Fariba, a young woman from Afghanistan, started university in 2021 but had to stop when the Taliban banned girls and women from higher education. Her experience reflects the harsh reality many face under the current rule, leaving Afghanistan with one of the biggest gender gaps worldwide. As UN Women marks 15 years, it warns progress for women and girls is slowing or even reversing in many places.
Since its founding in 2010, UN Women has worked in 80 countries to support women’s rights. But challenges remain. One in ten women still lives in extreme poverty, and closing this gap could take over a century. More women now live near conflicts, which raises risks of violence and hunger. Few countries have female heads of state, and gender balance in leadership won’t happen for many decades. At the same time, the digital divide keeps growing, making it harder for women and girls to access the technology shaping tomorrow.
UN Women’s Executive Director, Sima Bahous, says, “This is not the time to step back but to push forward.” The agency promotes women’s roles in peacebuilding, which helps make peace last longer. But between 2020 and 2023, women were left out of most peace talks. Still, there are hopeful signs, like in Ukraine, where more women are entering jobs once seen as unsafe for them, such as demining.
UN Women also helps women find strength in numbers. In the Pacific, women market vendors formed groups to demand better conditions—from safer spaces to storage facilities—that male-led councils had ignored. Joy Janet Ramo, a vendor leader, says, “We’re not ordinary women with nothing; we’re important.”
Despite huge gaps in funding—$420 billion a year worldwide—women like Anita in Afghanistan hold on to hope. “The colors have dimmed in my life,” she says, “but I refuse to lose hope.” UN Women stays committed to fighting for equality, led by women, for women.
