16 Days of Activism

GIF of a pen pushing women, but a diverse group of women push back. The pen signifies harmful policies like austerity. — **From a fist to a pen - violence is violence!**
Governments around the world are putting women and girls in danger of unprecedented new levels of poverty, peril, overwork and premature death as a result of near-universal “slash-and-burn" efforts to recover their economies from the pandemic.
This is a form of gender-based violence, and it’s not an accident. **Austerity is a choice.**
On top of the pandemic and cost of living crisis, austerity measures cut services, jobs and rights that women and girls on most. This is a violent policy that means women and girls are the last to eat, the first to be excluded from unaffordable schools, and their access to SRHR services and products shrinks as their care responsibilities grow.

The real life impact of austerity: an increasing number of women can’t afford menstrual health products. Hear from some of our partners and stakeholders how the economic crisis in Lebanon is driving women into period poverty in the video below.

4 out of every 5 governments are now locked into austerity measures from 2022-23 onwards, cutting public services like health, education and social protection rather than pursuing wealth and windfall taxes.

More than half of these governments already fail women and girls, by failing or barely providing benefits to women and girls. Governments are choosing to cut their budgets and hurt the majority – but there are obvious, feminist economic alternatives, like progressive taxation, that can raise more.

A progressive wealth tax on the world's worlds millionaires and billionaires can raise almost $1 trillion more than governments are planning to save through cuts in 2023.