DISCRIMINATION AND SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS In recent years, women’s rights defenders and civil society organizations have advanced respect for women’s rights and sexual and reproductive rights. However, those gains are being undermined. UN Women has warned that gender disparities are worsening. Some governments have reinforced discrimination against women and girls. In Afghanistan, the authorities have banned women and girls from education beyond primary schools, working with UN offices and NGOs, and employment in most public offices. In Iran, the authorities have intensified their crackdown to enforce veiling. Women in both countries have faced brutal state reprisals for exercising or demanding their rights. In France in 2023, the authorities increased their restrictions on clothing deemed to be religious wear in schools and sport, discriminating against Muslim women and girls. Progress was made in a few countries on sexual and reproductive rights in 2023. In Honduras, the government ended 14 years of prohibition on the use and sale of the emergency contraceptive pill, although abortion remained banned. In Mexico, the Supreme Court declared the criminalization of abortion unconstitutional. In Finland and Spain access to abortion was facilitated. However, in other countries, authorities have undermined sexual and reproductive rights, including access to abortion. In the USA, the implementation by 15 states of total bans on abortion or bans with extremely limited exceptions has disproportionately affected Black and other racialized people. In Poland at least one woman died in 2023 as a consequence of being denied abortion services. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok have suppressed essential reproductive rights information following the 2022 US Supreme Court decision that ended federal protections for the right to abortion. Those defending abortion rights, including activists and healthcare workers, have been exposed to stigmatization, physical and verbal attacks, intimidation and threats, as well as being criminalized through unjust prosecutions, investigations and arrests.6 GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE The struggle of women’s rights defenders has led in recent years to the welcome introduction of some measures to prevent violence against women and girls. Nevertheless, violence against women and girls has continued at an alarming level. Legal protections to prevent and combat gender-based violence, including sexual and domestic violence, were strengthened in 2023 in countries including Japan, North Macedonia, Switzerland and Uzbekistan. However, authorities across the world have systematically failed to address entrenched gender-based violence and the impunity its perpetrators often enjoy, as well as neglecting the long-term needs of survivors. In Mexico, an average of nine women were murdered each day in 2023. In countries including Algeria and Tunisia, women were subjected to “honour killings”. The devastating effects of harmful practices were exemplified by the deaths in 2023 of a 16-year-old who ended her life to escape a forced marriage in Niger and of a two-year-old who was subjected to female genital mutilation in Sierra Leone. LGBTI PEOPLE’S RIGHTS Limited progress has been made to protect the rights of LGBTI people in a few countries, but attacks on LGBTI rights have intensified in many others. There were positive changes to law or policy in several countries in 2023. In Latvia, the authorities recognized civil partnerships. In Taiwan, the authorities recognized the right of most transnational same-sex couples to marry. Namibia’s supreme court ruled that spouses of Namibian citizens could regularize their immigration status based on same-sex marriages concluded outside the country. In Finland, Germany and Spain, the authorities facilitated gender self-determination. 18 The State of the World’s Human Rights