Guarantee Human Rights, Shape the Future – Gender Equality Now!
In 2025, gender equality has not been achieved in Germany or in any other country on Earth. On the contrary: we live in a time when existing discriminatory structures are consolidating and deepening, despite individual progress and the tireless efforts of many organisations and activists. Women’s rights, fought for over decades, are being systematically attacked and restricted worldwide. The openly misogynistic policies in Afghanistan, Iran and the USA, sexualised wartime violence in Sudan, Yemen, Ukraine and every other armed conflict, the global rise of anti-feminist movements, and the increase in gender-specific violence in Germany are just the tip of the iceberg. Furthermore, the international shift to the right, the climate crisis, increasing militarisation and rising social inequality exacerbate the situation for women and other (multiply) marginalised individuals who are systematically deprived of their human rights and disadvantaged.
The fact that gender equality policy played at best a subordinate role in the election campaign leading up to the federal elections on 23 February 2025 is all the more sobering. It is fatal that women’s rights seem to be falling further and further down the political agenda. Gender equality is a cornerstone of our democracy. If the systematic discrimination against women and TIN* individuals is accepted as ongoing, both human rights and our democracy as such will be violated. At the same time, not only women and TIN* individuals benefit from a consistent gender equality policy. Rather, it is a decisive factor in overcoming the multiple crises of our time and shaping a free, sustainable and secure future. The active involvement of women in peace processes and in decisions on climate and environmental issues, equal opportunities in the labour market and in education, and a gender-equitable health and economic system make our society and our planet more resilient, peaceful, just and future-proof.
As Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Täterarbeit Häusliche Gewalt e.V., we therefore call for a consistent gender equality policy in the new legislative period on the occasion of International Women’s Day on 8 March 2025. Gender equality must be placed at the centre of political action and considered in all measures. In the area of protection against violence, we demand the full implementation of the Istanbul Convention on combating and preventing violence against women and domestic violence. Gender-specific violence must be understood by all political decision-makers as a structural, intersectional problem and addressed comprehensively accordingly. This requires a fundamental rethinking away from the individualisation of violence and the blaming of affected women. Instead, the causes must be addressed and violence prevented proactively: through the determined fight against anti-feminism, through gender-sensitive educational work, through the dismantling of discriminatory structures and through the expansion of mandatory perpetrator work. Gender Equality Now!
