The 7 Key Elections Shaping Women’s Rights in 2024 — and 3 Countries to Watch in 2025
In 2024, more than half the world’s population participated in a historic year of voting, casting ballots in 60 national elections. The year saw landmark achievements in women’s representation at the highest rungs of power, including the election of female presidents in Mexico, Namibia, and North Macedonia for the first time. Yet, women’s rights advocates warn that true progress toward gender equity remains minimal at best, and symbolic at worst.
“Elections are the main event by which formal political power and voting rights are realized… but just because a country elects a female president, or increases the number of women in parliament, it doesn't necessarily translate into gender-equal policies,” Julia Thalin, who is an Associate Program Officer of Electoral Processes at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, told More to Her Story.
This year was an overall challenging year for women and girls: women’s representation in politics stagnated, as only 13 countries had female presidential candidates on the ballot, and only 12 increased women’s legislative representation. Additionally, the myriad barriers facing everyday women and girls persisted. A June report from the World Economic Forum revealed that global gender equality on the grounds of economic mobility, educational attainment, health, and political empowerment saw only marginal improvement, and forecast it will take five more generations to close the gender gap at the world’s current pace.
Violence against women and girls continues to be the most pervasive human rights violation worldwide. Yet, in November, a femicide report by the United Nations revealed the total number of countries reporting on femicides has decreased by 50 percent over the past five years.
“Women’s rights are human rights and, as such, are non-negotiable,” said the director of the women’s rights division of Human Rights Watch, Macarena Sáez, in 2023. “It’s not just authoritarian governments that violate women’s rights — women face these restrictions in democracies, too.”
There are some institutions that are rising to meet these immense challenges: In January, the International Criminal Court hosted a series of inaugural proceedings to address gender persecution as a crime against humanity, signaling a historic shift toward greater legal accountability for countries that inadequately serve women and girls. This move comes as Australia, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands announce their intention to take Afghanistan to the International Court of Justice over gender discrimination, amid the Taliban’s brutal repression of women and girls since their takeover of the country in 2021.
It’s past time for global institutions to understand women’s rights is not a niche issue, but rather a common good. It is a fact that gender equality is linked to the strengthening of national security, higher GDP, increased economic productivity, and lower rates of conflict. Gender inequality and violence against women are preventable ills, remediated by legislation, data collection, government accountability, and increased funding for women’s rights organizations. And yet, this year was marked by election victories with zero to little mention of the cruciality of gender equality.
In drilling down into the few countries that defined this year for women and girls — for better or for worse — we can begin to understand what is not only at stake for all of us on the basis of gender, but what is also at stake for all of us on the basis of human freedom and our collective pursuit of happiness.
Here’s a glimpse into how the world voted — and what these decisions could mean for women and girls in 2025 and beyond. Plus, three countries to watch in 2025:
The United States
With the election of Republican frontrunner Donald Trump in November, women’s rights experts say Americans can expect the further atrophying of gender equality and women’s rights seen during his first term. During that time, Trump undermined national access to birth control, eroded efforts to end the pay gap between men and women, weakened Title IX, which is a law banning sex discrimination in public education, and appointed three judges to the Supreme Court that resulted in ending federal protection of abortion rights.
Trump’s resurgence also sends a major signal to autocratic powers that advocate for anti-gender policies, including policies that strip away reproductive rights and healthcare access, says Kallie Michell, who is the head of gender policy at the New Lines Institute.
At the heels of election results in November, Brazil’s former President and right-wing nationalist Jair Bolsonaro said Trump’s victory has set the stage for his own political reemergence in the country’s 2026 presidential election, telling the Wall Street Journal: “Trump is back, and it’s a sign we'll be back too.”
While there is no current roadmap foreshadowing Trump’s gender policies, there are clues: Project 2025 — a 900-page policy agenda spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation — listed numerous strategies to limit abortion access and other reproductive services. Trump initially denied any association with Project 2025, but has recently softened his stance, telling TIME Magazine in December, “They have some things that are very conservative and very good. They have other things that I don't like.”
A majority of Project 2025 contributors worked in the first Trump administration or on his campaign or transition team, and many are expected to serve in a second Trump administration.
During his previous term, Trump’s administration co-authored and endorsed the Geneva Consensus Declaration, an anti-abortion doctrine supported by 32 countries. The declaration aimed to form a global alliance to strip sexual and reproductive rights from the agendas of multilateral organizations, including the United Nations. While President Joe Biden later withdrew the U.S. from the agreement, a second Trump presidency could see a renewed commitment to this initiative.
Trump’s foreign policy also has major ramifications for nations that receive aid. During his first term, the Trump administration expanded the Reagan-era Mexico City Policy, which barred U.S. foreign aid to any NGO that provides abortion or family services even if these were funded through non-U.S. sources — a law that impacted millions.
A study by the National Academy of Sciences’ journal PNAS found that Trump’s expansion of this policy directly resulted in 108,000 maternal and infant deaths, as well as 36,000 new HIV infections, between 2017 and 2021. Should Project 2025 play more actively than the incoming Trump administration is suggesting, these impacts could increase.
“Previously, the Mexico City policy didn't cover humanitarian organizations, so humanitarian organizations could still provide family planning related services,” says Thalin. “But now, with Project 2025, it basically suggests that this ban would cover almost all U.S. funds. This would really have huge effects globally for women and girls.”
Mexico
In June, Mexico’s landmark election of climate scientist-turned breakout politician Claudia Sheinbaum punctuated the country’s long-standing efforts to become a global champion for the rights of women and girls. Indeed, Mexico has long paired rhetorical aspiration for gender equality with genuine effort, evidenced in 2020 when it became the first Global South Country to adopt a feminist foreign policy, enshrining in their constitution a spate of commitments toward bolstering gender equality globally. In her acceptance speech, Sheinbaum emphasized that with her rise to prominence comes a new era, “el tiempo de las mujeres” or “the time for women.”
“Mexico, in terms of women’s political representation, has achieved parity in Congress, and women now hold top positions in public office. So much has been achieved, and we can celebrate that,” Carin Zissis, a Wilson fellow, told The Wilson Center earlier this month. “However, we also know that there’s a gap between the laws and the implementation, and between women's political representation and women’s daily life.”
Mexico faces one of the highest femicide rates globally, with government data revealing that around 10 women and girls are killed daily, often at the hands of intimate partners or family members. In addition, economic gaps in the country fall along gendered divides, with women spending more hours per day on unpaid labor than in any other OECD country.
In the lead-up to national elections, a spate of high-profile femicides including the murder of Yolanda Sánchez, the first female mayor of Cotija, haunted the political campaigns of many female candidates, forcing hundreds to drop out of their races due to threats made to their lives by male aggressors.
Women’s rights experts are closely watching how Sheinbaum navigates these challenges. To date, she has proposed reforms to six constitutional articles aimed at advancing civil equality, ensuring freedom from violence, and addressing the country’s significant gender pay gap. On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women in November, Sheinbaum instituted three new welfare programs to benefit pensions for women aged 60 to 64, high school students seeking financial support, and senior women with disabilities in need of at-home doctor visits and free medication.
Sheinbaum’s leadership could become a catalyst for alchemizing the values long upheld by the Mexican government into practical and longstanding change felt at the societal level.
“Sheinbaum, being a woman, has the opportunity to really transform Mexico’s domestic approach to gender-based violence in accordance with its feminist foreign policy,” Kalie Mitchell, who is the head of gender policy at the New Lines Institute, told More to Her Story. “She really has a great opportunity to create a replicable model for other nations that are struggling to deal with endemic gender based violence.”
The Islamic Republic of Iran
To speak of Iranian politics today demands that we tell the story of the women at the forefront of political resistance. Two years ago, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died while in the custody of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s so-called “morality police,” a draconian government body formed in 2005 that enforces Islamic law, such as mandatory hijab for women. Immediately following Amini’s death, a women-led revolution took hold across the country, lasting several months and resulting in thousands of arrests, at least 500 deaths, and a brutal crackdown of women’s rights activists.
Amini’s death ignited the global Woman, Life, Freedom movement, which remains a powerful force challenging the government’s oppressive policies that disproportionately target women. In 2024, the movement continues to shape Iranian society and politics, with countless women boldly resisting the country’s hijab laws and moral restrictions.
“The restriction on women’s rights in Iran and the unrelenting brutal crackdown against peaceful dissent are visible hallmarks of the country’s authoritarian government. A country, regardless of its system of government, will never function at its highest potential without women’s equality,” said HRW’s Sáez.
Iran’s new president, a former doctor turned politician and reformist Masoud Pezeshkian elected via a snap election in June, may well face the task of accounting for these injustices — injustices that the United Nations have unequivocally deemed as crimes against humanity.
During his presidential campaign, Pezeshkian openly advocated for equal rights for women: “There is no difference between men and women in ideological terms,” he said. “We are against any coercion or harsh treatment towards anyone, let alone women. Behavior won’t change with laws.”
And yet, experts warn that newcomer Pezeshkian faces an “uphill battle” amid an inevitable power struggle between himself and hardline conservative forces within the regime. Unlike the executive office in other countries, the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran does not have full control over the government, which is under the direct control of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has been in power since 1989. While the President heads the Supreme National Security Council, its decisions require Khamenei’s signature to come into effect.
Thus, instead of beckoning to the call for women’s liberation, the regime has dug in its heels. Since April, security forces have intensified their enforcement of “morality laws” through surveillance, public beatings, sexual violence, arbitrary arrest, and torture. In November, the government announced plans to open a “hijab removal treatment clinic” to institutionalize women who defy these laws. Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, say there is even evidence of torture, violence, and forced medication being used on protesters deemed mentally unstable. In the last few months, Iranian authorities have also issued death sentences to political prisoners, ethnic minorities, and foreigners, reportedly without due process.
“[Pezeshkian] has the potential to be really impactful. But since he entered office there’s not been much in the way of concrete improvements,” Kallie Mitchell, program head and analyst for the Gender Policy Portfolio at the New Lines Institute, told More to Her Story.
Recent reports from Tehran media indicate the SNSC may have temporarily shelved a newer, stricter hijab law from being enacted due to internal government disagreements over the law. Experts reckon it was also due to officials wanting to prevent mass protests similar to those that erupted after Amini’s death in 2022.
Pezeshkian may be compelled to keep acting on behalf of women, given their immense influence: “The struggles of Iranian women have had a massive symbolic power, both in the Middle East and around the world. So with the election and its impact on [women], and the surrounding activism and global attention that it will get, [women] will continue to have a really massive impact on discussions about women's rights internationally,” said Mitchell.
India
In June 2024, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party won re-election, extending his decade-long rule over India, with a political campaign that deliberately targeted women voters. But experts say Modi’s success in genuinely addressing the issues prioritized by Indian women may increasingly define his success as a politician moving forward.
That’s because today “both women-led movements for democracy and for gender justice are critical parts of India’s new pro democracy spectrum,” wrote the independent researcher Vijayan MJ in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Indeed, more and more women in India are voting independently from their husbands and families, and in 2019 the turnout of women voters exceeded that of men for the first time in the country’s parliamentary history.
“The emergence of women as an identifiable constituency makes it imperative to take stock of the BJP’s claims to have ‘empowered’ women during its decade-long rule,” said MJ.
In recent years, women-led movements have nimbly linked gender rights to India’s broader issues, such as the passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act in 2019, legitimizing the country’s historic farmers' protests, and working with other grass roots initiatives such as the anti-caste movement to protest pervasive sexual violence.
Although Modi made a clear and deliberate pitch to women during his political campaign by positioning himself their “protector” and implementing various welfare measures including distributing cooking gas connections, his party’s efforts appeared to ring hollow: Women voters turned out in greater droves than male voters this year, yet women voted at a lower rate for Modi and the BJP than men.
“The way [the BJP] appeals to women is very much along traditional gendered norms,” Saskia Brechenmacher, who is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told More to Her Story. “In some ways, [they’re] trying to appeal to women to make their life as caregivers, as people who take care of the household, easier.”
Policy experts and cultural critics say these moves may not cut it anymore — especially amid a spell of high-profile cases of rape followed by institutional failings to attend to the violent crimes.
“Growing violence against women reflects not only a deep patriarchal bias but also an utter institutional failure,” wrote Maya John, who is a professor of history at the University of Delhi.
“From the release of the rapists of Bilkis Bano, a victim of gang rape during the 2002 Gujarat communal carnage, to the eerie silence of Modi amid the horrifying violence and rampant sexual assaults on women in Manipur during the recent clashes between Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities, the BJP’s approach to the violence unleashed on women during communal pogroms and ethnic clashes is even more revealing of its misogyny,” wrote John.
Unlike in previous elections, the BJP did not win a majority in both houses of parliament, putting them in a weaker position, marking “an end to BJP hegemony” and opening up a chapter in which coalition politics may lead to more compromises on policy — for better or for worse.
“One of the big question marks is, to what extent are we going to see a continuation of some of the illiberal, anti-democratic tendencies [of the government], particularly when it comes to cracking down on freedom of association, assembly, expression, and academic freedom,” Brechenmacher told More to Her Story. “Or, will the fact that the BJP is in a weaker position mitigate against some of that and make the government more ready to accept certain forms of opposition and dissent?”
For now, women’s rights activists in India are needing to wait and see.
Namibia
In December, Namibian vice president Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah became Namibia’s first female president, marking a significant milestone as the country ranks 8th globally in gender parity and among the top countries in the African continent for gender equality.
A member of the Southwest Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) with a political career that began as a teenager, Nandi-Ndaitwah championed gender parity within her party by enacting gender quotas that have been enshrined in Namibia's constitution, guaranteeing that women make up half of the party’s leadership and political candidates.
And yet, Nandi-Ndaitwah is no feminist, explained the political scientist and associate at the Nordic Africa Institute Henning Melber, and she poses no challenge to SWAPO’s overall policy framework, which still holds many traditional views on gender.
“While occupying positions in institutions supposed to promote gender-aware policy, her own value system, as far as we can judge, does not reflect any feminist tendencies,” Melber told More to Her Story. “There are a number of indicators why one should not really expect that there is a feminist turn in Namibian politics and also in the SWAPO political manifesto.”
Nandi-Ndaitwah, rather, reflects the popular attitudes of SWAPO, explains Melber. While she has supported key policies protecting women’s physical safety, like the Domestic Violence Act enacted in 2003, Nandi-Ndaitwah is shaky on reproductive rights, supports strict regulations on abortion, and is against same-sex marriage.
As such, Nandi-Ndaitwah may focus her presidential career on eradicating popular problems within the country, the Northeastern University political science professor Martha Johnson told More to Her Story: “She's really just going to be focused on the big economic challenges that Namibia faces, and I think youth unemployment is probably the most important one, or unemployment generally.”
Despite these complexities, Nandi-Ndaitwah’s presidency could still be a critical turning point for women’s rights in Namibia, particularly as women’s rights groups put pressure on the country’s first female president to act on the very challenges bedeviling women. Indeed, her decades-long track record as a leader within SWAPO positions her as someone who could, in theory, nimbly advance gender equality. But promoting broader gender equity in a conservative society may not be the legacy Nandi-Ndaitwah wishes to forge.
By electing Nandi-Ndaitwah, “[Namibian women] feel recognized as being competent to fill in such an office, and that alone could well lead to a more gender-aware positioning of Nandi-Ndaitwah, if only because she is so much applauded for being the first woman in that office,” Melber told More to Her story.
“But I think it's basically, at the moment, a wait-and-see situation.”
El Salvador
In February, Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele handily won re-election, with 84.7 percent of the vote and even firmer control of the government through his Nuevos Ideas political party. While Bukele’s popularity is in large part due to his heavy-handed approach to curbing rampant crime and gang violence, “Bukeleism,” as it has been called, has also led to the country having the highest incarceration rate in the world, the abuse and torture of incarcerated Salvadorans; violations of citizens’ rights without due process, a years-long state of emergency that has enabled militaristic clampdowns on basic human rights, and the deaths in state custody of at least 261 people who, at the time of their deaths, had not been found guilty of any crime.
“Women have become collateral damage in Bukele’s way of ruling,” Julia Zulver, a political sociologist and a feminist researcher, told More to Her Story. Instead, his “iron fist” security policies further invisibilizes gendered experiences, she explained.
“In the coming years, women should not expect that their ability to live lives free from violence is going to improve,” said Zulver.
Experts like Zulver warn that with Congress under Bukele’s control, the self-described “world’s coolest dictator” has the power to heedlessly advance policies that further marginalize women. For instance, Bukele’s alliances with conservative religious factions further limit the potential for key women’s support programs, such as legalizing abortion, collecting data on femicides or intimate-partner violence, or setting aside institutional efforts directed toward gender policy. Bukele notably slashed the budget of the government project Ciudad Mujer by 25 percent, which once provided aid, job training, and financial services to victims of domestic violence.
“For [Bukele], when the gangs are in jail, that means that there’s no more gender-based violence,” said Zulver. “That narrative is also very, very black and white. … Yes, some of the previous actors who were engaging in violence against women are now locked up, but it certainly doesn't mean that violence against women has just disappeared.”
While many Salvadoran women voted for Bukele during this year’s election because they genuinely feel safer following gang crackdowns, human rights groups warn that all women in the country face threats from government forces and gangs in the form of harassment and violence. Women are doubly burdened with financial pressures, as they are forced to be in charge of single-headed households and are pressured by nonincarcerated family members to deliver money to their incarcerated partners and family members.
Bukele’s government has also actively undermined women's rights organizations. Authorities have reportedly raided offices, surveilled feminist activists, and imposed audits to silence political dissent, effectively crippling civil society's ability to advocate for women's rights.
“Because of [Bukele’s] alliances with conservative factions, [and] because of his alliance with religious factions in all different parts of society, of politics, and [with the economy], I strongly doubt that he will be enacting any kind of legislation that would push forward an agenda of gender justice,” said Zulver.
South Africa
In a first for South Africa’s once-dominant political party, the African National Congress (ANC) lost a majority during its elections in May, garnering just 40 percent of the vote. This forces the party to govern in a messy coalition with 10 other political parties, which experts warn may cause a decline in women’s representation, lead to new parties rising to the top that have weaker gender policy commitments, and prove less effective overall against pressing gender-based issues such as the country’s high levels of femicide.
South Africa has long been considered a leader in the continent with respect to gender equality, a relatively progressive constitution, and women’s political representation since the country broke from apartheid in 1990. In those early years of the ANC, women had palpable political influence. But over time, experts explain the institutions the ANC helped promote in the name of gender equality and diversity have become weaker with less funding, political corruption, and internal strife on the part of some ANC politicians being less tolerant of women pushing for change internally. Some experts argue this may be why the ANC lost its potency in the polls.
“For a while the ANC has kind of coasted on its huge legitimacy because of the fight against the apartheid regime. But as the population becomes younger, [there are] more and more people [who] didn't really live through that struggle in the same way,” Saskia Brechenmacher, who is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told More to Her Story.
Brechenmacher says this election speaks to South Africans’ shifting views of the country’s political parties, which may impact the government’s priority toward eradicating issues affecting South African women.
“The ANC has really been weakened for a number of reasons, one of them being [due to its] lack of delivering on some real concerns that civil society has had, especially when it comes to gender based violence,” Brechenmacher told More to Her Story.
The country’s new — and slightly younger — coalition government may not share the same attitudes when it comes to gender issues, making it unclear to advocates and human rights specialists whether and how the government tackle issues the ANC has long confronted alone. Youth-centered issues, however, may rise to take precedent. Indeed, South Africa has some of the world’s highest rates of inequality and unemployment, especially among citizens under the age of 35, where unemployment is an abysmal 45 percent.
“Youth was a much bigger topic than gender in terms of what parties were talking about, because unemployment is a big issue. There were also concerns about youth advocacy, and that the youth weren't voting,” said Brechenmacher. “When there’s this concern of youth versus gender equality, what you see is that young men sometimes take the places of women.”
Looking to 2025, these are the countries to watch
While 2024 is now behind us, the challenges and triumphs in these seven countries will continue to shape the future. As we look ahead to 2025, three more countries emerge as critical to the fight for women’s and girls’ rights.
Haiti
Amid rampant gang violence and unprecedented instability following the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council—a temporary measure to stabilize the nation—includes just one woman, Régine Abraham, who lacks voting power despite women playing a pivotal role in the country’s crisis response. Haitian feminists have proposed a reformed policy framework that prioritizes women’s inclusion in Haiti’s transition. Experts warn that disregarding these recommendations could jeopardize efforts to regain stability from gang control, further entrenching gender inequality and violence against women in the country.
Afghanistan
Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, the country has resurrected a gender apartheid regime — a term that was first used by Afghan women in the 1990s following the Taliban’s first rule. The Taliban’s hardline rule has largely been defined by limiting women's mobility, education, and employment in such a way that amounts by and large to crimes against humanity. In 2025, international pressure may escalate amid a growing multi-institutional campaign to draw attention to the desperate and dehumanizing situation of women and girls. Activists’ use of institutional levers of power such as the International Criminal Court will challenge the Taliban’s refusal to grant women basic freedoms, all of which will be crucial for the country’s long-term peace and development.
Syria
Syria faces a transitional moment in its governance at the heels of the Assad family’s spectacular collapse just days after a lightning rebel advance led by the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani in December. And yet, women have been excluded from nearly all senior leadership positions in this transitional government, with just one female minister appointed, who will lead a new Women’s Affairs Office. While women hold some mid-level roles, their lack of representation in nearly all high-level decision-making risks alienating a significant portion of the population. Activists and women’s rights advocates emphasize that the meaningful inclusion of women and ethnic minorities is essential to Syria’s recovery, particularly in advancing HTS’s vision of achieving sustainable peace and effective governance.
As in 2024, the year ahead necessitates the participation, safety, and empowerment of women and girls. As evidenced worldwide, this is not just a moral obligation illuminated by a niche few, but rather a strategic necessity and a universal good for the future stability of these — and all — nations.