Women’s rights regressed in a quarter of the world’s countries in 2024, according to a report released by UN Women, just two days before International Women’s Day. The decline was attributed to factors such as the weakening of democratic institutions, the rise of new technologies, and climate change.
“The erosion of democratic institutions has been accompanied by a decrease in gender equality,” the UN agency stated, adding that “anti-rights movements are actively undermining long-standing consensus on key issues concerning women’s rights.”
The report highlighted that “nearly one in four countries reported setbacks in gender equality, hindering the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action.” This platform, adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, set out a comprehensive framework for advancing gender equality.
Thirty years after the Beijing Conference, progress remains uneven. Women’s representation in parliaments has more than doubled since 1995, yet three-quarters of legislators worldwide are still men. While the percentage of women receiving social protection has increased by one-third from 2010 to 2023, two billion women and girls still live in areas without such protections.
Employment disparities have also stagnated for decades. Only 63% of women aged 25 to 54 are engaged in paid work, compared to 92% of men in the same age group.
The report also identified new threats to gender equality, including the COVID-19 pandemic, armed conflicts, climate change, and emerging technologies.
Conflict-related sexual violence has surged by 50% over the past decade, with 95% of victims being children or young women, according to UN Women data. In 2023, 612 million women lived within 50 kilometers of an armed conflict—an increase of 54% since 2010.
In 12 European and Central Asian countries, 53% of women reported experiencing at least one form of gender-based violence online. Globally, violence against women and girls remains at alarming levels, with 736 million women—one in three—having suffered physical or sexual violence from a partner or third party at least once in their lifetime.
The report outlines a roadmap for the future, calling for equal access to new technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, increased investment to combat poverty, stronger measures against gender-based violence, greater female participation in public life, and policies to promote climate justice.
Source: ANA-MPA, Translated by: Konstantinos Menyktas
