In 2024, the world witnessed a pronounced shift toward authoritarianism, accompanied by sweeping restrictions on the rights of women and girls. Yet, in the face of this increasingly challenging environment, Equality Now continued to make significant strides toward global gender equality. Our work is driven by an unshakeable belief: change is not only possible – it is inevitable when we persist. That belief propels us forward, even as we navigate a geopolitical landscape increasingly dominated by fear, regression, and resistance.
Our optimism is grounded not in wishful thinking, but in lived experience. We believe in progress because we have seen it.
Over the past three decades, we have seen abortion liberalized in 60 countries. We’ve seen child marriage banned, and new laws introduced to protect millions of women and girls from gender-based violence, exploitation, and systemic discrimination.
This progress has not happened by chance. It is the result of the relentless hard work by women’s rights organizations holding governments to account, including Equality Now. Since 1995, we’ve published our Words and Deeds report every five years to monitor commitments made under the Beijing Platform for Action and to expose discriminatory laws still on the books.
In 2024, we contributed to driving legal progress across all four of our thematic focus areas.
Among the most notable changes we contributed to were Colombia’s abolition of child marriage, Kyrgyzstan’s strengthened GBV protections (including added protections for women and girls with disabilities), and the progressive integration of a gender lens into the UN’s Pact for the Future and Global Digital Compact. In each case, our contributions were pivotal – not just in securing legal change, but in ensuring its quality and impact for all women and girls worldwide.
