Exploring how crisis and conflict affect women and girls.
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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.
South Sudan’s deadly civil war and bouts of devastating droughts have left millions of people dependent on food aid. But many of the country’s women farmers are learning new skills to keep their families fed.
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.
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan has few women in its ranks – just slightly more than the worldwide average. However, they play an important role in gathering information from the population and helping the local police investigate sexual and gender-based violence.
Flying in the face of tradition, women are proving their worth as part of Virunga National Park’s elite fighting force. Their mission: To protect critically endangered gorillas from being poached to extinction.
The United Nations pledged to do more to combat sexual exploitation and sexual abuse by peacekeepers. We take a closer look at measures it recently rolled out and others that are still in the works, ranging from financial penalties to improved assistance for victims.
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.
Catherine Turner Assistant Professor of Law, Durham University
While women are active and successful mediators at the grassroots level, they remain largely invisible in international peacemaking. Dr. Catherine Turner says it is urgent to raise the profile of women mediators.
Afghan women need a bigger role in the nation’s peacebuilding efforts, says Quhramaana Kakar, one of Afghanistan’s leading female peacemakers. But, she tells News Deeply, ‘It will take political will.’
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.
In Assam, northeast India, annual flooding can be disastrous for women and girls. Women lose access to adequate sanitation and maternal healthcare, while girls are forced into child labor or marriage to make ends meet.
Religious tensions between Christians and Muslims in Jos, central Nigeria, have led to clashes in which several thousand people have been killed. But one NGO has an innovative solution: bringing women from both sides together to discuss their issues.
Cambodian women have joined a forest defenders’ group in large numbers, patrolling remote districts to catch illegal loggers in the act.
Working in exile and – discreetly – from inside Burundi, a network of women is trying to find ways to bring peace back to their country. Their leader, Marie Louise Baricako, talks about securing a seat at peace talks and how rape is used as a weapon to silence women.
As someone who was married as a child, Rawda al-Mazloum, a Syrian refugee in Lebanon, is working hard to prevent this from happening to girls in the refugee camp where she lives. Mazloum has experienced stigma for being divorced, and warns that young refugee divorcees are particularly vulnerable to abuse.
In war-torn South Sudan, Girl Guides learn peace-building skills – such as asking the adults around them to put away their weapons – and are counseled on how to support victims of rape.
Pregnancy was outlawed among the rebel armies of Colombia during the 52-year civil war. Now the guerilla camps are demobilizing, female fighters are free to have children for the first time.
Worldwide, women are vastly underrepresented in official peacekeeping and peace-building efforts. While they face significant roadblocks, there are also signs of real progress, says Claire Hutchinson, a senior gender adviser at the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping.
For the past year, herders and farmers have regularly clashed and spilled blood in Nigeria’s north-central Kaduna state. Their wives, many of whom work side by side in the local markets, are trying to bring an end to this spiral of violence.
When she was appointed to head the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Cyprus, Maj. Gen. Kristin Lund became the United Nation’s first female force commander. In a conversation with Women & Girls, she recounts how she shattered the glass ceiling.
Ortrun Merkle PhD Fellow, United Nations University
Diego Salama Communications Officer, United Nations University
Due to U.S. pressure, the U.N. General Assembly has voted to cut $600 million from the U.N. Peacekeeping budget. The impact on women and girls must be addressed, or the cuts could cause serious harm, say Ortrun Merkle and Diego Salama of United Nations University.
Alejandra Segura is one of the eight women deminers working to clear Colombia of deadly explosives – a gargantuan task that the country’s president has promised to finish in the next four years.
A collection of testimonials by Cambodian women who survived the brutal Khmer Rouge regime reveals the long-term effects of enslavement, terror and sexual abuse, and gives the women a chance to break their silence about a tragic period of the country’s history.
In the West Bank, opportunities for women are few, and they suffer higher unemployment rates than men. But one community initiative based on a famous hiking trail is offering a chance for women to welcome tourists, sharing their experiences and culture along the way.
Just when the Kenyan women of Lake Victoria were able to shake off the threat of sexual assault and join the fishing trade, a conflict with Ugandan authorities has stripped them of their hard-earned savings.
Sylvia Bawa Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology at York University
By 2022, 95 percent of Canada’s international assistance programs will target women and girls. But will this policy actually empower those it seeks to help? York University’s Sylvia Bawa questions how the new “feminist” approach will operate on the ground.
Once known as a pocket of peace in South Sudan, the small town of Mundri now has a reputation for its high rate of sexual assaults on women. But one group is determined to help the community’s women take back their town.
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