Public Flogging in Afghanistan Strips Women of Dignity

In the bone-chilling Afghanistan winter, a woman was dragged into a public square early this year and publicly lashed for a crime she may or not have committed. According to the ruling handed by the Taliban Supreme Court, the woman and the male culprit who was jointly accused of extra-marital affair received 30 lashes each and a one-year suspended prison sentence. The sentence was carried out in the presence of several local officials and residents in a province whose name is left out to protect the victim.

Gender Discrimination: It’s Time to Flip the Narrative

We have heard it all: • When a woman raises her voice, she’s too emotional. • When she stands her ground, she’s too difficult. • When she leads, she’s too ambitious. • If she wears dark suits they whisper ‘why does she always look like a man’ • But oh my gosh! if she shows up in a colorful dresses and high heels….

International Women’s Day 2026: Justice for Women and Girls Needs Action and Political Will

On International Women’s Day (March 8), global leaders and advocates gather around the rallying cry to strengthen justice systems for all women and girls in a time of increasing pushbacks on gender equality.

International Women’s Day 2026: A Resistance Stronger than the Backlash

Consider what International Women’s Day looked like a few years ago, and what it looks like now: the same date, the same global moment of reflection, but a vastly changed global landscape. Gender rights are facing the most coordinated and wide-ranging attack in decades. Anti-rights forces are dismantling protections secured after generations of struggle, destroying infrastructure built to address gender-based violence and realise reproductive rights and rewriting legal frameworks to roll back rights, with a specific focus on excluding transgender people. This is the result of a deliberate, carefully crafted, handsomely funded and globally coordinated strategy.

International Women’s Day 2026: This Year’s International Women’s Day Calls for Electing a Woman as the next Secretary-General

As we observe International Women’s Day (IWD) this year, the global community does so in a time of continuing turbulence, conflicts and uncertainty about the future of our planet.

International Women’s Day 2026 The Gender Architecture of Betrayal: Stop Elite Impunity

International Women’s Day 2026 (IWD 2026), which was commemorated March 8, under the theme, "Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls", calls for action to dismantle all barriers to equal justice: discriminatory laws, weak legal protections, and harmful practices and social norms that erode the rights of women and girls. It demands an end to systemic violence and misogyny, including calls for justice for Epstein survivors.

International Women’s Day 2026 No Country in the World has Reached Full Legal Equality for Women and Girls

On 8 March 2026, International Women’s Day, UN Women issues a global alert: justice systems meant to uphold rights and the rule of law are failing women and girls everywhere. Women globally hold just 64 per cent of the legal rights of men, exposing them to discrimination, violence, and exclusion at every stage of their lives.

International Women’s Day, 2026

 
Women and girls have never been closer to equality. And never closer to losing it.

International Women’s Day & 70th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women

International Women’s Day 2026 comes at a defining moment: Women and girls have never been closer to equality, and never closer to losing it. Legal protection against domestic violence has expanded in many countries. Yet, the rights of women and girls are being rolled back in plain sight, and across the world, women still do not enjoy the same legal rights as men.

Players Score Dignity in India’s First Transgender Football League

Pyari Hessa, 26, balances long shifts as a loco traffic controller at a steel company in Jamshedpur with evening football practice on the same turf where professionals train.

A Pathway to Gender Equality in ASEAN

The COVID-19 pandemic reminded everyone how important care work is to daily life. When schools closed and hospitals filled up, often it was women and girls who stepped up at home. Their contributions made a big difference, yet these responsibilities often go unseen and unrewarded.

Online Abuse is Real Violence — and Africa’s Women and Girls are Paying the Price

New estimates show that violence against women and girls remains one of the most pervasive human rights violations in the world – and that one of its fastest-growing frontiers is the digital space.

The World’s Right-Handed and Left-Handed Torturers

Jeanne Kirkpatrick, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, once made a highly debatable distinction between "friendly" right-wing "authoritarian" regimes (which were mostly U.S. and Western allies) and "unfriendly" left-wing "totalitarian" dictatorships (which the U.S. abhorred).

Namibia Leads the Way: Honouring 25 years of Women, Peace and Security

Last November, the streets of Windhoek came alive with the sound of drums and brass as a marching band led a procession of women from Namibia’s Defence and security forces.

As Attacks on Women Defenders Intensify, so Must Our Support

A global crackdown on civic freedoms is intensifying – and women are on the frontlines of the attack. CIVICUS’s 2025 People Power Under Attack report analyses the extent to which freedoms of association, expression and peaceful assembly are being respected or violated. The report reveals that people in 83 countries now live in conditions where their freedoms are routinely denied, compared to 67 in 2020. In 2020, 13 per cent of the world’s population lived in countries where civic freedoms were broadly respected; now it’s more like 7 per cent. Among the most documented violations in 2025 were detention of human rights defenders, journalists and protesters, and women human rights defenders (WHRDs) were among the most affected.

When Taliban Shut Down the Internet, Women Lost their Lifeline to Aid, Education & Each Other

When the Taliban recently cut off the Internet and phone networks across Afghanistan, millions of women and girls were silenced. For those with connectivity, the blackout severed their last link to the outside world – a fragile connection that had kept education, work, and hope alive.

Breaking the Silence in Tokyo: A Kazakh Filmmaker Confronts the Nuclear Scars Through Her Documentary “Jara”

 
[caption id="attachment_192574" align="alignleft" width="300"]Aigerim Seitenova stepped forward in a black T-shirt and green skirt to introduce her 31-minute documentary, “Jara – Radioactive Patriarchy: Women of Qazaqstan.”　The screening event was co-organized by the Kazakh Nuclear Frontline Coalition (ASQAQQNFC), the Soka Gakkai Peace Committee, and Peace Boat, with support from Japan NGO Network for Nuclear Weapons Abolition (JANA).

UN’s Cost-Cutting Mergers Come Under Scrutiny While Search for Locations Worldwide Continues

Faced with a severe liquidity crisis and a hostile Trump administration, the UN continues to merge some of its multiple agencies, and move them out of New York, relocating to Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Perhaps the first two agencies to be merged will be UN Women (created in 2010) and the UN Population Fund (created in 1967), with some staffers moved to Bonn and others to Nairobi.

When Women Lead, Peace Follows

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.

Beijing+30: A Culmination of International, Intergenerational Dialogue

Thirty years since the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, the resolve that defined and united the world toward a global agenda for gender equality make it just as relevant in 2025.

Empower Her, Empower Us: A Call to Empower UN Women Now

In her opening statement, Annalena Baerbock (Germany), President of the 80th UN General Assembly, only the fifth female to hold this position over 80 years, stated, “Our future as an institution will also be shaped by the selection of the next Secretary-General. And here we must pause and reflect. In nearly eighty years, this Organization has never chosen a woman for that role. One might wonder how out of four billion potential candidates, there could not be found a single one. … Like 80 years ago, we are standing at a crossroads.”