Deep cuts in humanitarian funding are forcing women’s organizations to scale back or even shut down, with at least 1 million women and girls losing access to critical support since January 2025, the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women) reports.
On 6 July, attackers raided an Ebola treatment centre in Butembo, North Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, setting fire to a facility. Since the outbreak was declared on 15 May, humanitarian partners have recorded security incidents targeting Ebola response personnel and other aid workers in Ituri, South Kivu and North Kivu provinces.
Seventeen years after the United Nations recognized conflict-related sexual violence as a threat to international peace and security, the crime remains widespread, systematic and chronically underreported, the Security Council heard today, as speakers called for urgent action to move beyond condemnation.
United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Chaloka Beyani commended Costa Rica’s Legislative Assembly for its unanimous adoption of a motion to declare Congress a space free of hate speech, harassment, discrimination and intolerance. The declaration will serve as “a model of what legislators can and must do, Ms. Beyani said.
The International Maritime Organization reports it will begin implementing a large-scale evacuation plan in the Strait of Hormuz for over 11,000 seafarers still stranded in the region. It will be carried out in cooperation with Iran, Oman, other regional coastal States, the United States and the maritime industry.
The UN Human Rights Office issued a report today warning that attacks against human right defenders have reached record levels, with preliminary data showing some 950 human rights defenders, journalists and trade unionists were killed or forcibly disappeared worldwide in 2025, more than double the number a decade ago.
As conflicts multiply and women remain largely absent from peace negotiations, senior United Nations officials, civil society and Member States today urged the Security Council to move beyond rhetoric and make women’s participation in peace processes funded and non-negotiable, warning that peace built without women is “only a pause in violence”.
Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the Military Gender Advocate of the Year Award, United Nations Woman Police Officer of the Year Award, the Captain Mbaye Diagne Medal for Exceptional Courage Ceremony and the Dag Hammarskjöld Medal Ceremony, in New York today:
