Justice systems around the world are often described as impartial institutions that apply the law equally to everyone. Yet neutrality in law, does not necessarily produce equality in practice. Rules that appear gender-neutral, frequently operate within institutions shaped by patriarchal norms, unequal power relations, economic disparities and social prejudice.
A woman walks into a police station to report domestic violence, she is asked to “adjust”. A young girl is married before she turns eighteen because tradition speaks louder than the law. A pregnant woman seeking reproductive healthcare is forced to justify decisions about her own body. These are not isolated stories. They reflect the global justice system that continues to fail half of humanity.
In March 2026, the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW) released one of its most significant reports in recent years: 'Ensuring and Strengthening Access to Justice for All Women and Girls' which delivers a sombre message; women's rights are regressing worldwide.
Despite decades of international commitments, constitutional guarantees, and progressive legislation, not a single country in the world has achieved full legal equality for women. On average, women enjoy only 64 per cent of the legal rights available to men.
Yet the numbers tell only part of the story. The report argues that justice is not merely about courts, judges or legislation. True justice exists only when women are actually able to exercise their rights without any fear, discrimination, financial hardship or social stigma. A law written in a statute book means little if a woman cannot afford a lawyer, fears retaliation, or is prevented by social norms from approaching the legal system.
The report warns that democratic backsliding, rising armed conflicts, economic pressures and shrinking civic space are contributing to an organised backlash against gender equality and women's rights. It further observes that justice systems do not exist in isolation from these broader social and political developments, rather they frequently reflect and reinforce them.
For decades, discussions around women's rights focused on creating laws. Today the challenge is about implementation.
Despite three decades since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the landmark 1995 global blueprint for achieving gender equality and more than four decades after the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), often described as the international bill of rights for women, discrimination remains deeply embedded in legal systems across the world.
The report's strongest observation is that formal equality is not substantive equality.
India illustrates this implementation gap with striking clarity. The Constitution guarantees equality under Articles 14 and 15, and several laws criminalize sexual violence. Yet during the 2023 Manipur ethnic violence, videos of two Kuki women being stripped, paraded naked and sexually assaulted drew nationwide outrage. The incident came to national attention only after a video depicting the assault surfaced publicly, exposing serious failures in policing, prompt investigation and victim protection. Taking suo motu cognizance of the incident, the Supreme Court described the violence as “simply unacceptable” and expressed serious concerns over the State's response. The existence of progressive laws did not translate into timely justice, demonstrating that legal equality without effective implementation remains a mere paper guarantee. In other words, equality on paper often disappears in practice.
One of the report's greatest contributions is that it shifts attention from legal reform to structural barriers. Justice is denied not only because of discriminatory laws but also because of discriminatory societies.
The implementation gap in India is not merely a consequence of inadequate laws but of institutional barriers that continue to impede women's access to justice. In 2013, The Justice Verma Committee observed that police reluctance to register complaints, gender-insensitive investigations and entrenched patriarchal attitudes often discourage survivors at the very outset of the legal process. Even when women do seek legal redress, they frequently encounter re-traumatization of survivors through insensitive questioning, repeated recounting of traumatic experiences, disbelief, victim-blaming, and procedural delays within the criminal justice system, a phenomenon commonly described as secondary victimization. Human Rights Watch has found long-standing structural flaws in the Indian police, such as poor accountability, resistance in crime registration, and inadequate investigations that erode public trust in the legal system. For women seeking legal recourse, these institutional flaws may have especially dire repercussions.
The consequences of these institutional failures became evident in the Hathras gang rape case (2020), where allegations of delayed police action, the hurried midnight cremation of the victim without her family's consent and concerns regarding the investigation prompted intervention by both the Allahabad High Court and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and raised serious questions about the ability of the justice system to protect survivors and their families.
The Supreme Court itself has acknowledged that gender stereotypes continue to influence legal institutions. In its 'Handbook on Combating Gender Stereotypes (2023)', the Apex Court observed that stereotypical assumptions can shape judicial reasoning and undermine women's equal treatment before the law.
Yet the barriers to justice are not experienced equally by all women. As the UN report observes, women with disabilities, Indigenous women, migrants, refugees and women living in conflict situations encounter multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination that further restrict their access to justice.
Rohingya refugee women face legal uncertainty and limited access to justice. Approximately 40,000 Rohingya individuals reside in India, with at least 20,000 officially registered with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). India has not signed the 1951 UN Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol, nevertheless, it is obligated by the principle of nonrefoulement in customary international law which forbids nations from returning or deporting individuals to locations where there may be substantive and reasonable threats to their safety or freedom.
In May 2025, a United Nations Special Rapporteur expressed alarm over credible reports that Rohingya refugees had been forcibly expelled by Indian authorities and placed at grave risk, urging the Government of India to provide a full account of the incident and to refrain from taking any action that could violate the principle of non-refoulement. These developments highlight the additional obstacles to justice that refugee women confront, as they frequently encounter prejudice on the basis of their ethnicity and immigration status in addition to their gender.
Justice cannot adopt a 'one size fits all' approach. These examples demonstrate that gender discrimination rarely exists in isolation. It intersects with disability, ethnicity, age, migration status and conflict, requiring justice systems that respond to women's diverse lived realities rather than assuming all women experience the law in the same way.
Perhaps the most alarming aspect of the report is its warning that progress is no longer merely slow, rather it is under attack. The world today is witnessing what the UN describes as "pushback on women's rights." Rising authoritarianism, armed conflict, democratic erosion, climate disasters and digital technologies are creating new forms of discrimination even as old ones remain unresolved.
Violence facilitated by technology has emerged as one of the rapidly escalating threats. Women and girls are disproportionately targeted by deepfakes, cyberstalking, non-consensual sharing of images, AI-assisted harassment, and online bullying, creating new barriers to justice. The "Sulli Deals" and "Bulli Bai" incidents, in which photographs of hundreds of Muslim women, including journalists and activists were misappropriated and displayed in fake online "auctions", demonstrated how digital, gender-based violence can intersect with religious identity and misogyny to intimidate, humiliate and silence women in public life, exposing gaps in platform accountability and legal responses.
Why does this report matter to India? At first glance, India appears better positioned than many countries discussed in the report. India possesses an extensive constitutional framework protecting equality. Articles 14, 15 and 21 guarantee equality before law, prohibit discrimination and protect life and dignity.
India has enacted a comprehensive constitutional and statutory framework to protect women's rights, including legislation addressing domestic violence, workplace sexual harassment, child marriage, legal aid and the speedy adjudication of sexual offences. The Women's Reservation Act, 2023 further reflects a commitment to strengthening women's participation in public life. These are achievements worth celebrating. However, they tell only half the story.
India perfectly illustrates the report's central argument: The gap between legal guarantees and the lived reality. Good laws do not automatically ensure justice.
One of the most debated examples of this gap in India is the continued exemption of marital rape from criminal law. While India has strengthened its legal framework on sexual violence since the 2012 Delhi gang rape, non-consensual sexual intercourse by a husband with his adult wife continues to fall outside the definition of rape under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. Exception 2 in Section 63 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) states that 'sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under eighteen years of age, is not rape'. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act of 2005 recognizes sexual violence in marriage. However, the Act deems it a civil wrong rather than a crime. As a result, a wife may seek a protective order or compensation, but she cannot pursue a criminal case against her husband for rape. Over 150 countries have criminalized marital rape. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee) has likewise urged India to criminalize marital rape. Yet the issue remains unresolved before the Supreme Court with petitioners arguing that the exception violates the constitutional guarantees of equality, dignity, bodily autonomy and personal liberty.
Effective implementation also depends on who interprets and enforces the law. The UN report emphasizes that the lack of female justice actors at decision-making levels is a reflection of systemic gender disparities that deter women from interacting with the legal system. This topic gained prominence after a well-known Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was submitted to the Supreme Court of India. A minimum 30% quota for female attorneys in government panels, law officer posts, and legal aid bodies was demanded by the PIL filed by the Ladli Foundation Trust. India has never appointed a woman Attorney General or Solicitor General, in the country's more than 75 years of independence. As of July 2026, there are 35 sitting judges (including the Chief Justice) in the Supreme Court against a sanctioned strength of 38, of whom only two are women: Justice B.V. Nagarathna and Justice V. Mohana. This domestic reality is consistent with the UN report's claim that the interpretation, application, and enforcement of laws are significantly influenced by those in positions of decision-making authority.
The UN report is neither pessimistic nor idealistic. It is realistic. It acknowledges that significant advancements have been made in the last thirty years. More nations have recognized women's equality, improved their constitutions, and passed legislations. However, aspiration still lags behind implementation. For India, the next generation of reform is not just passing new laws but it must ensure effective enforcement, gender-sensitive policing, accessible legal aid, elimination of discriminatory provisions, faster trials, stronger digital protections and continued investment in girls' education and women's economic empowerment so that justice reaches every woman, irrespective of her caste, class, disability, religion, ethnicity, or geography.
True justice occurs when legal needs and state mechanisms finally meet. As citizens of India, we too have a role to play. We must challenge discriminatory attitudes in our homes and workplaces, refuse to normalize violence or victim-blaming, support survivors, hold institutions accountable, and raise our voices whenever rights are threatened. Only by dismantling entrenched structural barriers can India transition from a state of formal legal equality to a society of lived, substantive justice. Women's rights are not a niche concern. They are a measure of the kind of society we choose to build. The question before us is no longer whether change is possible, it is whether each of us is willing to become a part of that change.
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