Funding Cuts Force Closure of Women’s Anti-Violence Groups

A child survivor of rape in Mali attends a UN-supported help centre with her guardian.

Funding cuts are dismantling frontline organisations working to end violence against women and girls, the UN’s gender equality agency warned on Monday.

A new UN Women report titled At Risk and Underfunded, based on a global survey of 428 women’s rights and civil society groups, found that one in three organisations have suspended or shut down programmes aimed at ending gender-based violence.

More than 40 per cent have scaled back or closed essential services such as shelters, legal aid, psychosocial, and healthcare support due to immediate funding shortfalls.

Survivors shortchanged

Nearly 80 per cent reported reduced access to services for survivors, while 59 per cent said impunity and the normalisation of violence were increasing.

“Women’s rights organisations are the backbone of progress on violence against women, yet they are being pushed to the brink,” said Kalliopi Mingeirou, head of UN Women’s Ending Violence Against Women and Girls section.

“We cannot allow funding cuts to erase decades of hard-won gains. We call on governments and donors to ring-fence, expand, and make funding more flexible. Without sustained investment, violence against women and girls will only rise.”

Violence against women remains one of the world’s most pervasive human rights violations. Around 736 million women—nearly one in three—have experienced physical or sexual violence, most often by an intimate partner, according to UN Women data.

Earlier this year, the agency warned that many women-led organisations in crisis settings were on the brink of closure—a concern now reinforced by At Risk and Underfunded.

Grim prognosis

Only five per cent of surveyed organisations said they could sustain operations for more than two years, while 85 per cent predicted severe setbacks to laws and protections for women and girls. Over half also expressed serious concern about rising threats to women human rights defenders.

The report warns that these financial shortfalls are occurring amid a broader backlash against women’s rights, now evident in one in four countries. As funding dries up, many groups are forced to prioritise emergency services over long-term advocacy that drives systemic change.

At Risk and Underfunded comes as the world marks 30 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a landmark blueprint for gender equality that placed ending violence against women at its core.