United Nations

The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization aimed at promoting peace between nations and protecting human rights across the globe.

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation: Women’s Rights Face Global Backlash 30 Years After Beijing Declaration; Washington Post Loses Ruth Marcus, a Leading Voice for Women

Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation. 

This week: Ruth Marcus details her decades-long history with The Washington Post and the deteriorating environment on the editorial page as its owner Jeff Bezos curried favor with Donald Trump; City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams launches campaign for New York City mayor; with Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) not seeking reelection, the U.S. will lose two women U.S. senators after the 2026 elections; women serve as heads of state in only 25 countries, make up only 27.2 percent of Parliament, and hold 22.9 percent of Cabinet positions internationally; and more.

Explainer: How Does Family Planning Save Lives?

When a war forcibly displaces tens of thousands of people, UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, equips displacement camps and medical personnel with critical supplies—including condoms, oral and injectable contraceptives, contraceptives implants and intrauterine devices. 

When an earthquake tumbles whole city blocks, UNFPA puts contraceptives onto emergency relief convoys, alongside kits for delivering babies and medicines to stop internal bleeding.

When a cyclone slashes through remote island communities, UNFPA sends contraceptives just as it sends sterile medical equipment.

Why? Because contraceptives are part of life-saving humanitarian care.

USAID’s Reproductive Health Funding Has Saved Millions of Lives. Now It’s Gone.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, boasted that he was gutting the federal agency tasked with providing foreign aid to its poorest. The agency’s funding in 2023 was about $40 billion, which represented less than 1 percent of the federal budget. “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk, the tech billionaire head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, posted on his social media platform, X.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was established in 1961 to provide foreign assistance to impoverished countries around the world through food aid and humanitarian and economic development work. It is also one of the world’s largest providers of contraception through its family planning program.

Wombs for Hire: Inside Europe’s Underground Surrogacy Networks

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The legal landscape of surrogacy remains a complex patchwork across nations, with some countries embracing it while others maintain strict prohibitions. This inconsistency in regulations has created gray areas.

Scientific research highlights the possibility of abuse arising from gaps in legal frameworks and disputes, whether surrogacy is legal or not. It points to unethical practices such as trafficking of women, coercion of both surrogates and prospective parents by agencies, lack of respect for bodily autonomy or informed consent, ‘sham’ procedures and multiple embryo exchanges.

Amid this contentious landscape, the European Parliament Council took decisive action on Jan. 23, 2024, reaching a provisional agreement to classify exploitative surrogacy practices as human trafficking. The measure was formally adopted on May 27, 2024. The new framework imposes strict penalties on those who exploit women through forced surrogacy or deceptive practices, while establishing comprehensive support systems for victims. E.U. member states must implement these protections into their national legislation within two years.

U.N. Landmark Ruling Condemns Ecuador and Nicaragua for Forcing Girls Into Motherhood

For the first time in its history, the United Nations Human Rights Committee recognized in a Jan. 20 ruling that denying an abortion to a child is not just a denial of choice but an imposition of pregnancy and forced motherhood that irreversibly disrupts their health, well-being and life trajectory.

This landmark decision represents a crucial shift in how the international community addresses the intersection of children’s rights, reproductive rights and gender justice.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio Will Be a Disaster for Women

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On Wednesday, Marco Rubio appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for his confirmation hearing as the next secretary of state. Rubio is expected to be confirmed without any serious opposition, thanks to the rarity of Cabinet nominee rejections and public support for Rubio, even among Democratic senators. (Rubio served for years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as a senator from Florida, and Democrats like Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Cory Booker of New Jersey greeted him warmly on Wednesday.)

But make no mistake—Rubio’s history of hostility toward reproductive autonomy and his recent embrace of “America First” nationalism heralds a State Department that decimates women’s health, human rights and well-being.

140 Women Are Murdered Every Day by Relatives, U.N. Report Reveals

Home is one of the most dangerous places on earth for women, a new United Nations report reveals. More than 60 percent of homicides of women are carried out by their intimate partners or by other relatives.

The femicide index just released by the U.N. Women entity found that at least 51,000 women were killed globally in 2023, and 6 out of 10 women who were victims of homicide were killed by their spouse or another family member. Femicide is the deliberate murder of females because of their gender.

Iraq’s Planned Child Marriage Bill Threatens the Rights of Women and Girls

Iraqi lawmakers’ proposal to amend the country’s family law and grant religious courts the authority to legalize marriages for underage girls is being pushed by the country’s Shiite parliamentary factions, as part of their appeal to conservative voters ahead of the country’s October 2025 elections, if not sooner.

The proposal has sparked a firestorm, particularly after initial reports suggested it could allow marriages for girls as young as 9 years old. Some experts contend the bill could also further fracture Iraq’s stability.

Georgia’s Elections Reveal Regression of Democracy and Gender Equity. The Country’s First Female President Is Fighting Back.

From Latin America to Eastern Europe, election results have signaled the global rise of right-wing authoritarianism and a growing backlash against women’s inclusion in politics. Nowhere is this trend more evident than in Georgia, a small yet strategically significant country bridging Europe and Asia.

On Oct. 27, Georgia held pivotal parliamentary elections that many hoped would realign the nation with its pro-European and democratic aspirations. However, the ruling Georgian Dream party, known for its anti-Western rhetoric and led by an oligarch and the country’s richest man, Bidzina Ivanishvili, retained power through disputed elections. This occurred despite over 70 percent of the population supporting EU and NATO integration.

War Profiteering: Children Bear the Brunt of Wars They Don’t Start

I was a refugee during the Cold War, displaced by the geopolitical struggle between the U.S. and the USSR. Like millions of other children from that time, I carried the heavy weight of that war. My family fled Afghanistan, and in the process, I lost years of regular schooling—years that were supposed to form the foundation of my childhood.

The weight of this suffering has always fallen on children. And just as the world once turned away from the children of Auschwitz, Nagasaki and Trảng Bàng, it turns away from children in Gaza, Afghanistan, Sudan and many other places today. We revisit those historical images as if they were warnings, as if by remembering them we could prevent history from repeating itself. But we haven’t learned. The children of today are still carrying the same burdens—only the names and places have changed.