A new UN Women report, At Risk and Underfunded, based on a global survey of 428 women’s rights and civil society groups, finds that one in three have suspended or shut down programmes aimed at ending gender-based violence.
More than 40 per cent have scaled back or closed essential services such as shelters, legal aid, psychosocial and healthcare support due to immediate funding shortfalls.
Survivors shortchanged
Nearly 80 per cent reported reduced access to services for survivors, while 59 per cent said impunity and the normalisation of violence were increasing.
“Women’s rights organisations are the backbone of progress on violence against women, yet they are being pushed to the brink,” said Kalliopi Mingeirou, head of UN Women’s Ending Violence Against Women and Girls section.
“We cannot allow funding cuts to erase decades of hard-won gains. We call on governments and donors to ringfence, expand and make funding more flexible. Without sustained investment, violence against women and girls will only rise.”
Violence against women remains one of the world’s most pervasive human rights violations.
Around 736 million women – nearly one in three – have experienced physical or sexual violence, most often by an intimate partner, according to UN Women data.
The agency had already warned earlier this year that many women-led organisations in crisis settings were on the brink of closure – a concern now reinforced by At Risk and Underfunded.
Grim prognosis
Only five per cent of surveyed organisations said they could sustain operations for more than two years, and 85 per cent predicted severe setbacks to laws and protections for women and girls. Over half also voiced serious concern about rising threats to women human rights defenders.
The report warns that these financial shortfalls are unfolding amid a wider backlash against women’s rights, now evident in one in four countries. As funding dries up, many groups are forced to prioritise emergency services over the long-term advocacy that drives systemic change.
At Risk and Underfunded comes as the world marks 30 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a landmark blueprint for gender equality that placed ending violence against women at its core.
