Civilians - the vast majority of them women and children - are increasingly the targets of war. Some 80 percent of the world’s 40 million refugees and internally displaced persons are women and children. Women are subjected to abuses as they flee conflict zones and in locations where they seek refuge.

Women’s rights are often ignored in times of peace; in war, their rights are further eroded. Displacement increases women’s vulnerability, as traditional forms of protection and support, including their means of economic survival, disintegrate. Women and girls in war zones often must single-handedly provide for their families, without the benefit of traditional support networks and community safety nets.

At the same time, women have tremendous strengths and resources, and the innovative initiatives they undertake during conflict are key to keeping societies together. Their equal participation in decision making is critical to developing and implementing peaceful solutions sustainable at the community and family level.

Traumatised and war-wearied women flee to escape from the horrific atrocities. Some managed to walk for days or weeks to get to the refugee camps in neighbouring countries. Those who couldn’t make it remained in the country as internally displaced persons. Some of those who make it to the camps are confronted with cumbersome registration and verification procedures that leave them without food and shelter for weeks or months and sometimes forever. This increases their vulnerability to sexual exploitation and prostitution.

Binta Mansaray, Sierra Leonean researcher on sexual and gender-based violence

Violence against women during war often magnifies the inequalities that women face in their everyday lives during peacetime. During war, women are targeted specifically because of gender roles; they are subject to rape, torture, sexual abuse and abduction. The trauma for female victims of violence continues even when the conflict is over, as they are frequently shunned, ostracised and further stigmatised. Violence against women has been used as a method of ethnic cleansing.

Women face additional burdens when displaced as they often assume traditional male roles, such as construction and physical labour. They encounter barriers and heightened risks in accessing food, water, shelter, health care, hygiene, cooking materials, clothing, education and information. In many societies, women have primary responsibility for collecting water and firewood and working in the fields. This makes them particularly vulnerable to injury from landmines, as in Angola, where the majority of women maimed by landmines are injured while seeking food and charcoal, basic elements for survival.

The tension of conflict, the frustration, and loss of traditional male roles associated with displacement may be manifested in an increased incidence of domestic violence.

In emergencies, women usually have more difficulty than men in obtaining humanitarian assistance. When humanitarian aid, such as ration cards and food distribution, is channelled through women, as in Sudan, women and children are more likely to receive their fair share of assistance.

In Afghanistan, women endure massive under-development and poverty. They do gruelling labour, they fetch water for hours on end, and they chop wood to keep their families warm. Due to limited access to hospitals and clinics, they watch one in four children die before the age of five. While the world has acknowledged the need for life saving assistance, it seems less willing to acknowledge Afghans’ and especially Afghan women’s and girls’ dire need for health care, water, sanitation, education, productive employment and the realisation of their rights. Support is urgently needed for assistance programmes that not only sustain lives but also provide the hope of a future worth living.

Afghanistan 2001 United Nations Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal

How do women respond?

In war-torn societies, women often keep societies going. They maintain the social fabric. They replace dislocated social services, and tend to the sick and wounded. As a result, women are often the prime advocates of peace. We must ensure that women are enabled to play a full part in peace negotiations, in peace processes, in peace missions.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan

In spite of all they endure, in towns and villages across war zones, and in refugee and displaced persons camps, women pick up the pieces and carry on. They continue to care for the young, the old and the sick in their communities, often shouldering the burdens of their families on their own.

War conditions may override old patterns of male hegemony and provide opportunities for women to assume leadership roles. Even in the worst and most dangerous of circumstances, women have shown their courage and leadership as problem solvers and peacemakers, reaching across the conflict divide to seek resolution and common ground.

In refugee and internally displaced settings, women may have an opportunity to come together and participate in organising and managing camp life. Grassroots women’s networks often emerge that focus on women’s health and livelihood issues, including their rights to land and property.

Women in armed conflict take on a number of formal and informal peace-building activities; they may focus on activities that bring together women from warring communities. With a few exceptions, such as Burundi, Guatemala and South Africa, however, women are not present in formal peace negotiations. Including women in the peace process ensures that women’s rights and needs are taken into account.

"We used to think women were useless. Now, through the workshop, we know we are important…We say we are nothing in the community, but what we are doing is 80 percent of what is being done." Natalina Hakim Akuei, Southern Sudan, after participating in a World Food Programme workshop for female beneficiaries and relief committee members. These workshops gave women the chance to review their own lives and roles; their participation raised their status in their communities. The workshops pointed to the need to strengthen the role of women in relief committees through capacity-building and advocacy with local power structures. WFP is developing capacity-building training for relief committees and a "gender advocacy checklist" for use by field teams during discussions with local communities.

Nine hundred women’s groups will be supported in improving household food and nutrition security. High yielding varieties of seeds, small stock, poultry, agricultural tools will be provided to them, as well as training in agriculture and child growth.

Sierra Leone 2001 United Nations Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal

UNIFEM will train social workers to address the psychological rehabilitation of women victims of sexual and other forms of violence. A programme by UNDP aims to reintegrate war widows by providing income generating opportunities.

Tajikistan 2001 United Nations Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal

Challenges for the future

There can be no peace without gender equality and no development without both peace and equality.

Angela King, Assistant Secretary-General, Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women

The human rights of women and the girl child are an inalienable, integral and indivisible dimension of universal human rights. The principles of equality and non-discrimination have been central pillars of the human rights movement and of the United Nations system from the Charter onwards. They form an integral part of international law, and the standards have been set out in detail in Vienna and Beijing. The challenge is to implement these agreed standards in practice.

Humanitarian action must respect and promote women’s human rights. These rights have been recognised in international standards. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court includes provisions on gender-based violence and war crimes Tribunals covering violations in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia have prosecuted rape as a crime against humanity.

Gender-based analysis should inform humanitarian programming. Enhancing knowledge and respect by both men and women for international humanitarian and human rights standards should be a priority.

In Afghanistan, despite restrictions on access to education for women and girls, the assistance community continues to work through alternative and non-discriminatory channels in various regions of the country. UNICEF, the International Rescue Committee, Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, Save the Children/US, UNDP and other agencies support home-based schools to provide girls’ education and it is estimated that 300,000 children are currently supported this way.

International agencies should support not only women’s practical needs, such as fuel wood, water, food and health, including reproductive health needs, but also support their strategic needs, including leadership, decision-making and empowerment. By focusing on women’s strengths rather than weaknesses and supporting those qualities, the entire community will be afforded better protection.

While women may be in a position to prevent or resolve conflict in some cases through restoring relations between communities or families, this often does not translate into overall political solutions because women simply do not have decision-making power at higher levels.

Time and again, when it comes to peace deals and high-level negotiations, women’s voices and their experiences are excluded and marginalised. While women often know what is needed to rebuild peace and have networks that reach beyond their communities, they are generally neglected by their own governments and the international community.

The role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and peace building needs to be recognised and utilised at the community, national and international levels.

Humanitarian strategies should systematically include peace-building initiatives. These initiatives should be planned with the participation of women’s groups, which would then be integrally involved in their implementation.

After conflicts, resources are depleted, infrastructure is destroyed, and social, economic and political relationships are strained. Successful reconstruction depends upon the use of every available resource. Women, who have held social and economic fragments together, represent the most precious and under-utilised of these resources.

Noleen Heyzer, Executive Director of the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)

Women are often seen only as victims of war. The reality is far more complex. Most importantly, women have an essential role to play in the resolution of conflict. The importance of women in peace processes and the transformational effect of their participation is finally on the international agenda. The challenge now is to move from debate to action—to ensure that women are equal in influence at the peace table and in all peace-building initiatives.

My experience over the last decade with UNHCR has convinced me that there can be no sustainable peace and development without women. In Rwanda, women are calling for peace and coexistence, spearheading a recent national summit on reconciliation. In Central America, women’s vision of peace led the way, and women in Bosnia are again taking the lead as a force for peace.

Sadako Ogata,United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

The Arusha Peace Accords for Burundi mediated by Nelson Mandela contain explicit reference to women’s land and property rights, special measures to protect women and children living in regroupment camps, and mechanisms to punish or prevent war crimes such as rape. The proposals were outlined at an all-party Women’s Peace Conference in Arusha during peace talks. UNIFEM noted that the inclusion of the women’s proposals in the accord made the peace agreement a model for future agreements in terms of the centrality of women’s rights and that Burundian women had made a substantial positive contribution to the peace process through their direct involvement in negotiation and facilitation of the talks.

Security Council resolution 1325, adopted unanimously on 31 October 2000, calls upon all parties to armed conflict to fully respect international law applicable to the rights and protection of women and girls--especially civilians--and to take special measures to ensure their protection and particular needs.

It recognises the need to respect the civilian and humanitarian character of refugee camps and settlements, and the need to take into account gender considerations there, as well as in planning for disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration.

The resolution expresses willingness to ensure that Security Council missions take into account gender considerations and the rights of women, including through consultation with local and international women’s groups.

The Council requested the Secretary-General to provide to Member States training guidelines and materials on the protection, rights and particular needs of women, as well as on the importance of involving women in all peacekeeping and peace-building measures.