Protecting & Empowering Women & Girls in Situations of Crisis & Conflict

Mar 9, 2015 | Annabelle Timsit
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Since the mid-1990s, there have been significant increases in the recorded number of all disasters and in deaths resulting from those disasters, especially in low-income countries. Compounding these natural disasters are those of another sort, as conflicts and civil wars are increasingly afflicting individual countries and, more broadly, our sense of global security. In situations of both crisis and conflict, women and girls are often the most vulnerable and the most at risk of targeted violence. Indeed, women and children account for more than 75 percent of the refugees and displaced persons from war, famine, persecution and natural disaster. In cases of conflicts and disasters, existing social structures and networks that previously protected women are destroyed. In many circumstances, the socially determined roles and responsibilities of women cause gender-based inequalities in access to resources and decision-making power. And in conflict and crisis, the risk of sexual violence greatly increases.