Women’s rights are regressing globally as discriminatory laws and systemic failures leave women vulnerable to violence and injustice, according to a report by the United Nations gender equality agency. The findings, released on March 4, highlight a growing “justice gap” as conflicts, economic instability, and shrinking civic space fuel backlash against gender equality. Sarah Hendriks, director of UN Women’s Policy, Programme, and Intergovernmental Division, warned that “there is an increasingly organised pushback at gender equality and regression of women's rights” amid democratic backsliding and rising conflicts. She emphasized that justice systems are not immune to these pressures, stating, “Justice systems do not stand apart from those pressures, they actually reflect them.” The UN Secretary-General’s report, titled Ensuring and Strengthening Access to Justice for All Women and Girls, reveals how laws are being used to restrict women’s freedoms, silence their voices, and enable abuse without accountability. The report identifies five key barriers preventing equitable outcomes for women and girls. These include discriminatory legal frameworks, entrenched social norms, gaps between laws and their implementation, traditional justice systems operating outside state control, and conflict zones. Together, these factors mean women globally hold 64 percent of the legal rights afforded to men, while 54 percent of countries lack consent-based legal definitions of rape. Hendriks noted, “Where power remains unequal, justice rarely operates neutrally. This is where retreat from gender equality becomes very visible.” Global conflicts have exacerbated the crisis, with 676 million women and girls living within 50 kilometers of deadly violence in 2024—the highest level since the 1990s.#un_women #sarah_hendriks #un_secretary_general #conflict_zones
