Women and girls are demanding change – and they deserve nothing less by United Nations News, UN Women   Mar. 2025 (UN News)   The basic rights of women and girls are facing unprecedented growing threats worldwide, from higher levels of discrimination to weaker legal protections -and less funding for programmes and institutions which support and protect women.   UN Women’s latest report Women's Rights in Review 30 Years After Beijing, published on the UN 50th International Women’s Day on 8 March, shows that in 2024, nearly a quarter of governments worldwide reported a backlash on women’s rights.   Despite decades of advocacy, economic instability, the climate crisis, rising conflicts and political pushback have contributed to a worsening landscape for gender equality.   While 87 countries have been led by a woman at some point in history, true parity is still a long way off. Alarmingly, UN Women reports that a woman or girl is killed every 10 minutes by a family member or intimate partner.   The digital space is also exacerbating gender disparities, the UN agency argues, with artificial intelligence and some social media platforms amplifying harmful stereotypes. Meanwhile, women and girls remain underrepresented in digital and tech-related fields.   Without robust and gender-responsive social protections, vulnerable people can fall through the cracks. Women and girls are more likely to be at risk for poverty or to experience it, as evidenced in 2023, where 2 billion women and girls had no social protection coverage. In 2024, 393 million women and girls were living in extreme poverty.   In the past decade, there has been a disturbing 50 per cent increase in the number of women and girls directly exposed to conflict, and women’s rights defenders confront daily harassment, personal attacks and even death, UN Women said.   These findings underscore that crises such as COVID-19, soaring food and fuel prices, and the undermining of democratic institutions are not just slowing progress – but actively reversing gains.   “When women and girls can rise, we all thrive,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres in his message for the day. Yet, “instead of mainstreaming equal rights, we are seeing the mainstreaming of misogyny.”   “Together, we must stand firm in making human rights, equality and empowerment a reality for all women and girls, for everyone, everywhere,” he emphasised.   UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous echoed this urgency: “Complex challenges stand in the way of gender equality and women’s empowerment, but we remain steadfast. Women and girls are demanding change – and they deserve nothing less.”   As the world marks the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration in 2025, the most visionary roadmap for furthering women’s rights, UN Women's latest report shows progress that must be acknowledged.   Since 1995, countries have enacted 1,531 legal reforms advancing gender equality, maternal mortality has dropped by a third and women’s representation in parliaments has more than doubled.   Yet, as the report makes clear, significant work remains to achieve the 2030 Agenda. The newly introduced Beijing+30 Action Agenda outlines priority areas to accelerate progress.   While countries may signal their commitments to gender equality through adopting gender-responsive and inclusive policies, without follow-through and proper funding, they may have little impact in the long term.   Equal access to technology and online safety must be ensured for all women and girls, while investments in social protection, universal health care and education are all deemed essential for women’s economic independence.   Women-led organizations must receive dedicated funding to build lasting peace and women’s leadership in environmental policies must be prioritised, ensuring equal access to green jobs.   Meanwhile, countries must adopt and implement legislation to end violence against women and girls, in all its forms, with well-resourced plans that include support for community-based organizations on the front lines of response and prevention.   Turning words into action   As gender equality faces one of its most challenging periods in decades, UN Women is calling on governments, businesses and civil society to reinforce their commitments to women’s rights, to ensure that all women and girls, everywhere, can fully enjoy their rights and freedoms.   http://www.unwomen.org/en/get-involved/international-womens-day http://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/2025-03/womens-rights-in-review-30-years-after-beijing-en.pdf http://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/feature-story/2025/02/womens-rights-in-2025-hope-resilience-and-the-fight-against-backlash http://www.unwomen.org/en/articles/timeline/never-backing-down-women-march-forward-for-equal-rights http://www.unwomen.org/en/articles/explainer/the-beijing-declaration-and-platform-for-action-at-30-and-why-that-matters-for-gender-equality http://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories Visit the related web page
	Women and girls continue to experience discrimination in laws, policies, and cultural practices by Antonia Kirkland Equality Now, agencies   Mar. 2025   Research by Equality Now identifies how women and girls continue to experience systemic and intersecting discrimination in laws, policies, and cultural practices, exposing them to multiple forms of harm, sometimes with little or no legal protection.   Alarmingly, in some places, women’s legal rights have deteriorated significantly, with hard-won protections weakened or overturned through regressive legislative changes, judicial rulings, and withdrawal of funding.   The Beijing Platform   The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (“Beijing Platform”) is a ground-breaking global framework for advancing women’s rights. Adopted in 1995 by 189 countries at the UN Fourth World Conference on Women, it outlines commitments to deliver gender equality in all aspects of life. Crucially, countries pledged to “revoke any remaining laws that discriminate on the basis of sex.”   Equality Now’s report, Words & Deeds: Holding Governments Accountable In The Beijing+30 Review Process (6th Edition), finds that three decades on, women and girls continue to face discrimination in the law, with not one country achieving full legal equality.   Laws and practices that constrain women’s and girls’ rights are obstructing progress on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, especially Sustainable Development Goal 5 on gender equality, putting the world off track to meet these critical targets.   Report co-author Antonia Kirkland explains, “Women and girls deserve full protection of their civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights under the Beijing Platform and other international human rights commitments. This requires repealing all sex-discriminatory legislation, enshrining gender equality in constitutions, and introducing and enforcing laws that fully protect the rights of women and girls in all their diversity.”   Rollback on women’s legal rights   Some governments are allowing sex and gender-discriminatory religious and customary laws and practices, while religious, cultural, and nationalist justifications are increasingly being harnessed to undermine and revoke women’s rights.   For example, in Afghanistan, draconian restrictions have comprehensively banned women and girls from participating in public life, education, work, and leisure. The situation is also dire in Iran, where women have experienced sustained crackdowns, and those opposing sex-discriminatory laws have been subjected to arrest, detention, torture, and death.   Lawmakers in Bolivia and Uruguay are considering regressive bills to weaken protections for sexual violence survivors. While in The Gambia, a bill to repeal the law banning female genital mutilation threatened to undo years of progress. Thankfully, strong opposition successfully prevented its passing.   In Russia in late 2024, under the rubric of “anti-propaganda”, legislation was adopted to prohibit the promotion of a ‘child-free lifestyle.’ Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia have adopted laws curtailing LGBTQ+ rights.   In Argentina, there have been severe budget cuts to policies to address gender-based violence, and the Ministry of Women has been abolished, significantly hindering the State’s capacity to safeguard women.   Over the last 30 years, more than 60 countries have liberalized their abortion laws. However, sexual and reproductive rights are facing sustained attacks. Examples include Poland, where one of the few grounds permitted for abortion access – fetal ‘defect’ or incurable disease – was removed in 2021.   In the U.S., the Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that the U.S. Constitution does not provide the right to abortion. By January 2025, abortion was criminalized in 14 states, and there are efforts to ban travel to other states to access abortion services.   The Dominican Republic is one of five countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to impose a complete abortion ban. Their senate is close to passing a bill continuing this prohibition and lowering penalties for marital sexual violence, labeling it ‘non-consensual sexual activity’ rather than rape.   Explicitly sex-discriminatory laws   Countries such as Sudan and Yemen grant male family members wide-ranging authority over female relatives and legally require wives to be obedient. In Saudi Arabia, women must obey their husbands in a ‘reasonable manner,’ and husbands have a ‘marital right to sexual intercourse.’ If a wife refuses to have sex or travel with her husband without a ‘legitimate excuse,’ this “disobedience” can result in her losing her right to spousal financial support.   Husbands can unilaterally divorce wives without condition, but wives must apply to the court for a fault-based divorce and prove fault within strict criteria. According to the World Bank, Saudi Arabia is just one of 45 countries with different divorce rules for women and men.   Marital rape is also allowed in the Bahamas and India, while in Kuwait and Libya, a rapist can escape punishment by marrying his victim.   Various countries have laws curtailing wives’ access to bank accounts, loans, and even the ability to benefit from their own labor in family businesses. For example, a husband in Cameroon controls the administration of all his wife’s personal property and can sell, dispose of, and mortgage their common property without a wife’s cooperation. Wives in Chile face similar discrimination.   The World Bank reports that 139 countries still lack adequate legislation prohibiting child marriage. One case is the U.S., which has no federal law against child marriage, and 37 states still allow it. California permits exceptions for marrying minors with no minimum age, while states like Mississippi mirror countries such as Bangladesh, Mali, Pakistan, and Tanzania in authorizing girls to be married younger than boys.   Poverty exacerbated by the climate crisis and forced migration is putting girls at greater risk of child marriage, with parents viewing it as a coping mechanism to alleviate financial strain and ‘shield daughters from sexual violence’ – despite child marriage facilitating non-consensual sex with a minor. For instance, Ethiopia suffered a severe drought in 2022, and in one year, saw child marriage rates double.   On a positive note, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Sierra Leone, and Zambia have all recently introduced laws banning child marriage under 18, without exception.   Globally, sex-discriminatory laws and policies are constraining women’s full economic and social participation, trapping millions in poverty and dependency, and increasing their vulnerability to mistreatment.   In many countries, women are denied equal access to employment, fair wages, property ownership, household income, and inheritance.   This contributes to women’s overrepresentation in insecure, low-wage jobs, and their shouldering the bulk of paid and unpaid care work.   In countries such as Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, and Russia, women are prohibited from working in particular jobs. Progress since 2020 includes similar employment restrictions being removed in Azerbaijan, Jordan, and Oman.   Also needing reform are sexist nationality laws, like in Bahrain, Brunei, Malaysia, Monaco, Togo, the U.S. and others. When mothers and fathers are not granted equal rights to pass their nationality to their children, it creates severe legal and social challenges, including statelessness.   The risk of child and forced marriage is heightened, it creates child custody problems, and wives may remain in abusive marriages out of fear of losing their legal status.   Antonia Kirkland concludes, “Eliminating sex and gender-based discrimination in the law is a fundamental responsibility of governments. Equality Now calls on every country to urgently review and amend or repeal its sex-discriminatory laws, prevent removal of legal rights, and establish specific constitutional or legal guarantees of equality for all women and girls.”   * Antonia Kirkland is Global Lead for Legal Equality and Access to Justice at Equality Now an international human rights organization dedicated to protecting and promoting the rights of all women and girls worldwide.   http://equalitynow.org/resource/words-deeds-beijing30-report/   Mar. 2025   Make Taxes Work for Women, a call from the Global Alliance for Tax Justice   The current tax system of most countries worsens gender inequality. On the one hand, the tax burden tends to fall on the poorest women while on the other hand, tax revenues are insufficient to fund the gender responsive programmes and services needed to improve women’s lives and realise their rights – to healthcare, education, decent work, and an adequate standard of living. For women to exercise choice and control over economic opportunities and resources, tax justice is key.   The Global Alliance for Tax Justice (GATJ) advocates for a feminist tax system which promotes gender, social and economic equality, and funds public services, including health care, universal public education, provision of safe water, provision of safe public transport, lighting in public spaces and other factors that keep women and all people safe, and redistribute women’s unpaid care work.   GATJ calls for a feminist tax system which includes:   An end to regressive consumption taxes such as value-added taxes and goods and services taxes that increase the burden on the poor and marginalised, particularly women. The introduction of taxes on large incomes, assets and wealth to ensure sufficient funding for quality public services and universal social protection.   Publicly available gender disaggregated economic, revenue, and demographic data generated by governments and international financial institutions and the the inclusion of women’s voices and feminist analyses in international financial decision-making and policy-making spaces.   This year, the global tax justice community, has a special focus on women’s rights, feminist organizations, and movements, calling for the urgent adoption of progressive tax policies as critical instruments for supporting an inclusive and just social organisation of care.   http://globaltaxjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Final-GDOA-Concept-Note-2025-EN.pdf http://globaltaxjustice.org/campaigns/make-taxes-work-for-women/ Visit the related web page
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