There's a growing global backlash against women’s rights as International Women’s Day 2026 is marked worldwide
Afghanistan faces the most severe rollback, with sweeping Taliban restrictions on education, work and freedom of movement
Women in conflict zones such as Sudan and Ukraine face rising sexual violence, displacement and collapsing healthcare systems
In the United States, abortion access battles continue to reshape reproductive rights and healthcare access
On International Women’s Day 2026, the global conversation around women’s rights is increasingly shaped by alarm over celebration. From Afghanistan’s sweeping restrictions on women’s freedom to renewed battles over reproductive rights in the United States and the devastating toll of conflict in Sudan and Ukraine, rights groups say the past few years have marked one of the sharpest reversals for gender equality in decades, and the pushback is “well-organised and well-funded”, as Sweden's special envoy for human rights put it last week.
The numbers paint a stark story. Nearly 70 per cent of countries maintain discriminatory legal frameworks that prevent women from accessing justice on equal terms, according to the UN’s new report, Ensuring and Strengthening Access to Justice for All Women and Girls, released March 4, 2026. Worldwide, women possess only 64 per cent of the legal rights enjoyed by men.
Nearly one in three women worldwide have experienced intimate partner or sexual violence, according to a report from the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations partners. The study found that an estimated 840 million women globally have faced one or both forms of violence in their lifetimes, a figure that has barely changed in more than two decades.
Behind these statistics, however, are lived realities of women giving birth on roadsides as they flee fighting, survivors of sexual violence struggling to access medical care, and hard-won legal protections being rolled back by governments and political movements.
Nowhere has the rollback of women’s rights been more severe or more systematic than in Afghanistan. More than four years after the Taliban returned to power, the country has become what the UN’s top human rights official, Volker Türk, has described as a system of gender-based oppression “reminiscent of apartheid”.
In February, details emerged of a horrific decree that permits men to beat their wives, provided they do not break bones or leave visible, lasting wounds. If a husband causes a broken bone or an open wound, the punishment is 15 days in prison. By comparison, forcing animals to fight carries a five-month sentence.
“The men have the right to rule the women completely,” veteran women's rights activist Mahbouba Seraj told CNN from Kabul. "His word is the word of law – that's it.” She described receiving desperate calls from women across the country who now have nowhere to turn. “At least before there was a fear of the courts, judges. Women would complain. Now what?”
Afghanistan's women and girls also face bans on secondary and university education affecting more than two million girls, exclusion from most forms of employment, and prohibition from leaving home without a male guardian.
Afghan women and girl returnees from Iran and Pakistan also face increased risks of poverty, early marriage, harassment and exploitation amid a surge in returns to the country. More than 2.43 million undocumented Afghans have returned since September 2023, over half of them forcibly.
For women caught in armed conflict, International Women's Day brings little respite. In 2024, 676 million women and girls lived within 50 kilometres of active conflict, the highest number since the 1990s, reported the 2025 UN Secretary-General’s report on Women, Peace and Security. Reports of conflict-related sexual violence have increased by 87 per cent.
In Sudan, the 18-month siege of El Fasher in North Darfur has exposed the catastrophic impact on women when healthcare systems collapse, detailed UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency. Zainab, 26, was pregnant during the blockade. “In El Fasher, I couldn't have any health check-ups because there were no hospitals left near us,” she told UNFPA.
As the Rapid Support Forces advanced in October 2025, more than 107,000 people, most of them women and children, fled on foot, without transport, food or money. Rania, 22, also pregnant, witnessed women giving birth by the roadside, reported UNFPA. “It was heartbreaking and frightening,” she said .
Midwife Madina Bashir spent nearly a year sheltering with 65 women inside a mosque, surviving on rainwater and courtyard plants. When the mosque was stormed, the women were forced out barefoot; one gave birth on the road. Meanwhile, displaced obstetrician Dr Ikhlas Ahmed Abdallah Adam worked under constant bombardment, improvising with cut-up bedsheets and mosquito nets as medical supplies ran out.
The situation for women fleeing Ukraine tells a different but equally troubling story. According to a survey by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, one in four women who fled the Russian war of aggression have experienced physical or sexual violence since the conflict began.
The findings, revealed in the report Seeking Safety from War – Violence and rights abuses against women from Ukraine, reveal the layered trauma these women carry. Ten percent were interrogated by Russian forces; of these, 51 per cent were physically humiliated and 29 per cent sexually humiliated. Once in the EU, many faced new dangers. One in four women encountered potentially exploitative offers of transport, housing or work. Among those who found employment, 36 per cent worked without contracts and 24 per cent were underpaid or not paid at all .
The rollback of women's rights is not confined to conflict zones or authoritarian regimes. In the United States, the 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade, which was the constitutional protection for abortion, continues to reverberate. But a recent development has brought the battle closer to an unexpected group: military veterans.
In December 2025, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) published a final rule effectively ending abortion access for veterans, except in limited life-threatening circumstances. The rule rescinded Biden-era provisions that had allowed access in cases of rape, incest, and threat to life or health. It also prohibited VA providers from discussing abortion with patients experiencing unwanted or high-risk pregnancies .
The move has sparked outrage from veterans’ organisations and lawmakers. “The Trump administration's extreme abortion ban puts veterans at risk and prevents doctors from providing the care their patients need,” said Congresswoman Julia Brownley, who has introduced legislation to overturn the rule.
The rule leaves veterans with less access to abortion care than individuals covered by every other federal healthcare programme, including the Bureau of Prisons.
What connects these stories is a coordinated global movement that even seasoned diplomats are struggling to counter.
“The pushback against women's rights is probably the most difficult one,” Irina Schoulgin Nyoni, Sweden's special envoy for human rights, warned last month. “It's quite hard to know how to respond to such a strong, organised backlash”.
At the UN, Sarah Hendriks of UN Women describes an “organised pushback” against gender equality, with laws being reshaped in ways that restrict women's freedoms and silence their voices. .
The pattern is visible across continents. In Europe, Amnesty International warns of “growing opposition to gender equality” that risks rolling back existing entitlements. Anti-rights narratives and actors are gaining ground, while women human rights defenders face heightened levels of attacks, harassment, and the defunding of their organisations.
Amid the bleakness, however, there are signs of resistance. Sweden'’s envoy speaks of creating “new alliances that could be just as powerful” as the traditional human rights coalition. Måns Molander of Human Rights Watch strikes a defiant note: “In the end, autocratic systems will fall. People want freedom and rights – it has been the same all over the world, forever. You don't see demonstrations for more repressive rule”.
One critical vulnerability is financial. UN Women reports that nearly 90 per cent of organisations working to end violence against women have faced cuts to essential services. Only 5 per cent believe they can sustain operations for more than two years without increased support .
This funding crisis comes at a moment when the need has never been greater. In Sudan, UNFPA's appeal for $4.8 million to provide reproductive health services for those fleeing El Fasher is barely a quarter funded. In Europe, organisations supporting Ukrainian refugee women struggle to meet demand.