The United Nations gender equality agency, UN Women, has raised alarm over a growing funding crisis that is crippling efforts to combat violence against women and girls worldwide.
In a new report released on Monday titled “At Risk and Underfunded,” UN Women revealed that severe funding cuts are forcing many frontline organisations to shut down or scale back vital programmes aimed at protecting women and girls from gender-based violence.
The report, which surveyed 428 women’s rights and civil society groups across the globe, found that one in three organisations have suspended or completely shut down their anti-violence initiatives due to lack of funds.
More than 40 percent have either reduced or closed essential services such as shelters, legal assistance, psychosocial support, and healthcare for survivors. Alarmingly, nearly 80 percent reported that access to services has drastically declined, while 59 percent said cases of impunity and normalised violence are on the rise.
“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. Governments and donors must ringfence and expand funding to sustain this fight.”
According to UN Women data, around 736 million women — nearly one in three globally — have experienced physical or sexual violence, most often by an intimate partner.
The agency noted that the situation is particularly dire for women-led organisations operating in crisis zones, many of which are now on the verge of total collapse.
Only five percent of the organisations surveyed said they could sustain operations for more than two years, while 85 percent predicted major setbacks to women’s protection laws and enforcement mechanisms.
More than half of respondents also expressed fear over escalating threats to women human rights defenders amid a global backlash against gender equality in at least one in four countries.
The report comes as the world marks 30 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a landmark global commitment to gender equality that placed ending violence against women at its core.
UN Women warned that without urgent financial intervention, decades of progress risk being undone — and millions of women and girls may be left without protection, justice, or support.
— Hobnob News
