Women’s rights are regressing worldwide, warns UN gender equality chief

“As the world navigates democratic backsliding, rising conflicts, economic pressures and shrinking of civic space, there is an increasingly organised pushback at gender equality and regression of women’s rights,” Sarah Hendriks, UN Women Director, Policy, Programme and Intergovernmental Division told reporters at a briefing in New York. 

“Justice systems do not stand apart from those pressures, they actually reflect them,” she said. 

The report titled Ensuring and Strengthening Access to Justice for All Women and Girls, shows how laws are being reshaped to restrict women’s freedoms, silence their voices, and allow abuse without consequence. 

It warns that women and girls are being failed by the very systems meant to protect them, leaving them exposed to abuse, injustice and impunity as backlash against gender equality intensifies. 

Barriers to change

The report found five key areas that prevent fairness in outcomes for women and girls, who face greater barriers to justice than men in nearly 70 per cent of the countries surveyed.

Discriminatory legal frameworks, social norms, gaps between laws and implementation, traditional justice systems independent from the state, and conflict settings all serve to reinforce inequalities and prevent advancing meaningful justice for women. 

Together, these barriers mean that women worldwide have 64 per cent of the legal rights of men whilst 54 per cent of countries lack consent based legal definitions of rape.

“Where power remains unequal, justice rarely operates neutrally. This is where retreat from gender equality becomes very visible,” Ms. Hendriks said. 

Women’s rights are being further threatened by the rise in global conflicts. In 2024, 676 million women and girls lived within 50km of a deadly conflict (the highest since the 1990s). As a result, there has been a reported 87 per cent increase in conflict related sexual violence violations. 

Reform: ‘By women for women’

“Far too often impunity prevails,” Ms. Hendriks said that “when justice fails women and girls, the damage goes far beyond any single story, any single woman’s life. Communities lose faith, public trust erodes and justice institutions lose legitimacy”. 

No country in the world has achieved full legal equality between women and men, the UN gender equality agency said on Wednesday.

“Justice systems can evolve, they can transform,” Ms. Hendriks noted, adding that since 1970, more than 600 million women have gained access to economic opportunities because of family law reform. 

Among the eight recommendations for governments to implement by 2030, she said that judicial reforms “need to be shaped by women and shaped for women” and emphasised the need for more resources and government spending to address these concerns. 

“Nearly 90 per cent of organizations working to end violence against women and girls are reporting reduction in essential services, only 5 per cent believe they can sustain the current situation they are in and sustain for over two years.”