How war impacts women and girls: A simple explainer on gender and conflict
War is becoming more dangerous for women and girls.
Around the world, conflicts are becoming longer, more brutal, and increasingly fought in cities and communities rather than distant battlefields. Homes, schools, hospitals, and shelters are being destroyed, and civilians are paying the price.
Today the world is experiencing the highest number of active conflicts since 1946. Last year, a UN report warned that 676 million women live within 50 kilometers of deadly conflict. That’s roughly the distance between New York City and Newark, New Jersey in the United States of America, or the daily commuting distance for millions from Delhi to Gurgaon in India. Imagine fleeing your home overnight as bombs and missiles fall, and basic services – like water or electricity – collapse around you.
Since that report, even more conflicts have erupted.
Bombs do not discriminate between men and women, but the consequences of war do. This explainer examines why modern wars are becoming deadlier for women and girls, and how conflict deepens existing inequalities.
What happens to women during conflict?
During conflict, women and girls are more likely to be displaced from their homes, pushed out of school or work, lose access to healthcare, and face sexual violence, trauma, hunger, and poverty.
As services collapse and families struggle to survive, women are expected to hold communities together by caring for children, the injured, and the elderly, often while navigating danger and trauma themselves.
Despite the essential role of women in ensuring that families and communities survive conflict, they are routinely excluded from political decision-making and peace negotiations.
Why modern wars are becoming deadlier for women and girls
The United Nations reported that 37,000 civilians were killed in 20 armed conflicts in 2025 – nearly 1 in 5 was a woman. It was the first time in four years that the number of civilians killed had decreased overall, following three years of increasing deaths, but some countries saw the opposite – killings rose sharply in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The first three months of 2026 marked the deadliest winter for Ukrainian women and girls since the first year of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Between January and March 2026, 199 women and girls were killed – more than in 2025, 2024, and 2023, for the same period – reflecting a deeply worrying shift in modern warfare.
Wars are increasingly fought in populated areas
Today’s conflicts are often fought in populated and residential areas rather than distant battlefields. Homes, hospitals, schools, and even designated shelters are being damaged or destroyed, placing civilians at greater risk of injury and death.
For many women and girls, there is nowhere safe to go. Some are killed while sheltering in their homes, others are injured fleeing attacks, searching for food, or trying to keep their families alive as essential services collapse around them.
Drone strikes are devastating civilians, including women and children
In Gaza, Palestine, 38,000 women and girls have been killed in the war as of December 2025. They continued to be killed despite a ceasefire agreement.
The highest death tolls among women and children coincided with periods of intensive air strikes, drone strikes and missile fire, alongside large-scale destruction of civilian infrastructure. Residential buildings accounted for more than 95 per cent of all recorded infrastructure damages.
In Sudan, the UN reported a sharp increase in drone strikes this year, with over 500 civilians killed between January and March.
There is no ambiguity under international law: attacks on civilians and humanitarian workers are grave violations of human rights. Yet, civilians and civilian infrastructure continue to be targeted in modern warfare, often with impunity.
“We were sitting on the sixth floor when they struck the seventh – my uncle’s apartment. My uncle’s wife was screaming, “My children! My children are gone!” As I rushed to help her, they fired the second shell. That’s when my mother and my siblings were killed.”
Thirteen-year-old Mona describes how she survived a double airstrike in Gaza that killed her mother, sister and brother, destroyed her family home, and left her with life-changing injuries.
How does conflict increase the risk of sexual violence for women and girls?
Sexual violence against women and girls rises sharply during conflict. In wars around the world, rape and other forms of gender-based violence are used to terrorize civilians, punish communities, force displacement, and assert control.
In Sudan, now in its fourth year, the war has triggered a surge in sexual violence against women and girls. The number of women and girls requiring support after experiencing gender-based violence has nearly doubled in the past two years and quadrupled since the start of the war, according to UN Women’s latest report.
"Women and girls are being raped and killed in their homes, and as they flee, seek food, water and medical care”, says Anna Mutavati, UN Women Regional Director for East and Southern Africa.
Sudan is not an isolated case. Across conflicts, sexual violence continues to be used as a weapon of war – a deliberate tactic to terrorize, humiliate, and fracture communities.
In conflict-affected areas, a lack of accountability for these crimes continues to fuel cycles of violence and impunity. Fear and social stigma also prevent many women and girls from reporting violence and accessing support.
The UN verified over 9,300 reported cases of conflicted-related sexual violence in 2025, up from 4,600 reported cases of 2024. Due to barriers to reporting such cases, the verified cases are understood to be the tip of the iceberg; the actual number is expected to be much higher.
What is conflict-related sexual violence?
Conflict-related sexual violence is not random or inevitable violence that simply “happens” during wars. It is often a deliberate strategy to break communities and social bonds, terrorize and displace people, and take control.
It can include rape, sexual slavery, forced marriage, forced pregnancy, forced sterilization, and trafficking for sexual exploitation.
Anyone can be targeted with conflict-related sexual violence, but women and girls account for over 95 per cent of reported cases.
How do conflict and displacement affect women and girls differently?
By the end of 2024, 123.2 million people were forcibly displaced because of conflict, violence, persecution, and human rights violations.
Women and girls displaced by conflict face:
- increased risk of gender-based violence, exploitation and abuse,
- overcrowded shelters with little privacy or safety,
- disrupted access to healthcare, income, education, and protection,
- repeated displacement and separation from family and support networks.
In Lebanon, 1 in 4 women and girls had been displaced within a month of the escalation of fighting.
“What kind of life is this?” asks Zeinab Fakih, 56, a mother of four from Srifa, Lebanon.
“My family was scattered. My husband stayed in the south. I stayed at the shelter with my children, my grandchildren, and my husband’s elderly, sick parents. I am responsible for their food, their medicine and care”, she says. “I am exhausted. This is the second time we have been displaced in two years.”
“What kind of life is this?” asks Zeinab Fakih, 56, a mother of four from Srifa, Lebanon.
“My family was scattered. My husband stayed in the south. I stayed at the shelter with my children, my grandchildren, and my husband’s elderly, sick parents. I am responsible for their food, their medicine and care”, she says. “I am exhausted. This is the second time we have been displaced in two years.”
Despite a ceasefire agreement taking effect on 17 April, families in Lebanon continue to move between shelters and homes, living under the shadow of death and fear of having to flee again.
In Sudan, 4.3 million women and girls remain displaced inside the country, and millions more have fled to neighboring countries. Displacement in Sudan represents an impossible choice for women and girls. Staying can mean hunger or death, but fleeing can expose them to rape, kidnapping, and violence as they search for food, water, and medical aid.
Nearly one million women and girls have been displaced in Gaza, with many being forced to flee an average of four times. Even after the ceasefire agreement announced in October 2025, families continued living without peace, dignity, or access to food and water.
The war in Gaza has torn families apart, leaving many women to hold what remains of family life together after losing husbands and relatives.
How does conflict affect women’s health and mental health?
Hunger, injury, and collapsing healthcare systems
By December 2025, Gaza’s health system was collapsing under the weight of war. The UN reported that the health system for mothers and newborns had been “decimated” after Israeli attacks had destroyed 94 per cent of all hospitals and cut off access to medical supplies.
For the 11,000 women and girls injured and left with lifelong disabilities, there are not enough doctors, medicine, or functioning health facilities. Women gave birth without adequate medical care, while injured civilians struggled to access even basic treatment.
Even the most basic needs became impossible to meet. Nearly 700,000 women and girls in Gaza struggled to manage menstruation in overcrowded or unsafe facilities, with sanitary pads largely unavailable or unaffordable.
Hunger was also spreading rapidly. By December 2025, 790,000 women and girls in Gaza were experiencing hunger and catastrophic food insecurity. Women are often the last to eat and eat less when food is scarce, putting them at greater risk of long-term health complications.
UN Women asked a doctor in Gaza what it was like to work there now.
“Here, you fight just to survive”, said Dr. Iman Ayad, a medical student working at Al-Shifa Hospital, which has been bombed multiple times. Because of the breakdown of Gaza’s health system and the population’s overwhelming medical needs, she has already performed surgeries while still a student.
In Lebanon, more than 150 attacks on healthcare have been recorded between 2 March and 29 April 2026, including the killing of personnel and the destruction of hospitals – acts prohibited under international humanitarian law.
The mental health crisis women face in war
There is another crisis within crisis that rarely makes headlines. In Afghanistan, Gaza, Lebanon, and Ukraine, women are facing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression, with little or no access to mental health support.
In Ukraine violence against women has seen a 36 per cent surge since 2022. Forty-two per cent women are at risk of depression, while nearly one in four reported that they or someone in their household needed counselling.
“My area was under threat of bombing. I had to leave at night, with my daughters. I forgot my medications, but I took my daughter’s favourite toy, a Panda”, says 35-year-old Ghofran Abou Khalil. She has been displaced four times – first, within Syria, then to Tripoli, then to Borj al-Chemali camp in Lebanon, and now again within Lebanon. She works at the Sibline Training Centre community kitchen.
“My area was under threat of bombing. I had to leave at night, with my daughters. I forgot my medications, but I took my daughter’s favourite toy, a Panda”, says 35-year-old Ghofran Abou Khalil. She has been displaced four times – first, within Syria, then to Tripoli, then to Borj al-Chemali camp in Lebanon, and now again within Lebanon. She works at the Sibline Training Centre community kitchen.
How does war affect women's jobs, income, and unpaid care work?
War tears through economies, livelihoods, and the systems that families rely on to survive. Women are often the first to lose paid work and last to recover because they are more likely to be in insecure or low-paid jobs and take on more unpaid care responsibilities during conflict.
As schools close, transport becomes unsafe, markets collapse and public services disappear, many women lose their income, but also access to systems that help them pursue paid work, education, and care for their families.
Women are the first to lose income and the last to recover
The full-scale war on Ukraine since 2022 has pushed an entire generation of Ukrainian women backwards. In 2023, women made up 72.5 per cent of the unemployed and women earned 41.4 per cent less than men. By 2024, only 48 per cent of displaced women were employed, compared to 71 per cent of men.
Conflict also makes it harder and more dangerous for women to move, work, and access markets. In Gaza, one in seven families now depend on women for survival, while women continue to face severe restrictions in accessing livelihoods – making cash assistance, food aid and economic support critical.
Economic harm during war is not only about losing income. Women often lose assets, land, documentation, savings, social networks, and access to credit. Displacement can also force them into unsafe work, debt, and exploitation.
Women take on the majority of unpaid care work
Across conflict zones, women are often expected to fill the gaps left behind by collapsing systems – caring for children, the sick, and the elderly while trying to keep families afloat under impossible conditions.
In 2024, Ukrainian women reported spending 56 hours per week on childcare, up from 49 hours before the war. The closure of childcare facilities made it harder for women to find paid work.
Women are rebuilding communities – often with no support
Despite the unequal and devastating impact of wars on women, they continue to be the backbone of survival and recovery in conflict-affected zones. From Ukraine to Gaza and Sudan – women and women-led organizations are feeding families, providing medical and psychosocial support, and leading economic recovery in their communities. As of 2025, one in every two business in Ukraine was founded by a woman.
Yet, support for women’s organizations is shrinking as needs rise. A 2025 global report by UN Women showed that half of women-led and women’s rights organizations in humanitarian crisis zones could shut down within six months due to funding cuts.
How does conflict disrupt girls’ education?
Worldwide, 119 million girls are out of school. In conflict-affected countries, girls are more than twice as likely to be out of school than girls living in non-affected countries.
War steals futures from girls
A few weeks into the Ukraine war, Olesia Bozhko, a former diplomat and founder of Space of Knowledge, a Kyiv-based civil society organization working on learning innovation, realized that the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was also a war on education.
Russian attacks have destroyed thousands of educational facilities, including schools and kindergartens. By June 2024, around four million children in Ukraine had faced disruptions in their education, with approximately 600,000 unable to attend school in person at all.
Girls struggle more than boys to access or continue their education when conflict disrupts infrastructure, safety, and reduces family income.
In Afghanistan, girls are banned from secondary school
The Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, a month later they banned girls from secondary school.
But the crisis begins even earlier: nearly 30 per cent of Afghan girls never start primary school due to poverty, restrictive gender norms and safety concerns. Families also withdraw both girls and boys from school to contribute to household income or prepare for child marriage. The consequences of denying girls education can last a lifetime and trap entire communities in cycles of poverty.
As of 2025, 78 per cent of young Afghan women were not in education, employment or training – nearly four times the rate for young men. Early childbearing is projected to rise by 45 per cent this year and maternal mortality could increase by more than 50 per cent.
Where are women when peace is negotiated?
When women are at the negotiating table, peace is likelier, more inclusive, and lasts longer. Studies have shown this time and again. In Mali and Niger’s border areas, when local women’s participation in conflict prevention rose from 5 to 25 per cent between 2020 and 2022, it helped resolve more than 100 conflicts about local natural resources.
The Colombia peace process showed the world what happens when women are at the peace table, and not an afterthought. After 52 years of armed conflict, when peace felt like an impossibility, Colombian women’s groups refused to give up. In the 2010s, when a peace process began to coalesce, with UN Women’s support, women across the country mobilized – they wanted a place at the peace table where the terms of peace and recovery would be negotiated. In 2016, when the formal peace agreement was signed, women made up 20 per cent of the negotiating team from the national governmentand 43 per cent of delegates from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the highest ever share in modern history.
The result – the world’s first peace accord to fully integrate a gender perspective, with over 100 commitments to women’s rights. When peace was signed on paper, women demanded – and got – provisions in the peace agreement to safeguard and advance women’s rights, and to make sure that what had happened to them wouldn’t happen again.
And yet, when we look at global average, women make up only 7 per cent of negotiators and 14 per cent of mediators in formal peace processes.
Too often, those who start wars are invited to the peace table, while those who are truly invested in peace, such as women’s groups, are systematically and persistently sidelined. Still, they do not give up or wait on the sidelines. Women continue to play key roles in local peacebuilding. For example, women peacebuilders in Ethiopia, Liberia and Kenyainfluenced peace processes and agreements at local, regional and national levels. Women in Yemen negotiated for civilian access to water. In 2024, the only peace agreements reached in South Sudan included representatives of women’s groups as signatories.
How does UN Women support women and girls in conflict zones?
UN Women is on the ground in conflict zones across the world. We work with women and girls, for women and girls.
The support we provide is both lifesaving and long-term. We partner with women-led and women’s rights organizations to deliver protection services, psychosocial care, cash assistance, and opportunities for women to earn an income.
Our work is grounded in the principle that women must have a voice in the decisions that affect their lives and communities. We work to ensure that the experiences and needs of women and girls shape humanitarian response and recovery efforts, while integrating gender equality into emergency planning, coordination, and funding systems.
As the United Nations entity for gender equality and women’s rights, UN Women is mandated to advance the Women, Peace and Security agenda, ensuring women’s participation, protection, and leadership are central to peace and security efforts.
What you can do to help
For far too long, history, media, and decision-makers have painted the picture that war is the same for everyone. But when inequality already shapes women’s lives in the absence of wars, conflict only deepens that divide.
- Learn and share this story, start conversations, and ask questions – where are the women and girls? How are they experiencing conflict? Why are they not in decision-making spaces?
- Support local women’s organizations in conflict zones.
- Donate to UN Women so that we can continue working with women to protect their rights everywhere.
