In 2025, women’s rights and civil society organizations were keeping shelters open, accompanying survivors to court, training communities, and staying when everyone else leaves while the ground shifted beneath them. Backlash, funding cuts, conflict and displacement drove violence against women and girls higher as civic spaces narrowed. The UN Trust Fund's Annual Report 2025 lays out the results, impact, and what five years of sustained investment in women's rights organizations made possible despite these immense challenges.

On 2 July 2026, the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women and Girls, UN Women, and OHCHR convened a high-level side event at the 62nd session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Bringing together frontline leaders from Lebanon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo alongside experts from WHO and UN Women, the discussion confronted one of the most urgent gaps in the global human rights architecture: the chronic underfunding of the organizations delivering justice to survivors of violence in crisis settings. One message cut through: justice does not wait — and neither can the investment it requires.

Thirty years after the Beijing Platform for Action, the global crisis of violence against women and girls is deepening, not receding. It is against this reality that the UN Trust Fund marked its 30th anniversary during CSW70 and launched its Strategic Plan 2026–2030. At the high-level event “Putting ‘Access’ into Access to Justice”, ministers, civil society leaders, philanthropy and UN officials came together around a shared message: justice cannot be delivered by laws on paper alone.

Marking its thirtieth anniversary, the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women and Girls launches its new Strategic Plan 2026-2030, strengthening long-term, flexible funding, support to women’s rights organizations and system-wide accountability to match growing demand and emerging risks.

On 2 March, the UN Trust Fund convened its 2026 Grantee Partner Solidarity Circle, bringing together women’s rights and civil society organizations from more than 40 countries to confront one of the most critical challenges facing women and girl survivors of violence worldwide: the accelerating constraint of access to justice.

Four years into the war in Ukraine, women’s rights organizations remain vital to protection and survival. Three active grantee partners of the UN Trust Fund, Insight, Club Eney, and VESTED are reaching women who have nowhere else to turn. From evacuations to legal identity restoration and lifesaving support for key populations, they continue to adapt in real time.

In November 2025, Sarajevo Canton adopted its first-ever Protocol on Procedures in Cases of Rape—a milestone in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s fight to end violence against women and girls. Co-developed and facilitated by the Foundation for Local Democracy (FLD) and the Agency for Gender Equality of BiH, with support from the UN Trust Fund, the Protocol establishes a coordinated, survivor-centered response among police, health, social, and justice institutions.

Women's rights and civil society organizations are refusing to let the digital space become another frontier of fear for women and girls. They are adapting, innovating, and reclaiming online spaces as platforms of empowerment, not persecution.

Despite Cambodia's socioeconomic progress, harmful gender norms and traditional beliefs continue to fuel inequality and violence, especially for women facing multiple forms of discrimination.

Across the world, feminist organizations are redefining what it means to adapt and resist violence against women and girls in the digital age.

Founded in 1996, Shakti Milan Samaj has now grown to serve community members across multiple structurally marginalized populations, including women survivors of sex trafficking, wives of migrant workers, women working in the entertainment sector, and women living with HIV.

As the 16 Days Campaign Launches, the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women and Girls Warns of Declining Official Development Assistance as Civil Society Demand Reaches USD 2.1 Billion in its latest Global Call for Proposals

UN Women has officially opened its new UN Women Bonn Global Office – a move that boosts the organization’s global presence and strengthens efforts to advance women’s rights, gender equality, and the empowerment of all women and girls at a time when progress is under threat in many corners of the world.

For more than two decades, the Roma Women Center Bibija (RWC) has worked to protect the rights of Roma girls and end child marriage with a simple yet radical message: You have the right to choose your future.

Across crisis zones, conflict-affected regions, and fragile political contexts, feminist activists are working tirelessly to end violence against women and girls. But they are also navigating the ongoing challenge of caring for themselves, their teams, and their movements — sustaining the very people and spaces that make their work possible. The UN Trust Fund is committed to resourcing women's rights organizations with quality funding including care-centered support and care-specific budget line.

On 25 June 2025, during the 59th Session of the Human Rights Council, the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and UN Women co-hosted a side event titled “Voices of Resilience from the Frontlines: Advancing Efforts to End Violence against Women and Girls in the Context of Backlash.”

Two of the UN’s leading gender equality funds —the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women and the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund — who continue to ensure that these organizations and their allies have the funding needed, have released their 2024 annual reports in Geneva this week.

This month, the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women (UN Trust Fund) is launching its Annual Report 2024, highlighting the life-saving work of its grantee partners around the world. 

In Nigeria, the Greater Women Initiative for Health and Rights is making tangible progress to improve access to specialist support services to survivors of violence who are self-identified women and lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer (LBTQ) sex workers; raise awareness about the rights of sex workers; and foster accountability.

A wave of global funding cuts is threatening the future of civil society organizations (CSOs), particularly those working on ending violence against women. These funding losses are not only economic, they are political. It is also a crisis of trust, equity, and rights in the global system meant to uphold them. The UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women are responding and supporting women's movements to respond.