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	The future will only be fair and prosperous if leaders choose gender equality now by UN Women, ILO, UN DESA   Sep. 2025   Investing in women could lift hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty and add $4 trillion to the global economy by 2030 and $342 trillion cumulatively by 2050. Equality is not a cost to bear – it is the profit the world forfeits every day it delays it.   But money alone is not enough. This is about exclusion. Women and girls are pushed out of labour markets, denied healthcare, erased from budgets, and silenced from decision-making. Systems don’t suddenly crash, they are hollowed out, piece by piece.   The path forward is no mystery. The Gender Snapshot 2025 points to six game-changing areas: digital inclusion, freedom from poverty, safety from violence, equal decision-making, peace and security, and climate justice. Together these form the Beijing+30 roadmap: concrete solutions that can speed up progress, improve lives everywhere, and rewire economies for equality.   The future will only be fair and prosperous if leaders choose gender equality now.   Just five years remain before the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development deadline, which the world set to make equality a reality for all. The Gender Snapshot 2025, produced by UN Women and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, shows both the cost of failure and the gains within reach.   There are reasons to be hopeful. Girls are surpassing boys in school completion, women are gaining seats in parliament, and in just five years nearly 100 countries have scrapped discriminatory laws – from protecting girls from child marriage to establishing consent-based rape laws. But poverty, hunger, war, climate disasters, and backlash against feminism are eroding progress and could obliterate the gains made by a generation.   The data makes the choice we face clear: Equality could still be a reality for girls born today, but the world must invest now.   Poverty has a woman’s face   Ten per cent of women live in extreme poverty, a number that has not improved since 2020, and 351 million women and girls could still be trapped in extreme poverty by 2030. Women are taking on more unpaid care work than men, they are locked out of land ownership, finance, and decent jobs – denied the necessary tools to prosper.   If governments act now, women’s extreme poverty could fall from 9.2 per cent in 2025 to just 2.7 per cent by 2050. And the payoff? A $342 trillion boost to the global economy by 2050. Investing in women is the smartest growth strategy a country can choose.   Hungry, tired, and overlooked   In 2024, women were more likely than men to go hungry with 26.1 per cent of women facing food insecurity compared to 24.2 per cent of men – that is 64 million more women than men. Women also spend nearly three more years of their lives in poor health. By 2030, one in three women of reproductive ages could be living with anaemia, a condition that saps energy, productivity, and health.   Hunger and poor health keep women away from school, work, and leadership, and the costs of this exclusion rip through entire families and economies. Children born to malnourished mothers, for example, face higher risks of poor health and lower lifetime earnings.   A society is only as strong as the health of its women. When women get the food and healthcare they need, families thrive and poverty cycles end.   School doors open, but child marriage and violence cut futures short   Girls are now more likely than boys to finish school, but the path to leadership is broken. In 65 of 70 countries, women are far more likely to be secondary school teachers than principles, showing just how few make it to the top, even in a female dominated sector.   For too many girls, education ends abruptly with nearly one in five young women married before turning 18. Violence is also a daily horror, with 1 in 8 women aged 15–49 suffering from partner violence in the last year alone. Yet where strong laws, services, and systems exist, rates are 2.5 times lower – proof that protection works.   Harmful practices continue to strip girls of their dignity and bodily autonomy. Each year, 4 million girls undergo female genital mutilation (FGM), half before their fifth birthday. At the current pace, progress needs to be 27 times faster to end FGM by 2030.   Education can open doors but child marriage, FGM, violence and discrimination slam them shut, leaving the glass ceiling intact and women side-lined from leadership.   Power, pay checks, and the AI divide   Women hold just 27 per cent of parliamentary seats and 30 per cent of management roles. At this pace, equality in leadership is nearly a century away. Quotas show what is possible – in some countries they have doubled women’s share of parliamentary seats – but progress remains painfully slow.   Hurdles start long before women reach the boardroom. Some 708 million women are excluded from the labour market by unpaid care and time poverty. Even when women do work, they are crowded into lower paid jobs with fewer chances to rise.   Yet, when women do reach positions of power, the payoff is clear: companies with more women in leadership consistently outperform their peers – proving that when women have equal access to opportunity, growth and innovation flourish.   As the Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution takes hold, the world faces a new disruption, and inequality risks being coded into the future if we do not learn from past mistakes. Women make up only about 29 per cent of the global tech workforce and just 14 per cent of tech leaders. And nearly 28 per cent of women’s jobs are at risk from AI, compared to 21 per cent of men’s.   But the digital future could also be a equalizer. Closing the gender digital divide could benefit 343 million women and girls, lift 30 million out of extreme poverty, improve food security for 42 million, and spark $1.5 trillion in global growth by 2030.   Women pay the highest price in conflict and climate chaos   In 2024, 676 million women and girls lived within 50 kilometres of deadly conflict, the highest number in decades. At the same time, climate change related stressors, such as floods, droughts, and deadly heat are intensifying, and women are the first to feel the impact.   This means walking further for water, haemorrhaging income when farms and fisheries collapse, or living in peril in unsafe shelters. Climate change alone could push another 158 million women into poverty by 2050, nearly half in sub-Saharan Africa. And yet women are still shunned from peace negotiations and climate disaster planning.   Solutions can be simple. An estimated $8 billion a year for clean cooking fuels could deliver $192.3 billion in health and time savings for women and girls, alongside major cuts in carbon emissions — a 24-fold return. Without investment, the costs of inaction could reach $800 billion.   No data, no progress   You can’t fix what you can’t see. Yet governments are systematically defunding one of the most important tools for progress: data.   Since 2025, more than half of national statistical offices reported budget cuts, including to life-saving surveys on health and demographics. Only 57 per cent of the gender data needed to track progress is available, just 1 in 4 countries know how much they spend on gender equality, and only half of national gender institutions are adequately staffed.   Without solid data, governments will be unable to lead the race for equality. Protecting data means protecting progress. It is one of the simplest, most cost-effective steps we can take – because if women’s needs and successes are not counted, they are written out of the future.   The world has five years left to decide whether equality will remain a hollow promise or become a reality for everyone.   The stakes could not be higher. Keeping women in poverty, side-lined from leadership, and exposed to violence is economic sabotage. Inequality drains growth, wastes potential, and holds entire societies back. Action can turn deprivation into growth.   http://www.unwomen.org/en/articles/explainer/gender-equality-in-2025-gains-gaps-and-the-342t-choice http://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2025/09/progress-on-the-sustainable-development-goals-the-gender-snapshot-2025 http://www.ilo.org/topics-and-sectors/gender-equality
	Multinational enterprises and responsible business conduct by Amnesty, FIDH, Human Rights Watch, agencies   9 Dec. 2025   Amazon Watch expresses outrage at reports that the government of President Daniel Noboa has been directed and apparently intends to pay US $220 million to Chevron to honor an illegitimate Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) arbitration ruling.   Chevron has admitted in internal documents that it deliberately dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste into the Ecuadorian Amazon as a cost-saving measure. Ecuador’s courts, including the Constitutional Court, found Chevron guilty of one of the worst oil-related environmental crimes in history, issuing a $9.5 billion judgment in 2013 to clean up the contamination and provide relief for affected Indigenous and campesino communities.   By law, any Chevron assets in Ecuador should immediately be turned over to these communities to begin satisfying the debt Chevron owes.   Instead of complying, Chevron abandoned Ecuador, refused to pay, and turned to the ISDS system – a fundamentally undemocratic mechanism that allows corporations to bypass domestic courts, entirely exclude the affected communities, and use secretive arbitration panels stacked in their favor.   Chevron’s case relied on false testimony from a bribed witness and fabricated evidence. The Ecuadorian judgment remains legitimate and enforceable and is in no way invalidated by the Arbitration Panel’s award.   This entire process has been denounced worldwide as an abuse of law and an assault on the sovereignty of Ecuador and the rights of its people. It sets a dangerous precedent that corporations can poison communities, evade justice, and then profit from secret trade tribunals.   Ecuadorians themselves reject Ecuador’s participation in the flawed ISDS system. In 2024, a proposal to to include international arbitration mechanisms to resolve disputes was voted down by 64.8% of the Ecuadorian population. It is notable that as flawed as this process has been, the ISDS award was vastly lower than the US $3 billion Chevron sought.   Statement from Paul Paz y Mino, Amazon Watch Deputy Director:   “Let’s be clear: this illegitimate arbitration process is nothing more than Chevron abusing the law to escape accountability for one of the worst oil disasters in history. Ecuador’s courts ruled correctly and based largely on Chevron’s own evidence, that Chevron deliberately poisoned Indigenous and rural communities, leaving behind a mass cancer zone in the Amazon.   Adding insult to injury, the idea that Ecuador’s people should now pay a U.S. oil company that admitted to deliberate pollution is the epitome of environmental racism.   Noboa must not honor this ISDS award, and the international community must stand behind the victims of Chevron’s crimes and demand that the company clean up Ecuador once and for all.   “Amazon Watch stands with the affected Indigenous peoples and communities of the Ecuadorian Amazon. We urge President Noboa to reject this illegitimate award, disclose any negotiations with Chevron, and enforce Ecuadorian law by ensuring Chevron pays its debt to those it poisoned.”   Statement by the Union of Peoples Affected by Chevron-Texaco:   “Ecuador’s State Prosecutor’s Office celebrated the reduction of the ISDS award for Chevron to $220 million as if it was a success and an economic achievement. The reality is it is a defeat for justice. For 32 years, UDAPT has documented pollution, environmental crime, and lives broken by Chevron, proving what should be obvious: communities have not recovered, health has not been restored, clean water has not returned, and the territories that sustain life remain contaminated. A debt is not owed to Chevron. A debt is owed to the Amazonian families still waiting for truth, justice, and full reparation.”   Statement from human rights lawyer Steven Donziger:   “The decision by a so-called private corporate arbitration panel that claims to absolve Chevron of its massive pollution liability in Ecuador has no legitimacy and does not affect the historic $9.5 billion damages judgment won by Amazonian communities. That judgment still stands as the definitive public court ruling in the case. The private arbitral panel has no authority over the six public appellate courts, including the Supreme Courts of Ecuador and Canada, that issued unanimous decisions against Chevron and confirmed the extensive evidence that the company devastated local communities by deliberately dumping billions of gallons of cancer-causing oil waste into rivers and streams used by thousands of people for drinking, bathing, and fishing.   “I also strongly condemn President Daniel Noboa for his plans to betray his own people by agreeing to send $220 million from the public treasury to Chevron, a company that owes Ecuador billions under multiple court orders for poisoning vulnerable Indigenous peoples with toxic oil waste. Noboa would effectively grant Chevron a taxpayer-funded bailout financed by the same citizens who remain victims of the company’s pollution. This would be an outrageous dereliction of duty and a violation of his oath of office, warranting removal.“   http://amazonwatch.org/news/2025/1209-amazon-watch-responds-to-reports-that-ecuador-told-to-pay-220-million-to-chevron/ http://insideclimatenews.org/news/10122025/ecuador-to-pay-chevron-220-million-amazon-pollution http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/10/investor-state-dispute-settlements-have-catastrophic-consequences http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/08/chevron-amazon-ecuador-steven-donziger-erin-brockovich http://news.mongabay.com/2018/08/chevron-must-pay-for-environmental-damage-in-ecuador-court-rules/   1 Dec. 2025   More than 150 faith-based organizations from 25 countries have launched an open letter supporting an El Salvadoran ban on metals mining that was overturned by President Nayib Bukele in 2024.   The original ban was passed by the country’s legislature in 2017 following years of study and the advocacy of El Salvador’s religious communities. The letter signatories, which include 153 global and regional groups from a wide range of traditions, stood with faith groups in El Salvador in calling both for no new mining and for an end to the political persecution of land and water defenders.   "Inspired by Christian teachings that recognize water and nature as a sacred gift from God, and reaffirmed by Pope Francis in Laudato Si, we echo the call of Salvadoran church leaders that the reintroduction of mining would exacerbate environmental and humanitarian threats. Mining would exacerbate the already dire water contamination in El Salvador, further polluting the Lempa River, which supplies water to over 60 percent of the population.   They remind us that access to water is a fundamental human right and that clean water is not a commodity, but a shared inheritance entrusted to all people by God. And they remind us that ending the mining ban is fueling egregious rights violations against those organizing to protect their water and land from destruction.."   http://ips-dc.org/statement-from-faith-organizations-in-25-countries-in-support-of-the-salvadoran-people-and-their-religious-leaders-and-institutions-ban-on-metals-mining http://www.hrw.org/news/2025/12/01/an-opportunity-to-address-mining-abuses-globally   Sep. 2025   Nigeria: Shell remains responsible for cleaning up and remediating historic oil pollution despite divestment. (Amnesty International, OHCHR)   Responding to the recently published letter sent by seven UN Special Rapporteurs on Human Rights to Shell, Eni and other oil companies as well as the governments of the companies’ home countries and Nigeria regarding the historic pollution of the Niger Delta, Isa Sanusi, Amnesty International Nigeria’s Director, said:   “Amnesty International has researched and campaigned on the issue of oil pollution in Nigeria since the 1990s. The UN Special Rapporteurs have concurred with our finding that the repeated oil spills in the Niger Delta amount to violations of human rights. For every rights violation, there must be a remedy. Shell and other companies responsible for oil spills in the region must therefore clean up affected areas and compensate local communities for the decades of harm caused by those violations.   “We call on Shell and other oil companies to responsibly divest themselves of assets and operations in a way that respects human rights and the environment. Just because Shell recently sold its Nigerian subsidiary, it does not absolve the company of responsibility for its past actions.”   The UN Special Rapporteurs’ letter to Shell states that: “The repeated oil spills in the Niger Delta over a span of decades severely affected the right to life, the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment that is free from toxic substances, the right to the highest attainable standard of health, the right to safe drinking water, the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to food, the right to housing, cultural rights, the right of access to information and the right of access to remedy.”   “…Nigeria is being used as an experiment for divestment without clean-up… It is therefore of considerable importance that human rights abuses arising from the form of divestment now being used by oil companies are fully addressed and effectively remediated and compensated.”   http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/09/nigeria-shell-remains-responsible-for-cleaning-up-and-remediating-historic-oil-pollution-despite-divestment/   Zambia: Acid Spill Jeopardizes Residents’ Health. (Human Rights Watch)   Zambian authorities should address recent reports that polluted water and soil from an acid spill in Zambia’s copper mining region pose a serious health risk, Human Rights Watch said today.   On February 18, 2025, a dam in Chambishi, Copperbelt province, holding mining waste from Chinese mining company, Sino-Metals Leach Zambia, burst its walls and released acidic effluent into Kafue River’s watershed. Sino-Metals is a subsidiary of the Chinese government-owned China Nonferrous Metal Mining Group. The pollution killed fish, burned maize and groundnut crops, and led to the deaths of livestock, wiping out livelihoods of local farmers and posing harm to residents.   “Recent reporting on the immediate and long-term health effects of the February acid spill show the need for the Zambian government to investigate the health hazards and take comprehensive action to prevent further harm,” said Idriss Ali Nassah, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch.   “The authorities are obligated to ensure that the internationally protected rights to health and to a healthy environment of the affected communities are respected.”   Zambian authorities should conduct a comprehensive investigation with international and domestic experts to identify environmental health risks, and test affected communities for possible acute and cumulative heavy metal poisoning.   Civil society groups contended that the acid spill resulted from “a broader pattern of gross corporate negligence and inadequacies in environmental compliance, oversight and enforcement.” An official from a local environmental organization told the media that “people unknowingly drank contaminated water and ate affected maize. Now many are suffering from headaches, coughs, diarrhea, muscle cramps, and even sores on their legs...”   http://www.hrw.org/news/2025/09/11/zambia-acid-spill-jeopardizes-residents-health http://ishr.ch/latest-updates/cameroon-un-special-procedures-urge-action-on-mercury-pollution-and-corporate-accountability-in-gold-mining   Peru: OECD recognises Pluspetrol’s responsibility for environmental damage and Indigenous rights violations. (International Federation for Human Rights)   In an official statement released today, the National Contact Point (NCP) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in the Netherlands concluded that the energy company Pluspetrol violated the human rights of Indigenous communities.   Back in 2020, representatives of the Indigenous federations FEDIQUEP, FECONACOR, OPIKAFPE, and ACODECOSPAT filed the formal complaint with the OECD. Peru Equidad, one of the International Federation for Human Rights’ member organisations, was among the groups (namely SOMO, Oxfam Novib, and Oxfam en Peru) providing Indigenous communities with technical support with the claim, based on the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct.   Pluspetrol’s operations between 2000 and 2015 have been responsible for environmental contamination in Lot 1AB (now Lot 192) of the Peruvian Amazon. Oil spills, industrial discharge, and air and soil contamination from toxic cadmium, barium, and lead are just a few of the impacts still affecting the Quechua of the Pastaza River, the Achuar of the Corrientes River, and the Kichwa of the Tigre River.   The NCP urged Pluspetrol to remedy all damage caused by its extractive activities in the Loreto Region’s territory, which had accumulated more than four decades of oil exploitation at the time of the company’s withdrawal. In 2021, Peruvian environmental authorities definitely rejected Pluspetrol’s abandonment plan. Moreover, the company refused to participate in a mediation dialogue throughout the NCP process.   Indigenous federations have also denounced Pluspetrol’s use of a corporate structure designed to evade fiscal and environmental responsibilities, which goes against the OECD’s provisions on taxation and transparency. Although the company has Argentinian capital, its parent company is registered as a "letterbox company" in the Netherlands, with operations connected to tax havens such as the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg among others..   http://www.fidh.org/en/issues/business-human-rights-environment/oecd-recognises-pluspetrol-responsibility-environmental-damage-peru-amazon   UN expert sets out key guidelines to ensure access to justice in toxics cases. (OHCHR)   A UN expert has urged States to implement a set of key guidelines to overcome barriers impeding access to justice and effective remedies in cases of toxic exposure.   “The guidelines aim to enable individuals and communities to access their fundamental rights if exposure to hazardous substances and waste occurs,” said Marcos Orellana, UN Special Rapporteur on toxics and human rights.   Individuals and groups exposed to hazardous substances and waste suffer from reproductive injustices, neurological impairments, and various types of cancer. Exposure can cause widespread harm and profound human suffering that affects whole communities and even the rights of future generations.   “Structural discrimination also means that marginalised groups are disproportionately exposed,” Orellana said.In his report to the 60th session of the Human Rights Council, Orellana said that when victims pursue their rights to justice and effective remedies, they face procedural obstacles and delays, outdated or inadequate statutes of limitations, prohibitive litigation costs, lack of legal assistance, and lack of enforcement of judicial decisions.   “These barriers lead to impunity, exacerbate environmental injustices, and undermine legal systems,” the Special Rapporteur said.   The 24 guidelines, rooted in international human rights standards, aim to tackle the unique challenges of securing remedies in toxics cases.   “A common obstacle is the disproportionate burden on victims to establish key elements of their claims, for example, proving the causal link between toxic exposure and harm,” Orellana said.   Guideline nine recommends that courts apply a ‘dynamic burden of proof’ in order to place the onus of proving a fact on the party that is best placed to do so.   Another challenge is the latency period between exposure and disease, which can be years, decades or even generations. Guideline 11 recommends that statutes of limitation are either not applied in toxics cases or that limitations are calculated from the moment a victim learns or should have learned of the toxic risk or harm.   “Impunity is aggravating the increasing toxification of our planet and the resulting infringement of human rights—to life, health, and a healthy environment,” the expert said. “Accountability must be ensured, as a vital pillar for protecting human rights and the environment from exposure to toxic substances.”   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/un-expert-sets-out-key-guidelines-ensure-access-justice-toxics-cases http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/un-experts-concerned-about-human-rights-violations-linked-mercenary-related
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