More than 40 percent have reduced or closed essential services such as shelters, legal aid, and psychosocial and health support due to a lack of immediate funding.
Defrauded survivors
Nearly 80 percent reported reduced access to services for survivors, while 59 percent said impunity and normalization of violence were increasing.
“Women’s rights organizations are the backbone of progress on violence against women, but they are being pushed to the brink,” said Kalliopi Mingeirou, head of UN Women’s section on ending violence against women and girls.
“We cannot allow funding cuts to erase decades of hard-won gains. We call on governments and donors to protect, expand and make funding more flexible. Without sustained investment, violence against women and girls will only increase.”
Violence against women remains one of the most widespread human rights violations in the world.
According to data from UN Women, around 736 million women (almost one in three) have experienced physical or sexual violence, most often by an intimate partner.
The agency had already warned earlier this year that many women-led crisis organizations were on the brink of closure, a concern now reinforced by At risk and underfunded.
gloomy forecast
Only five percent of organizations surveyed said they could sustain operations for more than two years, and 85 percent predicted serious setbacks in laws and protections for women and girls. More than half also expressed serious concern about growing threats to women human rights defenders.
The report warns that these financial shortfalls are developing amid a broader backlash against women’s rights, now evident in one in four countries. As funding dries up, many groups are forced to prioritize emergency services over long-term advocacy that drives systemic change.
At risk and underfunded It comes as the world marks 30 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a landmark plan for gender equality that placed ending violence against women at its center.