Resourcing Access to Justice for Women and Girls in Crisis Settings: Frontline Voices and Survivor-Centred Solutions

On 2 July 2026, during the 62nd Session of the Human Rights Council, the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women and Girls (UN Trust Fund), the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and UN Women organized a side event titled "Resourcing Access to Justice for Women and Girls in Crisis Settings: Frontline Voices and Survivor-Centred Solutions." The UN Trust Fund’s report on access to justice, grounded in evidence and experience of 122 women’s rights and civil society organizations across more than 80 countries, was submitted to the Human Rights Council during this time. The event, co-hosted by the Governments of Sweden, Norway, and Canada to the United Nations in Geneva, welcomed over 70 participants, convened feminist and civil society leaders, UN officials, and Member State representatives to examine and seek solutions to strengthening access to justice and protection for survivors of violence against women and girls in contexts where legal, institutional, and protection systems are under severe strain.

From the UN Trust Fund, Mehrak Mehrvar, Global Lead for Strategic Partnerships, Advocacy and Resource Mobilization, welcomed participants to the event and set the stage with a stark framing of the challenge: in 2025, the UN Trust Fund's Global Call for Proposals received USD 2.1 billion in requests from nearly 4,000 organizations (a 36% surge from 2023) yet available funding could support less than 1% of what was requested. Nearly half of all applicants, self-identified as operating in crisis settings.

Vincent Conus, Counsellor for Global Affairs at the Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the UN in Geneva, delivered official remarks, reaffirming Switzerland's commitment to ending violence against women and girls and to sustained multilateral financing for frontline civil society. He said: “Pooled funding mechanisms must be strengthened, not weakened. They reduce fragmentation; they channel resources efficiently; they deliver at scale,” while acknowledging the need for sustained investment to local organizations delivering survivor-centered approach to access to justice. He continued, “The UN Trust Fund is a model of this approach. It embodies exactly the kind of coordinated system level delivery that reform should support.”

Concluding his remarks, Mr. Conus announced Switzerland’s support to the UN Trust Fund’s new Strategic Plan 2026-2030 with a five-year commitment of CHF 2.5 million.

Sofia Calltorp, Director of the UN Women Geneva Office and Chief of Humanitarian Action, spoke to the intersection of humanitarian action and access to justice. Drawing on UN Women's record of advancing women's protection across 83 conflict-affected countries, she pointed to what the evidence consistently shows: where legal frameworks are strengthened, funding is accessible, and women's participation is supported, outcomes improve. She closed with a clear call: "Three things are non-negotiable: protect civic space; invest long-term and flexibly in frontline, women-led organizations; and treat access to justice as a core line of humanitarian response — not a parallel track."

The event continued with a panel discussion, moderated by Stefania Tripodi, Human Rights Officer at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), featuring:

Brigitte Chelebian, lawyer and Director of Justice Without Frontiers (Lebanon), spoke to the compounding effect of overlapping crises on formal justice pathways in Lebanon, where economic collapse, conflict, and displacement have pushed survivors further from the institutions meant to protect them. With the UN Trust Fund’s support, she described how flexible, long-term financing enabled Justice Without Frontiers to bring justice to women and girls rather than waiting for them to reach it, by adapting across successive emergencies to maintain paralegal networks, mobile legal services, and coordinated referrals when everything else was shifting. She said:

"Justice cannot wait until a crisis ends. ..We must trust women's rights organizations and invest in their locally led, evidence-based solutions through long-term, flexible, and core funding. This is a global responsibility and a collective accountability toward every woman and girl.”

Sandrine Lusamba, National Coordinator of SOFEPADI (DRC), described working in one of the world's most acute crisis contexts, where conflict, displacement, and insecurity continue to expose women and girls to extreme levels of violence. Sandrine highlighted that justice for survivors in humanitarian settings meant two things above all: reparation and economic independence, without which access to courts becomes a distant priority for a survivor who must first choose between transport to testify and food on the table. She emphasized:

"Fund the ecosystem, not just the trial. It is this ecosystem that allows a survivor to hold on through the long marathon of justice. And support real localization: invest directly in women-led organizations. We are not passive beneficiaries. We are political and social actors capable of reforming the laws of our own countries."

Alia El-Yassir, Director for Gender, Rights, Equity and Sexual Misconduct Prevention at the World Health Organization, brought a health systems lens to the conversation, speaking to accountability and building systems that serve survivors. She said: “If victims or survivors can't report safely, they will not have access to assistance or to justice. And if our systems, even if it is inadvertent, cause harm as [survivors are] trying to navigate them, then it means that our accountability has failed.” Drawing on examples from Somalia and Gaza, she underscored that different settings require different solutions, and that civil society is indispensable to making them work.

The event concluded with an open discussion, followed by closing reflections from Stefania Tripodi, Human Rights Officer at OHCHR, who drew together the threads of the discussion into a clear set of conclusions.

• Access to justice does not begin or end in a courtroom; it begins with safety, trust, health care, psychosocial support, and legal assistance, and it requires systems that respect survivors' dignity, autonomy, and choices.
• Gender-based violence is a human rights violation and a matter of State obligation which requires prevention, protection, investigation, accountability, and effective remedies.
• Women's rights organizations are central to delivering on each of these especially in crises.
• Resourcing is not a technical issue. It is a human rights issue.

The event also drew written expressions of support from longstanding donor partners unable to speak directly at the session. The Government of Sweden and the Government of Canada, both among the UN Trust Fund's most committed long-term partners in the work to end violence against women and girls, reaffirmed their support not only for this convening, but for the broader mission of resourcing frontline women's rights organizations in crisis settings.

The Permanent Mission of Canada shared:

“Women and girls’ rights organizations are essential to advancing gender equality and ending gender-based violence... At a time of growing backlash and shrinking civic space, the international community must continue to support their leadership and frontline work.”

Ambassador Magnus Hellgren of the Permanent Mission of Sweden to the United Nations and other International Organizations in Geneva shared:

“At a time of growing backlash and crisis, Sweden stands firmly with women and girls whose rights and safety are under threat. Access to justice requires sustained investment in survivor-centred, locally led solutions and in the women’s rights organizations leading this work.”

Ambassador Hellgren also took the opportunity to announce an additional 25 million Swedish Kronor for this year to the UN Trust Fund, reaffirming our commitment to real protection, justice and dignity for those most at risk.

While Saba Gebremedhin, Executive Director of the National Ethiopian Women's Associations (NEWA) could not join the event, she sent a video message to the UN Trust Fund speaking from conflict-affected Ethiopia, where women and girls face grave forms of conflict-related sexual violence and where overlapping barriers keep justice out of reach.