According to the United Nations, the world needs an extra $4 trillion every year to tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges – ending poverty and hunger, fighting climate change, and reducing inequality. These are part of 17 goals agreed by nearly every country, called the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The plan is to hit these targets by […]
With more than 5.5 billion people connected online – nearly all of them active on social media – digital platforms have become central to how people interact, UN Women highlights. However, they are also being weaponised to spread misogyny and hate. Once confined to fringe internet forums, the manosphere now reaches into schoolyards, workplaces, and is sometimes […]
Sexual violence in conflict is a tactic of war, torture and terror. It does not only devastate survivors but also tears apart families and communities. The trauma, shame and stigma are borne by victims, not perpetrators – echoing across generations. In 2024 alone, the UN verified around 4,500 cases of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), though […]
In the past decade, the UN has bemoaned the chronically low level of participation by Afghan women and girls in decision-making bodies and in secondary and higher education. But recently, the level of participation has reached a new low – zero. Zero women in national or local decision-making bodies. Zero girls projected to be in […]
The global fertility slump isn’t down to young people turning their backs on parenthood – it’s due to social and economic pressures stopping them from having the children they want, says a new UN report. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) unveiled its flagship State of World Population report on Tuesday, warning that a rising number of people […]
Twelve-year-old Tenasoa crawls to work every day at a mine in eastern Madagascar where she collects two kilos of the shiny mineral mica each day. She cannot walk because of a physical disability. There are 10,000 children in Madagascar who, like Tenasoa, work in the largely unregulated mica industry. The silicate is used in paints, […]
Whether it’s their first time or a routine part of their life, menstruation has become a nightmare for women and girls in Gaza. The conditions they are forced to endure – displacement, overcrowded shelters, and lack of basic hygiene – have turned a natural biological process into a monthly ordeal. Globally, 1.8 billion people menstruate, […]
Haiti has been gripped by spiralling gang violence ever since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. The subsequent unrest has displaced one million people, more than half of them children, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on 21 May that widespread armed violence continues […]
Former German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock was elected President of the General Assembly’s 80th session on Monday June, 2nd, 2025. Her appointment comes as the regional group that includes Western Europe takes its turn at the helm of the world body. She assumes the role at a challenging time, with ongoing conflicts, faltering development goals, […]
Five days – that is how long it took Dah, a 14-year-old prospective mother from Côte d’Ivoire, to give birth. The child was stillborn and she developed obstetric fistula. 16 years – that is how long Dah had to live with the agonising condition, undergoing eight different surgical procedures before finally getting the fistula repaired. […]
