Globally, women hold just 64 percent of the legal rights that men do, according to the UN Secretary-General’s report titled “Ensuring and Strengthening Access to Justice for All Women and Girls.”

At the rate progress is currently moving, closing that gap entirely would take 286 years.

In over half the world’s countries, 54 percent, rape is still not defined on the basis of consent, meaning a woman can be raped and the law may not recognise it as a crime.

In nearly three out of four countries, a girl can be legally forced into marriage. In 44 percent of countries, there is no legal requirement to pay women the same as men for equivalent work.

UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous said that when women and girls are denied justice, the damage extends far beyond any individual case, eroding public trust, weakening institutions and undermining the rule of law itself.

“A justice system that fails half the population cannot claim to uphold justice at all,” she said.

Rights Under Siege

The report lands at a moment when the UN says rollback is accelerating. Laws in some countries are being rewritten to restrict women’s freedoms.

Online spaces have become new arenas for abuse, with technology advancing faster than regulation.

In conflict zones, rape continues to be used as a weapon of war, with reported cases of conflict-related sexual violence rising 87 percent in just two years.

The scale of women caught in or near active conflict is staggering. In 2024, 676 million women and girls lived within 50 kilometres of a deadly conflict, the highest figure recorded since the 1990s.

Sarah Hendriks, UN Women’s director of Policy, Programme and Intergovernmental Division, said the world is contending with democratic backsliding, shrinking civic space and economic pressures that disproportionately hit women.

She also noted that change, when it happens, can be meaningful and measurable. Since 1970, she said, more than 600 million women have gained access to economic opportunities because of family law reform.

A System Built Against Women

The report identifies five key structural barriers that entrench inequality in justice outcomes for women: discriminatory legal frameworks and social norms, gaps between what laws say and how they are enforced, traditional justice systems that operate outside state oversight, and the specific conditions created by conflict settings.

Women face greater barriers to justice than men in nearly 70 percent of the countries surveyed.

The report also shows that 87 percent of countries have enacted domestic violence legislation, and more than 40 countries have strengthened constitutional protections for women and girls over the past decade. But laws alone are not enough.

Stigma, victim-blaming, fear and community pressure continue to silence survivors and obstruct justice, allowing even the most extreme forms of violence to go unpunished.

A Moment to Act

The findings are being presented at the 70th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women, the UN’s highest-level intergovernmental body on gender equality, which convened March 9 in New York.

UN Women has described it as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reverse the rollback of women’s rights.

Among eight recommendations directed at governments, Hendriks called for judicial reforms that are shaped by women and built with women in mind. She also pressed for more dedicated government spending to back those reforms with real resources.

“Justice doesn’t just happen,” the UN said in its International Women’s Day statement. “It is built and must be funded.”