Women's rights regressed last year in a quarter of countries around the world, according to a report published by UN Women yesterday, due to factors ranging from climate change to democratic backsliding.

"The weakening of democratic institutions has gone hand in hand with backlash on gender equality," the report said, adding that "anti-rights actors are actively undermining long-standing consensus on key women's rights issues."

"Almost one-quarter of countries reported that backlash on gender equality is hampering implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action," the report continued, referring to the document from the 1995 World Conference on Women.

In parliaments around the world, female representation has more than doubled since 1995, but men still comprise about three-quarters of parliamentarians. The number of women with social protection benefits increased by a third between 2010 and 2023, though two billion women and girls still live in places without such protections.

Gender employment gaps "have stagnated for decades." Sixty-three percent of women between the ages of 25 and 54 have paid employment, compared to 92 percent of men in the same demographic.