As the world prepares to mark International Women’s Day 2026 on Sunday, a senior UN Women official is warning that women and girls are facing growing threats to their rights at a time when equality seems closer than ever, but is still far from guaranteed.
Speaking yesterday during the global launch of the Secretary General’s report Ensuring And Strengthening Access To Justice For All Women And Girls at a news briefing held at United Nations headquarters in New York ahead of the 70th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70), Sarah Hendriks, director of Policy, Programme and Intergovernmental Division at UN Women, said justice systems worldwide were failing to protect women and girls.
“Allow me to begin this part of the press briefing also by expressing our heartfelt solidarity with the women and girls across the Middle East,” Hendriks said. “We are, of course, deeply concerned by the escalations of violence and we certainly join the Secretary General in calling for that violence to stop, for the sake of every woman and every girl whose lives, whose safety and whose futures are really now at risk.”
Hendriks said this year’s CSW70 session focused on access to justice at a time of conflict and organised pushback against women’s rights.
“As we meet, there are women who choose not to report the violence that they experience because they fear that they won’t be believed, let alone protected,” she said.
“There are women who are paid less than their male counterparts in the very same work, in places where the law does not actually require equal pay. There are girls who don’t have birth registration, who don’t actually have a birth certificate, who face heightened risk of child marriage, who face heightened risk of trafficking because the system doesn’t actually recognise them and these are not isolated cases.”
She stressed that these realities reflected deeper structural inequalities.
“They reflect, indeed, how power operates in societies and whose rights justice systems ultimately protect,” Hendriks noted.
“Across the world, women and girls are navigating a very challenging moment – a moment of profound strain, democratic backsliding, rising conflicts, economic pressures, the shrinking of civic space and increasingly organised pushback on gender equality and the regression of women’s rights. Justice systems do not stand apart from those pressures. They actually reflect them.”
Hendriks said no country had yet achieved full legal equality between men and women.
Allow child marriage
“No country in the world right now has yet achieved full legal equality between men and women. More than half of the world’s countries do not define rape by law on the basis of consent. Nearly three quarters, specifically 74 per cent
of the world’s countries, still allow child marriage by law and in 44 per cent of the world’s countries, the law does not mandate equal pay for work of equal value.”
She warned that hard-won gains were now being contested.
Hendriks argued that many justice systems were historically shaped by patriarchal power structures that continued to influence outcomes today.
She highlighted the rise in conflict-related sexual violence and the growing misuse of digital technologies. “In conflicts, rape continues to be utilised and weaponised as a weapon of war. In fact, just in the past two years, the total percentage of women and girls who become victims of conflict-related sexual violence has risen to 87 per cent,” Hendriks said.
“Globally, digital technologies are being weaponised through harassment, abuse. Far too often, perpetrators face absolutely no consequences.”
The consequence, she said, was a rational but devastating withdrawal from justice systems.
“For many women and girls, the calculation is painfully rational. Reporting violence may bring retaliation, stigma, or economic loss, with very little expectation that justice will actually follow,” she said.
“When justice fails women and girls, the damage goes far beyond any single story. Communities lose faith, public trust erodes and justice institutions lose legitimacy. A justice system that fails half the world’s population cannot claim to uphold justice at all.”
Despite the grim assessment, Hendriks insisted reform was possible and transformative.
“Access to justice is one of those powerful forces for advancing equality in the lives of women and girls. Since 1970, family law reforms have led to more than 600 million women accessing new economic opportunities, all because the law was reformed.”
She outlined six priority areas identified in the Secretary General’s report, including repealing discriminatory laws, ensuring coordination across justice actors, investing in legal aid and survivor-centred services, shaping reforms through women’s leadership and preparing justice systems for the digital age. (TRY)
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