Celebrating justice

Ensuring women’s access to justice is key to the Center’s mission of protecting reproductive rights around the world. It is also a central pillar of International Women’s Day (IWD) and the theme of this year’s session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), taking place March 9-19 at the United Nations.

CSW is an annual opportunity for the global community to take stock of progress on gender equality, to identify challenges and roadblocks, and to set goals for the future. This year Center leaders and partners will join human rights experts on panels across the session, as well as hosting two public side events that examine the intersection of women’s access to justice and their sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Despite the gains of the last 70 years, women and girls continue to face significant barriers within the legal system when it comes to advancing and affirming their sexual and reproductive rights. That’s why the Center is in courtrooms around the world, fighting for their access to justice.

This International Women’s Day, here are five wins to celebrate.

Winning freedom for Zambian mother

Winning freedom for a mother jailed without legal counsel in Zambia 

In 2024, Violet Zulu was sentenced to seven years in Zambian prison. A single mother of two and the sole breadwinner for her family, Violet had terminated a pregnancy she couldn’t afford to keep. The high cost of a safe abortion–equivalent to a month’s salary for Violet–had forced her to seek abortion care outside the healthcare system. She was arrested and held for 19 days without access to post-abortion care or to her children.

Under Zambia’s own Termination of Pregnancy Act, abortion is permitted on broad socio-economic grounds—including when a woman’s circumstances would prevent her from caring for a child. But Violet, who had no access to legal counsel and was not given an understanding of the charges against her, was found guilty anyway.

Recognizing that Violet’s rights to justice were violated, the Center intervened and filed an appeal on her behalf. In January 2026, the High Court of Zambia ruled in Violet’s favor, asserting that the lower court’s decision to sentence and imprison her without representation was unlawful and unjust.

After two years in prison, Violet has since been reunited with her children. Her story illustrates the compounding impact of legal and socio-economic barriers—and the importance of the law in protecting women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Expanding adolescent rights in Nepal

Expanding sexual and reproductive rights for adolescents in Nepal

In a small village in Nepal, what began as a private consensual sex act between two adolescents soon spiraled into a public affair. After the pair were caught, the local village council stepped in, summoning the adolescents’ parents and the police. Their families were interrogated, the boy’s family was fined, and the girl’s family was publicly humiliated and shamed.

This true story reflects a broader reality across Asia where the combination of punitive legal frameworks and stigma creates a culture of fear and silence around adolescent sexuality. This, in turn, deters young people from accessing sexual and reproductive health information and services and complicates their ability to exercise agency and bodily autonomy, escalating teen pregnancies, childbirth, and unsafe abortion-related complications.

But in response to a 2020 lawsuit filed by the Center and partners, Nepal’s Ministry of Health and Population adopted new guidelines on adolescent SRHR—a key step toward reforming policy and changing attitudes more broadly. The guidelines ensure standards for equitable, non-discriminatory adolescent-friendly services, community support, the promotion of adolescents’ health literacy, and the participation of adolescents in law and policy.   

The Center also partnered with the High Court Bar Association in Nepal to host a high-level dialogue on the legal and social implications of Nepal’s current age of consent law to garner their support during a crucial phase of the law reform process.

Together, this work centers around seeking justice for young people, who should not face criminalization for exploring a natural part of their development and deserve dignity and autonomy over their sexual and reproductive decisions.

Defending abortion in Poland

Defending the rights of women denied abortion in Poland

In 2020, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal issued a ruling that removed one of the few remaining legal grounds for abortion. The decision triggered nationwide protests and left the country with what is effectively a near-total ban on abortion, denying many women care and exposing them to grave harm and suffering.

For A.R., the consequences were immediate. Pregnant in the aftermath of the Tribunal’s ruling, she faced growing uncertainty about whether she could still access legal abortion care in Poland. Fearing the law would change at any moment, she travelled abroad for care, away from the support of her family and the security of her home country, which caused her significant distress and harm. In November 2025, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in A.R. v. Poland that this situation violated A.R.’s right to private and family life.

A.R. was represented by lawyers associated with the Foundation for Women and Family Planning in Poland (FEDERA), one of the Center’s partners in the country. As part of the proceedings, the Center, together with eight international human rights organizations, submitted expert legal analysis and evidence on the human rights and public health implications of highly restrictive abortion laws.

This judgement adds to a growing line of decisions by international human rights bodies against Poland finding the country in violation of its obligations to guarantee access to abortion care.

Protecting girls in Latin America

Protecting girls from forced motherhood in Latin America and beyond

Fátima, Lucía, Susana, and Norma were each under the age of fourteen when they were raped and impregnated by older men. From rural, economically marginalized communities across Latin America, the girls had limited access to sexual and reproductive care. With little to no sexual education, some didn’t even realize they were pregnant.

Each girl also comes from a country with highly restrictive abortion laws. In Guatemala and Ecuador, abortion is illegal with only very narrow exceptions; in Nicaragua it’s criminalized in all cases, without exception. The four girls were ultimately forced to continue their pregnancies and give birth against their will, risking their health and lives.

The Center and its partners brought legal complaints on the girls’ behalf to the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) in 2019. These cases were part of the Niñas, no madres (Girls, not mothers) movement, which aims to protect the sexual and reproductive rights of girls, especially those who have survived sexual abuse in Latin America.

In January and June of 2025, the UNHRC ruled in the girls’ favor, setting new human rights standards to ensure abortion access and prevent forced pregnancies and motherhood. These rulings reach across 170+ countries to ensure access to sexual education, safe abortion services, and other protections for sexual abuse survivors around the globe.

Challenging restrictions in Arizona

Challenging unconstitutional abortion restrictions in Arizona

Despite the overturn of Roe v. Wade, the majority of the U.S. public supports the right to abortion. In Arizona, voters put this support into action in 2024, overwhelmingly approving an amendment enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution.

But Arizona state laws restricting abortion remained on the books. These included a 15-week abortion ban, as well as burdensome and unnecessary restrictions for those legally able to seek abortion care.

In December 2024, Arizona health care providers challenged the 15-week ban in a case brought by the Center and partners. The court ultimately ruled in their favor, declaring the ban unconstitutional.

The Center then brought a second case, challenging three groups of laws that encompassed dozens of restrictions obstructing timely abortion care. On February 6, 2026, an Arizona state court permanently blocked the challenged restrictions, ruling that these and other barriers to care violate the state’s constitution by overriding Arizonans’ right to control their own bodies and medical decisions.

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These global wins illustrate the power of the law in protecting the rights of women and girls around the world. They underscore the stakes of equitable access to justice systems—the real-world impact that legal victories can have on women’s health and lives.

Today women still hold only 64% of the legal rights that men enjoy worldwide. And at the current rate of progress, we’re still centuries away from closing the gap.

But together we can change this. At the Center, we’re fighting every day to ensure that women and girls get the justice they deserve. Join us today.