As we mark International Women’s Day (#IWD2026), this year’s theme – “Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls” – underscores the importance of grounding CT/PCVE efforts in human rights and recognizing how intersectionality shapes women’s and girls’ experiences of terrorism and counter-terrorism measures.
Around the world, gender-blind counter-terrorism approaches unintentionally sideline women and girls, which often leads to further harms they experience. To ensure women can participate fully, equally, meaningfully, and safely in CT/PCVE efforts, we must actively protect the civic spaces where women advocate, lead, and shape more peaceful societies.
Three new resources from the Gender and Identity Factors Resource Library shed light on how protecting rights – and especially the rights of women, girls, and gender-diverse people – is central to effective, inclusive counterterrorism and PCVE efforts.
1. The Global Study on the Impact of CounterTerrorism on Civil Society (UN Special Rapporteur, 2023)
This landmark study explores the ways CT and PCVE measures are misused to restrict civic space, undermine human rights, and limit the work of women human rights defenders. Drawing on extensive global civil society input, it demonstrates that societies are less stable and more vulnerable when civil society – particularly women-led organizations – is suppressed.
🔗 Access the resource here.
2. Misogynistic Pathways to Radicalisation (Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2023)
This report examines how online gender-based violence functions as a gateway to radicalisation and violent extremism. It highlights how misogyny online disproportionately targets women and LGBTQI+ people, and how platform algorithms and governance failures reinforce these harms. The recommendations call for survivorcentered, rightsbased platform design to meaningfully reduce risk.
🔗 Access the resource here.
3. Gender and Identity in Extremisms: Global Case Studies (ICAN, 2022)
These case studies – from Cameroon to Sweden to the United States – show how gender and identity shape individuals’ vulnerability to extremist narratives and their pathways to peace. They highlight genderresponsive approaches to deradicalization, trauma healing, work with religious leaders, and countering white supremacist extremism.
🔗 Access the resource here.
Together, these resources underscore that women’s rights and civic freedoms are foundational to security, not barriers to it. When women can speak, organize, advocate, and lead without fear, societies become more resilient, better equipped to resist violent extremism as and when conducive to terrorism, and build inclusive peace.
This International Women’s Day, we spotlight these resources as critical tools for ensuring that rights-based, gender-responsive approaches remain at the center of global CT efforts. We encourage you to further explore the library of close to 200 resources on gender and intersectionality in CT/PCVE. The resources are searchable by theme, keywords, geographic scope, and other criteria.