Conflicts all over the world are having a devastating impact on women's rights
Palestinian women weep as they are evacuated from their shelter last year. File photo: AP/Abdel Kareem Hana
2023 was one of the most violent years since the end of the Cold War, according to the Peace Research Institute in Oslo. While data for 2024 is not yet available, the picture is unlikely to be hugely different. The shocking level of deaths in Gaza alone is enough to mark 2024 as a violent and deadly year.
The impact on all civilians in conflict is catastrophic, bringing generational disruption to people’s lives including death, unbearable and life-changing injuries, trauma, displacement and gender-based violence. We are currently seeing this all across the world — in Ukraine, Palestine, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, and Ethiopia.
But the immense setback on women’s rights due to conflict is profound and devastating. Sexual and gender-based violence increases dramatically during times of conflict, with rape routinely used as a weapon of war, dehumanising women and girls and intimidating and terrorising communities. Child marriage and trafficking also increase.
During conflict it is women who make up the majority of long-term displaced and refugees, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation, trafficking, and poverty. Essential services including education and healthcare are impacted, forcing girls out of school.
Maternal health services become inaccessible, leading to a rise in preventable deaths with spikes in miscarriages and pregnancy complications. Denial of rights related to food, adequate living standards and housing compound this setback.
Gaza experienced all of this with disproportionate numbers of women and girls killed, suffering hunger and lack of maternal care. With the north of Gaza under intense siege during the last three months of the war, women in need of maternity services were almost entirely cut off from accessing hospitals due to the ferocity of the bombing.
In Ukraine, there are at least 2.5 million women and girls suffering from, or at risk of, gender-based violence, but only 800,000 of these women and girls have received support, according to the 2025 Humanitarian Response Plan. The UN estimates that more than US$58m in additional funding is needed to address the gap in services.
In Ukraine, women's rights organisations continue to be frontline responders, offering vital services despite facing significant limitations in both human and financial resources.
Changes in conscription laws there have intensified societal pressure on men to assume traditional "defender" roles, while women are often expected to assume additional caregiving and household responsibilities, increasingly becoming the primary breadwinners and decision-makers within their families.
They are under pressure to manage finances, household duties, and care for children or elderly relatives. Women report that they are being excluded from important decision-making processes at all levels despite playing a critical role in the humanitarian response.
This impact on women bears out across the globe. An ActionAid survey in 2023 found that 65% of responding women and youth organisations reported that donors do not provide core funding or support long-term activities. Instead, funding is focused on immediate humanitarian action sidelining the broader needs. With the USAID funding cuts this gap is likely to become much higher.
ActionAid research explored the impact of conflict on women’s lives in Myanmar, Uganda and Ethiopia. In Uganda, years of civil wars have had a significant impact on women and young people’s access to rights, land and freedom.
Conflict increased gender-based violence and exploitation, with detrimental impacts on women and girls’ access to livelihood and education, and increased risks to women’s reproductive health and girls’ safety.
Increased militarisation perpetrated harmful cultural norms that have increased barriers for women and young people in participating in peacebuilding mechanisms.
Women and girls across Northern Uganda are last and least likely to be involved in reconciliation conversations while continuing to live with the effects of the sexual violence they experienced during the war. This is despite the critical role women and young people play in peace.
Globally, commitments to ensure women’s full and meaningful participation in peace and security matters made over many years have not materialised. As Elaine Loughlin wrote in the earlier this week, political and military power and decision-making around conflicts continues to be overwhelmingly dominated by men, with most wars also started by men.
Women made up only 9.6% of negotiators in peace processes in 2023, while 13.7% of mediators and 26.6% of signatories to peace agreements and ceasefire agreements were women. This is despite the fact that across the world women are instrumental in grassroots peacebuilding efforts.
Some of the key challenges in realising peace and security commitments are the severe lack of funding for women’s organisations and militarisation that fuels further conflict. In 2023, global military expenditures reached a record $2.44 trillion.
In contrast, funding for organisations and movements supporting women's rights continues to fall short, averaging just 0.3% of total aid annually — especially in conflict-affected areas. Investments in gender-based violence prevention and response make up less than 1% of all humanitarian spending.
As world leaders from the UK, US, France, Germany and others obsess about defence spending and cut desperately needed aid budgets, we should challenge this rapidly increasing militarisation and lack of support for development, women’s rights and peace. In the name of peace, in the name of women’s rights.
- Karol Balfe is CEO of ActionAid Ireland which is hosting a discussion on Thursday, March 6, at the Academy Plaza Hotel in Dublin starting at 6.30pm. Speakers include journalist, Sally Hayden, who has recently reported on the conflicts in Palestine and Lebanon
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