Today, there are over 150 armed conflicts taking on around the world. With over 35 on the African continent and over 45 in North Africa and the Middle East, it is difficult to overlook the Russia-Ukraine crisis in Europe. People living in conflict zones face an ongoing challenge of a lack of basic facilities such as food, water, and sanitation, as well as the persistent worry of losing their lives. Nobody can escape the deadly grip of war.
According to the United Nations agency for gender equality and women's empowerment, civilians account for 90% of current combat losses, with women and children making up the bulk.
Women and girls are disproportionately oppressed by conflicting parties due to their social standing and gender.This double jeopardy has long-term bodily and psychological consequences. The greatest risk girls confront is gender-based violence, as they are subjected to unprecedented levels of sexual abuse and torture under war conditions. Conflicts also reinforce women's and girls' objectification because perpetrators utilize them as weapons of war. On October 7, when Hamas attacked, nearly 50 Israeli soldiers were killed, and 7 soldiers were taken captive, all of whom were women.
According to the UN Refugee Agency, 87% of Afghan women have faced some type of gender-based violence, with 62% experiencing psychological, physical, or sexual assault. As women take on the responsibility of caring for their families, the UN refugee agency reports that more than half of the world's 80 million displaced individuals are women.
Although they leave their homes in search of safety for themselves and their children, women and girls are not safe in refugee camps, with a UN assessment estimating that one in every five female refugees living in humanitarian situations has suffered sexual violence.
With a poor economy and little access to the outside world, females are forced into household tasks at an early age. During the Taliban takeover, Afghan brick kiln worker Fazal said the country's collapsing economy forced him to choose between marrying off his young daughters and starving the family to death. He received a $3,000 dowry payment after giving up his 13- and 15-year-old daughters to men more than twice their age. If the money runs out, he could have to marry off his seven-year-old. He also told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that he had no other way to feed his family and repay his loan. This situation not only hinders girls' child education but rises number of young pregnancies and marital rape.
The destruction of infrastructure is the first indicator of a full-scale military conflict. Disruption in basic facilities for treating the injured or sick is painfully limited.According to the UN Population Fund, Yemen's infrastructure destruction as a result of conflict has left only a handful of functional hospitals, with only 20% providing maternal and child health care. As a result, a woman in Yemen dies in childbirth every two hours.
How are we handling this problem and who will do it?
The Platform for Action, adopted by the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, identified the effects of armed conflict on women as one of 12 critical areas of concern that governments and the international community must address, and emphasized the importance of promoting women's equal participation in conflict resolution at decision-making levels.
Rape is clearly listed as a crime against humanity in the statutes of the Ad Hoc Tribunals established by the UN Security Council to investigate crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Both Tribunals have issued multiple indictments for sexual assault, and the Rwanda Tribunal has convicted one defendant of genocide, which included sexual abuse.
At the regional level, inter-American and European human rights bodies have found sexual violence and rape in conflict situations to constitute violations of human rights treaties. Several have initiated criminal and civil proceedings against individuals alleged to have perpetuated gender-based violence against women in conflict situations.
The International Statute establishing the International Criminal Court, with jurisdiction over individuals responsible for the most serious international crimes, was adopted in June 1998. The definitions of the crimes under the Court's jurisdiction take gender concerns into account:
Genocide is defined to include measures intended to prevent births within a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.
Rape, sexual enslavement, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, and sterilization are all examples of crimes against humanity.
Rape, sexual enslavement, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, and any other kind of sexual assault that violates the Geneva Conventions are all considered war crimes.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has established recommendations for the protection of refugee women, which include the prevention and response to sexual assault against them.
UNHCR has worked to ensure that refugee women receive adequate protection under international law, particularly when they face gender-based persecution.
Australia, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States are among the growing number of countries that have granted refugee status in response to gender-based persecution, such as female genital mutilation, forced marriage, forced abortion, honour killings, and domestic violence.
Several member states have acknowledged the significance of giving physical and psychological care to refugee women, particularly those who have experienced gender-based abuse.
As per UN report 254 aid workers were killed in Gaza since October 7 2023, they are the same people who are sent as a ray of hope for the distressed . But does war follow any ethics or rules, for all we know oppressors hardly care about human lives. For them it is a simple operation - to displace and terrorize the civilians, dismantle the government and take control of the land. As a result, international authorities' ability to effectively implement these policies remains uncertain. Even one life saved in these horrific events should be counted as a blessing.
It seems is that these organisations have been failing to actually eradicate crime and violence against women and humanity. Despite being funded largely by developed countries and humanitarins, despite having global celebrities to represent them and create awareness, the moot question still remains will these organisations will be able to ever stop wars by issuing indictments, statements condemning violence and tweets and posts on social media.
Russia-Ukraine war made it amply clear that the wars will simply not be stopped by such acts. However, the smaller and underdeveloped countries such as Maldives did make a powerful statement this time by banning Israel and by banning the entry of Israeli passport holders, a move which is likely to make some noise and hopefully a change in future.
Unless the powerful countries and their leaders actually intent to stop war, they will continue and no matter how many conventions are introduced to protect women, children and humanity, it will be just for the sake of it.
Another puzzling question is whether global geopolitics would stay unchanged if these states were governed by women?
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