Personal to Powerful: Holding the line for gender justice in the face of growing anti-rights movements

Personal to Powerful cover

Cover and report artwork: Ayan Agarwal /© Oxfam International 2025

Personal to Powerful

Government inaction and unequal systems are blocking progress on our rights.

 How do we push back? 
Access our new report

 

Thirty years ago, governments committed to gender justice through the Beijing Platform for Action. 

We’ve made progress—but the fight is far from over.

Our rights are under attack. Women & LGBTQIA+ people face increasing threats, with harsher policies restricting bodily autonomy and fundamental freedoms.

Mainly thanks to progressive movements across the world:

  • 1/3 fewer women are dying in childbirth1
  • 193 countries have laws about domestic violence2
  • There is some improvement in access to accurate sexuality education3

 

But it is all under threat from government inaction, and groups working against universal human rights and gender equality.

Broken promises & failures

The global economy is built to benefit men while leaving women & LGBTQIA+ people behind.

In 2025, one in three women (1.3 billion) can still be fired while pregnant.4

Not a single checkpoint toward the global gender equality goal (SDG 5) has been fully met.5

 

World leaders are failing us. Governments aren’t backing their promises with real action. 

Aid for women’s groups hasn’t increased since 2011. Today, the total funding for these groups equals what just one of the world’s top billionaires makes in three days.6

Well-funded conservative groups exploit crises to attack the basic human rights of women and LGBTQIA+ people. In 2021-22, just 3 anti-LGBTI groups got more funding than over 8,000 LGBTI rights groups globally!7

Rebuild the Social Contract: fund gender justice, protect rights, and defend bodily autonomy. 

Value & Redistribute Care Work: It fuels the economy. Recognize, pay and share the responsibility.

Tax the Rich: and use this money to fund public services & for all.

Strengthen Feminist & Queer groups: Support those holding the line for gender justice.

Feminist Solidarity

We won't wait another 30 years

Together, we can resist anti-rights narratives & demand bodily autonomy and solidarity.
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Sources

  1. United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF).
  2. UN Women. (November 2024). The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action at 30: How it transformed the fight against gender-based violence.
  3. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2023). Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) Country Profiles.
  4. See Personal to Powerful: Methodology Note, Oxfam 2025
  5. UN News (September 2024). Gender equality: Distant, yet achievable
  6. See Personal to Powerful: Media Advisory, Oxfam 2025
  7. Global Philanthropy Project. (June 2024). 2021–2022 Global Resources Report: Government & Philanthropic Support for LGBTI Communities.

 

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