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As rain continued to fall, a mother trudged through the mud carrying her baby son. The playful yellow onesie she had wrapped him up in brought to mind a mix between Pikachu and a cartoon duckling. Her daughter, whose hair was pulled up in a playful top knot, struggled to keep up with the harried mother.

As Jason Beaman recounts his long slog searching for mental health therapy last year, he sounds defeated. The first therapist assigned to him by the Department of Veterans Affairs told him at their initial meeting that she was leaving the agency. A few months later, his second therapist told him she was also leaving. An appointment with a third counselor was canceled with no explanation.

This year, on March 8, International Women’s Day, participants of the Islamabad chapter of the Aurat March (Women’s March) faced extreme brutality and arrests by the authorities after attempting to hold their annual rally in Pakistan’s capital. Organizers from the feminist collective Hum Aurtein say police used force to disperse the gathering and arrested more than 35 women, including several well-known activists. Authorities accused the group of violating Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, a legal provision that bans public assemblies in designated areas.

At a time when democratic backsliding is no longer an abstract warning but a lived reality across continents, feminist leaders are quietly — and often at personal risk — holding the line.

Legal experts have said the attacks violated Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which prohibits the use of force against states. The US and...