Exploring how crisis and conflict affect women and girls.
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As part of our series on the role of women in countering violent extremism, we collaborated with Middle East podcast Kerning Cultures on an episode about the role of mothers, told through Christianne Boudreau’s story.
Girls make up between 30-40 percent of child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They face greater stigma than boys when trying to reintegrate into their communities, but demobilization programs are not taking their specific needs into account, experts say.
With Syria’s healthcare system crippled by conflict, women and children are dying from treatable illnesses. One doctor and his team are providing them safe, dedicated medical care by building hospitals below ground, out of the reach of airstrikes.
In northern Kenya, climate change forces pastoralist women and girls to compete with baboons, leopards and elephants for water. By installing pipes and tanks to bring water to villages, communities can keep girls in school and women out of the path of danger.
Women & Girls speaks with Dr. Hassan Abdi of UNFPA and journalist Katie Arnold about how best to provide sexual and reproductive healthcare to Rohingya women and girls amid one of the world’s most desperate humanitarian crises.
Illustrator Kate Lumsden and journalist Gethin Chamberlain tell the story of Rute Fumulani, forced to marry at 14 after losing her parents to catastrophic flooding. She is one of many girls forced to marry due to the effects of climate change.
While the world focuses on sexual violence perpetrated by clashing groups in conflict zones, researchers are warning that the real danger to women is being ignored: violence from their husbands, fathers and other men they know.
Since 2009, Boko Haram insurgents have kidnapped thousands of women and girls in Nigeria, some of whom are only escaping now. One survivor who managed to escape tells of how the terrorist group denied her food and beat her for refusing to become a suicide bomber.
During the half century of armed conflict between the government and guerrilla fighters, many members of Colombia’s LGBT community were victims of violence and sexual assault. Now the government is dragging its feet on their demands for reparations.
Former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic has been convicted of crimes committed during the 1990s Bosnian conflict, including mass rapes by his troops. The survivors of sexual violence from that time still endure mental and physical health problems today.
Their schools destroyed by the Taliban during its rule over Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, many girls are attending classes in dilapidated rented buildings while others have to study out in the open, with no running water or toilets.
In the Rohingya refugee camps of southern Bangladesh, women-only support centers run by volunteers offer a safe space for those who have survived violence during Myanmar’s brutal military campaign.
Sharya refugee camp in Northern Iraq was set up to shelter people fleeing ISIS. But it’s also home to orphaned girls from unaffected parts of Iraq, sent away from their homes because they’re not allowed to live without a male guardian.
When protests against the election rerun in Kenya turned violent, volunteer nurses from around the country provided trauma first aid to victims of police brutality in Kisumu. Photojournalist Jennifer Huxta was there to witness a day of healing and loss.
North Kivu has the lowest rates of birth registration in the DRC, with only 5 percent of children having access to the legal document that allows them to attend school and potentially escape being married off young.
Lakshmi Sundaram Executive Director, Girls Not Brides
Climate change makes already vulnerable girls even more so. As world leaders gather at the COP23 climate summit in Bonn this week, Lakshmi Sundaram of Girls Not Brides says child marriage must be on the agenda.
Fiji is already feeling the effects of a warming world, with high-intensity cyclones and flooding destroying livelihoods across the South Pacific. As with so many natural disasters, it’s women and girls who are hardest hit.
Sine Plambech Researcher, Anthropologist and Film Director, Working on Irregular Migration, Trafficking, Sex Work
Accusing migrant women of bringing ‘anchor babies’ to Europe misunderstands their journeys and motives, says researcher and anthropologist Sine Plambech. Understanding their real stories explains why so few are willing to return.
Living in segregated, marked tents in a camp south of Mosul, wives and widows of suspected ISIS militants spoke to Women & Girls about loss, betrayal and the fear that their children will never escape the stigma of their fathers’ choices.
When photojournalists Ksenia Les and Lisa Hermes started a project on the war in Ukraine, they discovered that women’s voices were being silenced and their courage dismissed. In this photo essay, they share the everyday struggles of women on both sides of the conflict.
Through his holistic approach to treating women who have been subject to sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Dr. Denis Mukwege not only heals their wounds, but also helps survivors find the strength they need to fight for justice.
Unlike many other post-conflict African nations, Rwanda is working to support women widowed by the country’s 1994 genocide. With the establishment of care homes and other initiatives, the country’s elderly widows can finally find peace.
Created by two Syrian sisters in Lebanon, the dolls in the Ana Collection are decorated with images representing the fears and dreams of people living through the conflict raging in Syria.
A new report provides the first comprehensive estimate of the extent of modern slavery worldwide. In most contexts, women and girls are especially vulnerable to exploitation.
When Yasmin Al Dabaan fled the war in Syria and settled in Turkey, she noticed many Syrian children living on the streets. Using her teaching skills and her salary, she set up the Active Child Center and now provides children with informal lessons every afternoon.
As the conflict in Yemen drags on, and the government is preoccupied with the fighting, many women are helping those around them – whether by organizing food relief or taking care of people in need of medical aid.
Wracked by civil war and famine, South Sudan also has among the highest maternal mortality ratios in the world. Now, a series of initiatives is building up the ranks of the country’s midwives and cutting the number of mothers who die delivering their babies.
During a visit to a prison in Yemen’s Ibb Governorate, Fahmia al-Fotih of the UNFPA was shocked to see the conditions in which female inmates – and their children – were living.
Sahana Dharmapuri Director, Our Secure Future: Women Make the Difference Program
To boost the numbers of female peacekeepers, more male leaders need to become champions of women’s involvement and apply a gender perspective to this vital sphere of work, says Sahana Dharmapuri of the One Earth Future Foundation.
In the wake of the floods that hit Mumbai last week, women in the city’s slums are working to restore their homes and care for family members without access to basic sanitation or clean drinking water.
Before the war started, Yemen already had one of the world’s highest rates of maternal mortality. But now, with an increasingly impoverished population and hospitals struggling to function, the outlook for pregnant women has become even worse.
In the Fergana Valley, mass migration of men has left women in charge of many of the farms. But patriarchal attitudes and a Soviet irrigation system leave them without the water they need to survive.
In Syria, volunteer emergency workers known as the White Helmets risk their lives to save people from bomb sites and airstrikes. At first, the White Helmets were made up only of men, but over the past few years, more than 100 female volunteers have joined their ranks.
Using the Brazilian martial art that combines dance, chanting and acrobatics, one initiative is teaching Congolese children to overcome the violence they’ve grown up with through self-confidence and respect.
Ufra Mir is Kashmir’s first – and so far, only – ‘peace psychologist.’ In this strife-ridden region, she is trying to help women find peace in their lives and build it in their communities.
Charles Kenny Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development
Tanvi Jaluka Program Coordinator, Gender and Development Team at the Center for Global Development
The proportion of women in U.N. peacekeeping operations has been slow to rise. But there might be a way to speed things up: Give financial incentives to troop-contributing countries, say Charles Kenny and Tanvi Jaluka of the Center for Global Development.
Women are still largely excluded from the ongoing peace process in Myanmar, but a growing women’s rights movement aims to tackle the persistent sexism that, they say, blocks women’s full participation.
Natalia Kanem Acting Executive Director, United Nations Population Fund
Before the cholera outbreak in war-torn Yemen, getting access to maternal healthcare was already a problem for women. Now the outbreak, the conflict and entrenched gender norms are proving a deadly combination for women and girls.
When a cyclone devastated Eta Tuvuki’s remote village in Fiji, she wanted to make sure women hit by extreme weather were being heard. Now she brings their concerns to decision makers in the capital and shares weather information so rural women can prepare for the worst.
Four experts identify the greatest challenges facing women peacebuilders and peacekeepers and discuss how, despite slow progress and bias against women, those challenges can be overcome.
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