Dear Editor,
We wish we did not have to write this letter at the end of 2025, because it is painful to acknowledge how little has changed for women and girls around the world. Women and girls are still fighting for the same things we have always deserved – safety, equality, and freedom.
There was a time when women did not even have the right to vote. Progress was made because of courageous women like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who won six landmark Supreme Court cases in the 1970s that helped end gender discrimination. Her work protected equal pay, pregnancy rights, access to education, and workplace equality. In 2006, the #MeToo movement was founded by activist Tarana Burke, whose advocacy led to stricter sexual harassment laws in workplaces, reforms in assault reporting in schools, greater accountability for high-profile offenders, and overall improved protections for survivors.
These are just two women among countless others who fought for us when we did not have a voice or were afraid to speak up. We are still fighting for the right to exist without fear – in our homes, on the streets, online, in workplaces, everywhere. We are still fighting for equal pay, the freedom to walk down the street without being harassed, and control over our own bodies.
We would like to reference an article published by Stabroek News titled “NGOs call for urgent reform of Guyana’s child marriage laws,”[1] which highlights that girls in Guyana continue to face grave human-rights violations. Despite Guyana’s Marriage Act establishing 18 as the minimum legal age for marriage, legal exceptions allow girls as young as 16 to marry by having a parental consent, and even younger in cases such as pregnancy. These loopholes, according to NGOs, expose girls to harm, exploitation, violence, and lifelong inequality. Child marriage remains one of the most pervasive human-rights violations affecting girls in Guyana, and the country has some of the highest rates of early marriage in the Caribbean. These harmful practices increase vulnerability to gender-based violence, disrupt education, pose serious health risks, and perpetuate cycles of poverty.
This year has not been easy, as femicides continue to occur. Women and girls are still being silenced, controlled, and harmed by parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, other family members, co-workers, employers, friends, and partners. We are abused mentally, emotionally, and physically, and too often treated as vessels rather than as human beings.
Feminists continue to fight so we can have a voice, choices, and a future that includes us. Yet people still ask: Why do we need feminism in 2025? We need it because women are still being silenced and controlled simply for attempting to exist freely. Because reproductive rights remain under threat. Because harassment is still normalized and gender-based violence is still a daily reality for many.
We want to live in a world where safety and health rights are not privileges, where respect is not conditional, and where equality is not up for debate. It is time to hold abusers accountable, strengthen efforts to uncover and address criminal cases, encourage reporting without fear of retaliation, and make perpetrators accountable. Women and girls must not remain statistics in the fight against gender-based violence. Real change must happen, and we hope that in the coming year, we will see meaningful progress for everyone.