When authoritarians are on the rise, it’s bad news for women’s rights

To begin with, let’s take a look at where we are: How have women’s rights fared around the world in recent years?

There are two contrasting trends: Some countries have made improvements, while others have gone backwards. In Latin America, for example, there has been tremendous progress, with access to abortion now being considered a basic women’s right in many countries. In the US, however, the constitutional right to decide whether to have an abortion was taken away after almost 50 years. This is an unusual and worrying development. Not to mention a country like Afghanistan, where the Taliban have practically erased women from public life. Even in Europe, women’s rights have experienced a general setback. 

Many of these countries have experienced democratic decline. Harvard University researchers Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks found a correlation between “misogyny and authoritarianism”. Why is that?

A reduction in women’s freedoms tends to go hand in hand with a reduction in civil rights. Hungary’s Prime Minister Victor Orbán has been obsessed with reducing reproductive rights, while at the same time curtailing freedom of expression. By contrast, it’s hard to be misogynistic in a well-functioning democracy where people can rely on the rule of law. When a country has independent courts, democratic elections, a healthy civil society and freedom of expression, women can and will fight for their rights. Progress in democracy is slow but steady.

Traditional role models are often supported by conservative or religious groups. Isn’t political ideology the determining factor, not autocracy?

Authoritarianism has no ideology. It’s a terrible fallacy to think that there’s a difference between left-wing and right-wing authoritarians. What makes the difference is whether or not political leaders believe in the rule of law. The Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega, who came from the leftist Sandinista movement, is now supported by the Catholic Church. Or take Russia, which legalised abortion in the 1920s and promoted gender equality in the 1950s. Vladimir Putin has significantly reduced access, glorified the traditional role of mothers and is rewarding families with many children. In this respect, the country isn’t very different from China: China went from a one-child policy to a two-child policy and now is urging women to have more children. Both regimes see women as an instrument of population control rather than as individuals with the right to decide about their own lives.

Would you even say that the restriction of women’s rights is one of the first signs of rising authoritarianism?

Absolutely. The correlation between authoritarianism and women’s rights isn’t always obvious, because democracies haven’t been perfect in granting women’s rights either. But what makes the difference is the direction, if there is progress or regression. Whether you look at El Salvador, Nicaragua, Hungary or the United States: We need to raise our level of concern and be ready to react when women’s rights are in decline. It is a sign of the erosion of democracy.

You talk about a woman’s right to abortion as if it was a matter of course. But it is a very sensitive issue. A lot of people are concerned about it and want to protect the foetus as well.

Evidence shows that there is no contradiction between protecting foetal life and protecting women. It’s the other way round: If you protect women’s rights, you also protect the health of the pregnant woman and the life and health of the foetus.

Latin America’s “Marea Verde”, or Green Wave, was a powerful recent women’s rights movement, with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets for reproductive rights. The movement began in Argentina in 2020 and spread across the continent. High courts in Colombia, Mexico, Argentina and Chile have now recognised access to abortion as a women’s right. What else has the movement achieved?

The Green Wave achieved what I call the social decriminalisation of abortion – a change in the way people talk about reproductive rights. It’s been a taboo subject for a long time, but now women are no longer ashamed to talk about their experiences. It has become a topic of family discussion. And these conversations are taking place even in countries where abortion rights are severely restricted, such as El Salvador and Nicaragua. But the Green Wave went far beyond reproductive rights and became a movement for civil rights and democracy. In Mexico, people wore green bandanas – the symbol of the Green Wave – to protest against disappearances and torture.

What made the Green Wave so powerful? 

The Green Wave is a historic example; it really showed the world the power of civil-society movements. It was driven by many different women’s rights organisations and many women felt represented. Plus, the green bandanas were a very visible public symbol. But success also stemmed from strategic movement building. The huge rallies were the most visible part of the movement. At the same time, activist groups lobbied for legislative changes, while others were engaged in strategic litigation. Successful movements combine all three.

Speaking of El Salvador: In December 2024, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found the country responsible for obstetric violence. It was considered violence against women. 

This is a huge step forward. The case involved a woman who was forced to carry a pregnancy to term with an unviable foetus because medical personnel would not perform an abortion. The woman’s life was in danger, but the medical staff were unsure whether an abortion was legal. In its ruling, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights considered the lack of access to medical procedures to be a form of gender-based violence and held El Salvador responsible. Almost at the same time, the Human Rights Committee, the United Nations body that oversees compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, found that Ecuador and Nicaragua had violated the rights of girls who had been forced to carry pregnancies to term after sexual assault. The Committee explicitly found that forced pregnancy as a result of lack of access to abortion was a human rights violation. 

Women in repressive regimes can’t take to the streets or appeal to the courts. What happens in countries like Iran or Afghanistan?

Women there are not silent: They are the ones leading the movements for change, and I deeply admire that. It is no coincidence that there are so many imprisoned women in Iran. The Iranian movement is a human rights movement led also by women, but with the broad participation of many other groups in society. In Afghanistan, it is mainly women who are standing up for their own rights. Their protests range from holding signs in the streets, to small public gatherings, to individual acts of solidarity such as showing a little skin or wearing make-up under their burqas. Non-conformity is the most important form of protest. It’s very brave, because the situation in Afghanistan is extremely difficult. Now even houses with windows where women can be seen from the outside are forbidden. It’s not just that women are relegated to the private sphere – the private sphere has become much darker and more secluded than it used to be. And the international community is basically allowing this to happen. 

What should the international community do?

For three years, the Taliban have been able to impose more and more restrictions. Denying women access to healthcare is almost an invitation to death. But the Taliban can still send their male teams to major sporting events and their delegations to the United Nations. Do you think they will take that as a sign to stop? Six countries – Chile, Costa Rica, France, Luxembourg, Mexico and Spain – asked the International Criminal Court to investigate the situation of women in Afghanistan in 2024. Another four – Australia, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands – want to take the Taliban to the International Court of Justice for violating the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Afghan and international women’s rights organisations have also joined forces to call for gender apartheid to be codified as a crime against humanity. But none of this is enough. I mean, for more than three years now, girls haven’t been allowed to go to school beyond sixth grade!

One thing that is striking about the women’s rights movement is that activists around the world are increasingly uniting and cooperating. Can you give us some examples?

You may have heard of the song from Chile, “Un violador en tu camino”, a rapist in your path. It was written in 2019 by a feminist collective and went viral. Women all over the world have translated the lyrics, performed the choreography and shared their videos online – from Iran to Turkey, Israel and various places in Europe and Latin America. Also, imagine this: Iranian women singing the Chilean resistance song “The People United” (“El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido”) in Farsi at an Iranian university! Technology has made South-South cooperation much easier, and the women’s rights movement is very interconnected. Every four years, the AWID International Forum organises a conference for gender-justice activists where they all come together: women from Afghanistan and Iran, domestic and sex workers’ organisations, abortion-rights activists. All these small organisations in different countries are really moving things forward.

Macarena Sáez is the executive director of the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch. 
saezm@hrw.org