in a principle that demands nondiscrimination requires the legal protection of the equality of opportunity in the enjoyment by all of this right, as well as all the other rights on which freedom of religion or belief depends. This means that the rights of individuals should be protected even within groups, by creating an enabling environment where dissenters are protected against incitement to violence, and are able to assert their agency through the exercise of their fundamental human rights, including freedom of expression, right to information, freedom of religion or belief, the right to education, the right to work, freedom from coercion and equality before the law, among others. Equal liberties and protections in society, such as the right to equality and nondiscrimination or the right to physical integrity, can be maintained only if individuals are never deemed as having waived said rights and liberties, even by voluntarily joining an organization. 37 38 39 12 Madhavi Sunder, “Piercing the veil”, Yale Law Journal, vol. 112, No. 6 (April 2003). Elizabeth O’Casey, “A theory of need in international political theory: autonomy, freedom and a global obligation”, PhD dissertation, London School of Economics, 2012, pp. 18–66. Heiner Bielefeldt and Michael Wiener, Religious Freedom under Scrutiny (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020), p. 99.