Women’s rights face ‘full-on assault’ due to UN and aid funding cuts

GENEVA – Four major international reports on women’s rights, including recommendations on how to prevent domestic violence and discrimination, will not be published in 2025, a UN document shows, part of what rights groups describe as a broader backlash against gender equality.

Voluntary funding for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is down US$60 million (S$76.8 million) in 2025

due to unpaid contributions

and major

US foreign aid cuts under President Trump

, around 14 per cent of its total income in 2024.

An OHCHR document circulated to member states and reviewed by Reuters shows that 13 human rights reports have been delayed, four of them specifically concerning women, putting off both investigations and discussions on how policies can be improved.

“We’re silencing policy dialogue,” Ms Pooja Patel, programme director at the International Service for Human Rights in Geneva, told Reuters.

One in four countries reported a backlash

on women’s rights in 2024, a UN report in March said, something rights groups said made monitoring and recommendations all the more important.

“It really does affect the everyday lives of women and girls when these reports and mechanisms are not functioning,” said Ms Claire Somerville, a lecturer and executive director of the Gender Centre at the Geneva Graduate Institute.

Several countries raised concerns at the 59th Session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) on July 8, where the resolution to pause the mandates was passed by consensus.

Ecuador warned in an informal HRC meeting in Geneva in June that the decision could send the wrong message amid a “huge backlash” against the rights of women and girls.

The OHCHR faced new calls on July 8 to increase transparency regarding the criteria behind its funding decisions after earlier criticism of its choice to halt the launch of a UN-mandated commission investigating suspected human rights violations and war crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk and his office would provide a comprehensive update on the feasibility of implementing the paused mandates before the next session in September, according to the UN document.

In a letter seen by Reuters, Mr Turk told HRC members the situation was “deeply regrettable” and expressed concern about the impact funding cuts would have on the protection of human rights.

In May, the leading UN agency for gender equality, UN Women, reported that 90 per cent of women’s rights organisations in crisis-affected countries have been hit by cuts.

“They signal a broader de-prioritisation of gender equality at a global level,” said Ms Laura Somoggi, co-chief executive of Womanity, a private foundation in Geneva for advancing gender equality.

The OHCHR announced on July 4 that the next meeting of the Commission on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, ongoing since 1979, would not take place due to liquidity issues with future ones “to be confirmed”. Ms Somerville called it a “huge setback” among many others.

“We can describe this as a full-on assault on gender and the rights of women and girls,” she said. REUTERS