The New Hot War on Women’s Rights: 30 Years Post-Beijing

This contribution is an overview of the Global Research and Action Network on Eco-Social Contracts blog series “The New Hot War on Women’s Rights: 30 Years Post-Beijing.” The series brings together regional and thematic reflections, some of which explore backlash while others focus more broadly on evolving gender equality debates.

At the 2025 Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69), which assessed progress on the Beijing Platform for Action adopted in 1995, there was recognition of advances in areas such as girls’ education and women’s political participation, alongside acknowledgement that across most of the 12 critical areas, much remains to be achieved. In a context marked by the rise of right-wing authoritarianism, hard-won gains are also coming under renewed pressure. Through this series, the GRAN-ESC Gender Justice Working Group examines how these dynamics are playing out across different regions and actors.

Thirty years ago, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995) laid out an ambitious global blueprint for advancing women’s rights and gender equality. Adopted by 189 governments, it remains one of the most progressive and widely endorsed commitments to gender justice in international policy. It articulated twelve critical areas of concern, from ending violence against women to promoting women’s economic empowerment, that still frame much of the global gender agenda today.

At this year’s 69th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69), governments celebrated progress, notably in girls’ education, maternal health, and women’s participation in public life. Yet, the most striking feature of today’s gender landscape is not only the persistence of gaps, but the resurgence of active resistance to women’s rights. While in 2005 Anne Marie Goetz framed the state of affairs as a ‘new cold war on women’s rights’, we are now confronted with what can only be described as a hot war which is open, coordinated, and driving policy assaults on gender equality.

From Brazil to Bangladesh, Hungary to the United States, rollback measures are not isolated policy shifts but parts of a wider global backlash. They seek to delegitimize the very principles of gender justice, erode institutional protections, and redefine women’s rights as threats to tradition, sovereignty, or national identity. This was most starkly evident at the recently concluded 80^th Session of the United Nations General Assembly where the High-Level meeting on Beijing +30 focusing on accelerating progress and recommitting resources, saw the US delegation question UN Women’s approach to gender related terminology. Therefore, what is at stake is not only the unrealized promise of Beijing, but the foundations of democracy, human rights, and sustainable development.

Read the full series below;

• Introduction
• Asia

• Africa

• Europe

• North America

• Latin America and the Caribbean

• Intersectionality