Restrictions, backlash and funding cuts undermine justice for survivors, warn women’s rights organizations at UN Trust Fund gathering ahead of CSW70

Date: Wednesday, 4 March 2026

A police officer sits at a desk inside a small community office speaking with two women. One woman wearing an orange patterned shawl sits across from the officer, while another woman in a bright green scarf sits beside her. Colorful posters and informational illustrations cover the walls behind them. — Badabon Sangho staff accompanied a woman landowner to the local police station to report case of violence. Credit: Courtesy of Mamun Ur Rashid/Badabon Sangho (Bangladesh).

On 2 March, the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women and Girls (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.

Graphic with a blue and orange background featuring a seated person in black‑and‑white beside a quote about financing gender equality, attributed to a UN Women leader. Logos appear at the bottom.

The convening marks the first public presentation of key findings from the 2025 UN Trust Fund Report to the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70) and the Human Rights Council (2025 CSW/HRC report). It was held at the start of Women’s History Month, ahead of International Women’s Day and CSW70, which takes place at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 9 to 19 March 2026.

Opening the event, Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, UN Assistant Secretary-General and UN Women Deputy Executive Director, emphasized the centrality of feminist movements in securing justice for women and girls worldwide.

“We meet at a time of shrinking civic space, rising rhetoric and funding cuts, a moment that tests our commitment to human rights,” she said, “[Financing gender equality] is not just a matter of available resources, it is ultimately a question of prioritization with the resources that are available. This is an issue of justice.”

Access to justice under threat: The cost of political choices

The 2025 CSW/HRC report paints a stark global picture:

Violence remains pervasive, with 1 in 3 women experiencing physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. This figure has remained unchanged for over a decade and is widely understood to underestimate the true scale due to underreporting.
Justice is under strain, with enforcement inconsistencies, low legal literacy, geographic barriers, and chronic underfunding of specialist services.
Civic space is shrinking, and backlash is surging. Nearly one quarter of countries report new legal restrictions that impede civil society operations, delay approvals, freeze bank accounts, or criminalize advocacy.
Demand far exceeds available resources committed to ending violence against women and girls. The UN Trust Fund’s 2025 Global Call for Proposals marked another record-breaking year with USD 2.1 billion requested across nearly 4,000 applications.

The report also documents how access to justice for survivors is being undermined by conflict, rising authoritarianism, digital violence, and the systematic defunding of women’s rights organizations. It also shows how women’s rights and civil society organizations are redefining access to justice beyond a single courtroom moment, creating survivor-centred pathways that begin with safety and trust in the everyday spaces where survivors first seek help, including homes, shelters, health centres or refugee camps.

A uniformed officer sits at a table in front of a large informational poster, which includes illustrations and text. The setting appears to be an indoor community or training space with light-colored walls and curtains in the background — Session with community police officers, marking the culmination of an information campaign for World Elder Abuse Awareness Day in Moldova. Credit: Courtesy of Help Age International (Moldova).

Event signals strong alignment ahead of CSW70

This year, civil society and women’s rights organizations from a number of countries and territories face restrictions on entry to global platforms, leaving many grantee partners excluded from participating in CSW70. Women working on the frontlines of conflict, displacement, fundamentalist backlash, and authoritarianism, those whose testimony is most essential, are systematically shut out.

Justice cannot be championed in global halls when the very people fighting for it are barred from entering them.

Graphic with an orange and pink background featuring a person holding a microphone beside a quote about accountability and frontline organizations, attributed to a UN Women leader. Logos appear at the top.

At the Grantee Partners Solidarity Circle, Abigail Erikson, Chief of the UN Trust Fund, emphasized that grantee partners’ evidence and lived experiences must shape international policymaking.

“Silence is not an option. CSW70 is a moment for accountability, a space to bring the lived realities of frontline organizations into global decision-making.”

Partners aligned around shared priorities to carry into CSW70:

Protect civic space and the safety of women human rights defenders.
Close the global justice gap through survivor‑centred, multisectoral services, to ensure that the most marginalized are not left behind.
Increase long‑term, flexible funding to women’s rights organizations.
Uphold global norms and convert commitments into financing and enforcement.

As the world prepares for CSW70, one message resonates from the Solidarity Circle: Justice cannot wait. Women’s rights organizations are leading the way, but they cannot, and should not, carry the weight alone.