Statement: Human rights, our everyday essentials
UN Women statement for Human Rights Day, 10 December 2025
As the United Nations marks its 80th year, we return to the foundation of its Charter: human rights for all. We reaffirm a simple truth: that women’s and girls’ rights are human rights—essential to daily life, not negotiable, not optional, and never conditional.
Yet these rights are under strain.
Around the world, women’s safety and dignity are under attack—from conflict, discrimination, and economic injustice, to rising forms of violence both online and offline.
Too often, sexual violence and femicide go unpunished. Reduced penalties for so-called “honour” crimes, forced marriage, corruption, gender stereotypes, and broken justice systems deny women the accountability and protection they deserve. Human rights frameworks were created to prevent this erosion. But without accountability and the rule of law, rights remain promises rather than guarantees.
Thirty years after the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action reaffirmed women’s and girls’ full human rights, our task is to deliver on this vision.
Access to justice must be at the centre of global efforts for gender equality. It is the mechanism that transforms commitments into real protection for women and girls—in laws, in courtrooms, and in daily life.
The upcoming 70th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70) offers a critical opportunity to drive lasting change, with its focus on ending discriminatory laws and strengthening access to justice worldwide.
Against this backdrop, UN Women is working to turn global promises into real progress.
For example, through our Gender Justice Platform, more than 125,000 people accessed justice services last year alone. We also supported 77 legal reforms—including constitutional guarantees in Mexico; stronger protections from violence in Bahrain, Guyana, Honduras, Malaysia, and Mali; and the recent gender equality law in Albania.
As we mark Human Rights Day, we are reminded that human rights are the foundation of peace, stability, and development. On this day, we move with purpose—to secure dignity, equality, and justice for every woman and girl.
