WEEKEND HOT TAKES: When Women and Girls Disappear from the Report

We want to give credit where it’s due: More To Her Story, a youth-led feminist platform, was one of the first to sound the alarm on a deeply disturbing change in the 2023 U.S. State Department Human Rights Reports - the complete erasure of any dedicated section on women’s rights. Not a single mention of gender-based violence, maternal mortality, or structural inequality facing half the global population. While mainstream media outlets like The Guardian, Foreign Policy, and The Washington Post eventually picked up the story, much of their coverage couched it in cautious, bureaucratic language. Let’s be clear: this isn’t a formatting update. It’s a strategic deletion. And if you think this won’t affect sex workers, survivors, incarcerated women, or criminalized communities - you haven’t been paying attention.