One million females lose access to support amid cuts – UN

The United Nations warned that at least one million women and girls had lost access to critical support due to dramatic cuts to foreign aid spending since January 2025.

In a fresh report, the UN Women agency decried a collapse of women’s organisations at a time when needs are soaring.

US President Donald Trump slashed foreign aid after taking office last year, while other key donor countries have also been tightening their belts.

“The women’s organisations at risk of being shut down are on the frontlines of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises,” UN Women’s head of humanitarian action Sofia Calltorp, said in a statement.

“Every dollar withdrawn from women’s organisations is a dollar withdrawn from survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, displaced mothers, girls forced from school, and communities struggling to survive.”

At a time when armed conflicts around the world are at their highest levels since World War II, around 120 million women and girls require humanitarian assistance and protection, UN Women said.

Its report, based on responses from 855 women-led and women’s rights organisations across 52 crisis-affected countries, found that 84% of the groups had seen demand for their services increase since January 2025.

“Nearly nine in 10 say they can no longer meet current levels of need”, the agency said, while “two in five organisations surveyed expect to shut down, temporarily or permanently, within the next year”.

To keep the organisations afloat, it highlighted that leaders and employees were paying with their own labour and wellbeing.

A full 65% of women-led organisations reported staff working without pay to keep services running, it pointed out, while nearly half reported rising burnout among their staff.

The UN Women statement warned that conflict-related sexual violence “doubled in 2025, just as the systems designed to protect survivors are collapsing”.

It found that 86% of women’s organisations report an increase in gender-based violence in the communities they serve.

The organisation stressed that the cuts were having devastating consequences.

“A woman seeking refuge from violence might show up at the door of a shelter that has shut down; a pregnant woman may have to walk for hours to reach a health clinic; or a mother may be denied food for her children,” it pointed out.

And the agency emphasised that the consequences of the cuts extended beyond crippling the humanitarian response.

“The dismantling of women’s organisations is not happening in a vacuum but against a global backlash on the rights of women and girls,” it said.

It pointed out that one in five organisations had already suspended work advancing women’s leadership and gender equality, while over half reported witnessing declining participation of women in community leadership and local decision-making.