More women must have a role in shaping peace agreements, security reforms and post-conflict recovery plans, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council October 6. Credit: UN News

By Sima Bahous
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 7 2025 (IPS)

We meet on the eve of the twenty-fifth anniversary of UN Security Council resolution 1325—a milestone born of the multilateral system’s conviction that peace is more robust, security more enduring, when women are at the table.

Yet the record of the last 25 years is mixed: bold, admirable commitments have been followed too often by weak implementation and chronic under-investment. Today, 676 million women and girls live within reach of deadly conflict, the highest [number] since the 1990s.

It is lamentable, then, that we see today rising military spending and renewed pushback against gender equality and multilateralism. These threaten the very foundations of global peace and security.

This anniversary must be more than a commemoration. Women and girls who live amidst conflict deserve more than commemoration. It must instead be a moment to refocus, recommit, and ensure that the next 25 years deliver much more than the last.

A belief in the core principles of resolution 1325 is shared by women and men everywhere. Whether through our work at country level, including in conflicts, or in the recent Member State commitments for the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, we know that our women, peace and security agenda, our conviction for equality, enjoys the support of an overwhelming majority of women and men, and also of Member States.

Even in Afghanistan, UN Women’s ongoing monitoring shows that 92 per cent of Afghans, men and women both, think that girls must be able to attend secondary education. It is also striking that a majority of Afghan women say they remain hopeful that they will one day achieve their aspirations.

This, despite everything they endure under Taliban oppression. Their hope is not an idle wish, and it is more than a coping mechanism. It is a political statement. A conviction. An inspiration.

As we meet to discuss the women, peace and security agenda, the painful situation in the Middle East, especially for women and girls, remains on our minds and in our hearts. Two years into the devastating Gaza war, amid the killing, the pain and the loss, a glimmer of hope emerges.

I join the Secretary-General in welcoming the positive responses to President Donald Trump’s proposal to end the Gaza war, to implement an immediate and lasting ceasefire to secure the unconditional release of all hostages, and to ensure unhindered humanitarian access.

We hope that this will lead to a just and lasting peace for Palestinians and Israelis alike, where all women and girls live with dignity, security, and opportunity.

The trends documented in the Secretary-General’s report should alarm us. It is understandable that some might conclude that the rise and normalization of misogyny currently poisoning our politics and fuelling conflict is unstoppable. It is not. Those who oppose equality do not own the future, we do.

The reality is that globally, suffering and displacement will likely rise in the face of seemingly intractable conflicts and growing instability. And it is a painful fact that we must be prepared for the situation to become worse before it becomes better for women and girls.

This will continue to be exacerbated by short-sighted funding cuts that already undermine education opportunities for Afghan girls; curtail life-saving medical attention for tens of thousands of survivors of rape and sexual violence in Sudan, Haiti and beyond; shutter health clinics across conflict zones; limit access to food for malnourished and starving mothers and their children in Gaza, Mali, Somalia and elsewhere; and fundamentally will erode the chance for peace.

Yet despite the horrors of wars and conflicts, women continue to build peace.

• Women are reducing community violence in Abyei and the Central African Republic, and mobilizing for peace in Yemen, in Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

• In Haiti, women have managed to achieve near parity in the new provisional electoral council and increased the quota for women in the draft constitution.

• In Chad, women’s representation in the National Assembly has doubled.

• In Syria, the interim Constitution ratified this March mandates the Government to guarantee the social, economic, and political rights of women, and protect them from all forms of oppression, injustice, and violence.

• In Ukraine, women have achieved the codification into law of gender-responsive budgeting, including across national relief efforts.

Whether mediating, brokering access to services, driving reconstruction, and more, women’s leadership is the face of resilience—a force for peace.

The Secretary-General has just spoken to UN Women’s recent survey findings, which highlight how current financing trends are endangering the viability and safety of women-led organizations in conflict-affected countries.

We believe there is no alternative but to change course and to invest significantly in women’s organizations on the frontlines of conflict.

The last 25 years have seen an emphasis on investing in transnational security and international legal institutions. This has not been matched by attention to investing in national capacities and social movements.

And while attention to the women, peace and security agenda has been focused in global capitals and in major cities of conflict-affected countries, it must also become localized and reach the remote areas that are worst affected and where it makes the biggest difference. This is true for information, funding, policy implementation, services, and more.

Recent years have seen a much-needed increased level of attention to conflict-related sexual violence than ever before. We have taken huge strides in ending the silence, chipping away at the impunity that emboldens and enables perpetrators.

These efforts must be redoubled, giving greater attention to reproductive violence, gender-based persecution in accountability initiatives, and a more comprehensive understanding of atrocities disproportionately affecting women and girls in conflict.

In the next 25 years of the critical women, peace and security agenda, it is crucial that we see funding earmarked, robust quotas implemented, clear instructions and mandates, and accountability measures in place that make failures visible and have consequences.

So, allow me to leave you with five calls to action that need full attention in the coming years:

• First: Affirmative action to ensure women take their rightful place at the peace-making table and consistent support to them as peacekeepers, peacebuilders, and human rights defenders. This must become a hardwired feature of the way we conduct the business of peace.

• Second: Measure the impact of this agenda by the number of women that participate directly in peace and security processes, and by the relief women receive in the form of justice, reparations, services, or asylum.

• Third: End violence against women and girls, address emerging forms of technology-facilitated gender-based violence, and challenge harmful narratives both online and offline.

• Fourth: End impunity for atrocities and crimes against women and girls, respect and uphold international law, silence the guns, and ensure peace is always in the ascendency.

• Fifth: Embed the women, peace and security agenda ever-deeper in the hearts and minds of ordinary people, particularly young people, both boys and girls. It is they who will determine the future of our ambitions, ambitions that must ultimately become theirs too.

Above all, the coming few years should see Security Council resolution 1325 implemented fully, across all contexts.

When women lead, peace follows. We made a promise to them 25 years ago. It is past time to deliver.

This article is based on remarks by UN Under-Secretary General and UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous at the Security Council meeting on “Women and peace and security” on 6 October 2025.

IPS UN Bureau

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On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, 25 November, the color orange is used to represent a brighter future, free from violence against women and girls.Credit: UN Women

By Sima Bahous
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 25 2022 (IPS)

Five years ago, the global #MeToo movement brought new urgency and visibility to the extent of violence against women and girls. Millions of survivors came forward to share their experience. They forced the world to recognise a reality that shames every one of us. Their courage and voice led to a powerful collective activism and a sea-change in awareness.

This wake-up call, alongside other invaluable initiatives around the world, continues to resonate. Grassroots activists, women’s human rights defenders and survivor advocates remind us every day, everywhere.

They are revealing the extent of that violence, they collect and shape statistics, document attacks and bring the violence that happens from the shadows into the light. Their work remains as crucial as it ever was. They offer us a path to bringing this violation of women’s rights to an end.

The work of women’s rights movements and activists is the bedrock of accountability and making sure that promises made many times become reality. They are mobilizing and they are powerful. We celebrate them today.

The evidence is clear. We have to invest urgently in strong, autonomous women’s rights organizations to achieve effective solutions.

This lesson was taught to us most recently during the COVID-19 pandemic. Countries with powerful feminist movements, stronger democracies and more women in parliament were the most effective in responding to the surge in gender-based violence, the shadow pandemic of COVID.

In this area as in others, we see time and again that when women lead everyone wins. We all benefit from a more inclusive and effective response to the challenges we face. We all profit from more resilient economies and societies.

Alongside these efforts, men must step up and push forward. They must play their part in change. They can begin where they live. It is an uncomfortable truth that for some women and girls rather than being a place of safety, as it should be, home can be deadly.

The latest global femicide estimates presents an alarming picture, one made worse by COVID-19 lockdowns. Our new report, released with UNODC, shows that on average worldwide, more than five women or girls are killed every hour by someone in their own family.

These deaths are not inevitable. This violence against women does not need to happen. Solutions are tried, tested and proven, and include early intervention, with trained, supportive policing and justice services, and access to survivor-centred support and protection.

I have three calls to action. I believe these are our priorities and our essentials. They are the basis on which we can push forward and make a reality of stated commitments to end violence against women and girls.

First, I call upon governments and partners across the world to increase long-term funding and support to women’s rights organizations, to make commitments to the Generation Equality Action Coalition on Gender-based Violence and donations to civil society organizations through the UN Trust Fund and support to the Spotlight Initiative. Resources matter and the scale of financial support for this cause does not match either the scale of the issue or the statements of concern made by those in leadership roles.

Second, I ask that we all, in our own ways, resist the rollback of women’s rights, amplify the voices of feminist women’s movements and mobilize more actors. We can all be advocates and our voices combined can drive the change we seek. In doing so, we must also ensure the promotion of women’s and girls’ full and equal leadership and participation at all levels of political, policy-making and decision-making spaces. Accelerated progress toward ending violence against women and girls is just one of the dividends.

Third, I ask for the strengthening of protection mechanisms for women human rights defenders and women’s rights activists. No one anywhere, ever, should face violence or harassment for standing up for what is right and calling for what is necessary.

We cannot let our determination to keep “pushing forward” for gender equality waver. Our goal of a world where violence against women and girls is not just condemned but stopped is possible. By pushing forward together we can attain it.

Sima Bahous is UN Under-Secretary-General and UN Women Executive Director.

IPS UN Bureau

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Women receive food rations at a food distribution site in Herat, Afghanistan. Credit: UNICEF/Sayed Bidel

By Sima Bahous
NEW YORK, Aug 15 2022 (IPS)

In the year that has passed since the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan we have seen daily and continuous deterioration in the situation of Afghan women and girls. This has spanned every aspect of their human rights, from living standards to social and political status.

It has been a year of increasing disrespect for their right to live free and equal lives, denying them opportunity to livelihoods, access to health care and education, and escape from situations of violence.

The Taliban’s meticulously constructed policies of inequality set Afghanistan apart. It is the only country in the world where girls are banned from going to high school. There are no women in the Taliban’s cabinet, no Ministry of Women’s Affairs, thereby effectively removing women’s right to political participation.

Women are, for the most part, also restricted from working outside the home, and are required to cover their faces in public and to have a male chaperone when they travel. Furthermore, they continue to be subjected to multiple forms of Gender Based Violence.

This deliberate slew of measures of discrimination against Afghanistan’s women and girls is also a terrible act of self-sabotage for a country experiencing huge challenges including from climate-related and natural disasters to exposure to global economic headwinds that leave some 25 million Afghan people in poverty and many hungry.

The exclusion of women from all aspects of life robs the people of Afghanistan of half their talent and energies. It prevents women from leading efforts to build resilient communities and shrinks Afghanistan’s ability to recover from crisis.

There is a clear lesson from humanity’s all too extensive experience of crisis. Without the full participation of women and girls in all aspects of public life there is little chance of achieving lasting peace, stability and economic development.

That is why we urge the de facto authorities to open schools for all girls, to remove constraints on women’s employment and their participation in the politics of their nation, and to revoke all decisions and policies that strip women of their rights. We call for ending all forms of violence against women and girls.

We urge the de facto authorities to ensure that women journalists, human rights defenders, and civil society actors enjoy freedom of expression, have access to information and can work freely and independently, without fear of reprisal or attack.

The international community’s support for women’s rights and its investment in women themselves are more important than ever: in services for women, in jobs and women-led businesses, and in women leaders and women’s organizations.

This includes not only support to the provision of humanitarian assistance but also continued and unceasing efforts at the political level to bring about change.

UN Women has remained in country throughout this crisis and will continue to do so. We are steadfast in our support to Afghan women and girls alongside our partners and donors.

We are scaling up the provision of life-saving services for women, by women, to meet overwhelming needs. We are supporting women-led businesses and employment opportunities across all sectors to help lift the country out of poverty.

We are also investing in women-led civil society organizations to support the rebuilding of the women’s movement. As everywhere in the world, civil society is a key driver of progress and accountability on women’s rights and gender equality.

Every day, we advocate for restoring, protecting, and promoting the full spectrum of women’s and girls’ rights. We are also creating spaces for Afghan women themselves to advocate for their right to live free and equal lives.

One year on, with women’s visibility so diminished and rights so severely impacted, it is vital to direct targeted, substantial, and systematic funding to address and reverse this situation and to facilitate women’s meaningful participation in all stakeholder engagement on Afghanistan, including in delegations that meet with Taliban officials.

Decades of progress on gender equality and women’s rights have been wiped out in mere months. We must continue to act together, united in our insistence on guarantees of respect for the full spectrum of women’s rights, including to education, work, and participation in public and political life.

We must continue to make a collective and continuous call on the Taliban leadership to fully comply with the binding obligations under international treaties to which Afghanistan is a party.

And we must continue to elevate the voices of Afghan women and girls who are fighting every day for their right to live free and equal lives. Their fight is our fight. What happens to women and girls in Afghanistan is our global responsibility.

IPS UN Bureau

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