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	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/   Gender equality doesn’t stop at 50. If we truly want a fairer world, we must ensure that no woman – no matter her age – is left behind. (HelpAge International)   Today, more than one quarter of the world’s women are over 50 years old. And by 2050, this number will rise to 35%. Yet, when we talk about gender equality, older women are almost never mentioned. In fact, only 0.1% of aid targeting gender equality includes any reference to them.   Thirty years ago, the Beijing Declaration recognised that older women face unique challenges, from poverty and poor health to violence and discrimination. But despite promises to improve their lives, progress has been slow.   Women are more likely than men to be poor in older age. Many spend their lives doing unpaid care work or working in jobs that don’t provide pensions. When they retire, they are left with little to no income.   In many countries, older women are far less likely than men to receive a pension. In Ethiopia, for example, older men are nine times more likely to get a pension than older women. In Latin America, nearly half of women over 65 don’t have enough pension income to cover their basic needs. In many parts of the world, some older women report on relying on their families for basic daily needs or even having to beg to survive.   Many women continue working to support themselves and their families as they grow older, often in low-paid, informal jobs without protection or benefits. One in seven women over 65 globally are still working, mostly in insecure jobs.   They are more likely to do unpaid care work, looking after grandchildren and sick family members, without any recognition or support. On average older women undertake 4.3 hours of unpaid or domestic work a day.   Older women also face age discrimination in the workplace or are forced to retire. Despite their experience and wisdom, older women are often excluded from decision-making. They are rarely seen in government or leadership positions. Social norms and stereotypes push them into the background.   To truly achieve gender equality, older women must be included. Governments must collect sex-age and disability disaggregated data on older women – Without proper data to understand older women’s experiences, their needs and rights will continue to be ignored.   Policies and funding must include older women – From pensions to healthcare, governments and donors need to prioritise support for women at all stages of life.   Older women’s voices must be heard – They must be included in gender equality discussions, decision making at all levels, including policymaking, and leadership roles. Women face discrimination at every stage of life. Policies must recognise this and support women from youth to older age.   http://www.helpage.org/the-forgotten-faces-of-gender-equality/ http://www.helpage.org/news/social-protection-can-transform-lives-of-older-women/ http://www.helpage.org/celebrating-three-decades-of-courage-and-change/ Visit the related web page
	Amid funding crunch, UNHCR issues urgent call to protect women and girls from surging violence by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency   Mar. 2025   On this year’s International Women’s Day, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, warns that critical funding shortages are leaving displaced women and girls at unprecedented risk.   Reports of conflict-related sexual violence have surged by 50 per cent in recent years. Yet funding shortfalls are forcing humanitarian organizations to cut essential services in crisis-affected regions.   Safe houses – once a refuge for survivors at risk of immediate attacks by traffickers, armed groups and other perpetrators – have been shuttered. Legal aid programmes, which once offered a path to justice, have been dismantled, allowing perpetrators of violence to act with impunity.   “Women and girls fleeing war deserve to find safety. Yet across the world, they are now at even greater risk of rape and other forms of horrific violence. Without immediate funding, more safe houses will close, more survivors will be turned away, and more women and girls will face violence with no medical and psychosocial support. It’s heartbreaking and unacceptable,” said Ruven Menikdiwela, UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection.   The lack of global humanitarian funding is having devastating consequences. In South Sudan, only 25 per cent of the dedicated spaces created by UNHCR for women and girls at risk of violence are currently operational, leaving up to 80,000 people without access to services such as emergency psychosocial support and legal and medical assistance.   Programmes to protect refugees - particularly adolescent girls - from child marriage and other forms of violence have also been suspended, putting over 2,000 of them at aggravated risk.   In Ethiopia, more than 200,000 refugees and internally displaced persons no longer have access to life-saving services, including a safe house that used to host women in immediate danger of being killed.   In Jordan, at least 63 programmes providing specialist support to women and girls are closing down or on hold, leaving 200,000 vulnerable people in both refugee and host communities without help.   For years, programmes to prevent and respond to sexual and other forms of violence against refugee and stateless women and girls have saved lives, providing safety, legal assistance, medical care and psychosocial support – critical services for survivors escaping violence.   Yet despite its life-saving importance, support in this area has suffered from years of underinvestment and was only 38 per cent funded in 2024. The current crisis in humanitarian funding risks pushing this vital work beyond the point of no return.   On this International Women’s Day, we remind the world that displaced women and girls are not only survivors; they are leaders and changemakers. We must sustain and increase investment in their safety, education and economic empowerment to break these vicious cycles of violence and drive lasting change.   http://www.unhcr.org/news/press-releases/amid-funding-crunch-unhcr-issues-urgent-call-protect-women-and-girls-surging Visit the related web page
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