Written by – Julia M. Minassian (RSC Intern)
November 25th marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, as adopted by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in the 1993 Resolution 48/104. This day also begins the global 16 Days of Activism to End Gender-based Violence, a campaign calling for solidarity to raise awareness and prevent violence against women. According to the World Health Organization, one in three women will be subjected to physical violence in their lifetime, yet 70% of women experience violence in areas experiencing conflict or resource scarcity. In times of war, violence against women is often used as a deliberate tactic, while victims remain mere statistics absorbed into a larger narrative of inevitable consequences. As armed conflicts continue to proliferate around the world, with over 185 recorded in 2024, the global community must take action to address the contextualized needs of women experiencing violence. Sustained action requires actors to affirm their commitments to the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda, which demands the protection of women in conflict and their participation in peace processes.
While gender-based violence remains a global issue, armed conflict fundamentally changes its scale and nature. Specifically, the collapse of legal, social, and community protections heightens women’s vulnerability to physical and psychological violence and limits mechanisms of accountability. Out of the 25 largest humanitarian crises in 2024, the UN assessed GBV as severe or extreme in 23 cases. The UN also verified over 4,600 cases of conflict-related sexual violence in 2024, demonstrating an 87% increase from 2022. Beyond statistics, localized examples reveal the way specific forms of violence impacting women experiencing conflict. In particular, displacement exacerbates the effects of violence in Sudan, while Palestinian women face systemic reproductive violence.
The outbreak of fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) And the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April 2023 has contributed to Sudan becoming the largest and fastest-growing displacement crisis in the world. Displacement and forced mobility exacerbate violence, as displaced women often lack resources and community protections, leaving them in unfamiliar environments and vulnerable to exploitation. Recently, the RSF’s violent capture of El Fasher in October 2025 caused more than 100,000 people to flee the city as rates of sexual violence and mass killings increased. However, less than 10% of Sudanese women in need have been able to access GBV humanitarian services due to access constraints, conditions further exacerbated by mass movement as well as cuts to international aid funding humanitarian services. Addressing violence against women in Sudan thus requires understanding the cyclical nature of forced large-scale displacement, especially in the contemporary political context.
Women also face a distinct form of violence in the occupied Palestinian territories. Here, reproductive violence, which targets a population’s ability to reproduce biologically and socially, functions as a gendered strategy of erasure. Since Israel’s October 2023 war on Gaza, hospitals and reproductive health facilities have been destroyed with at least 1,722 healthcare workers killed. Moreover, attacks and legal limitations on critical institutions, including the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), prevent critical medical aid from entering Gaza. As a result, miscarriages in Gaza have surged by an estimated 300% since October 2023, and more than 150,000 pregnant and lactating women live without essential care. Additionally, the effects of reproductive violence will extend beyond this ongoing genocide, affecting future generations and the Palestinian people at large.
International and legal frameworks clearly outline states’ responsibilities to prevent violence, but there are areas to improve their implementation. For example, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), ratified by the UN in 1981, obligates states to prevent violence against women in all settings, including conflict. Recommendation No. 30 (2013) specifically clarifies that states, including occupying powers, must punish GBV by all parties, ensure women’s access to healthcare, and protect displaced women. Similarly, UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and the broader Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda underscores the vitality of addressing the impacts of conflict on women and including them in peace-building processes. Yet, barriers to access, limited funding, and lack of political resolve can hinder the effectiveness of these protections in certain contexts.
Moving forward, the international community must confront the underlying systems that fuel violence against women, including the proliferation of weapons and compliance with arms embargos. Currently, aid supporting women’s rights movements in conflict-affected countries is less than 0.01% of global military spending, and 99% of gender-related development assistance never reaches local women’s rights groups. Therefore, international institutions must make a deliberate shift to fund grassroots women’s organizations who are best equipped to implement the ideals of UNSCR 1325 and CEDAW on a community level. In post-conflict settings, women must be deliberately and meaningfully included in all steps of the peace-building processes, from ceasefire negotiations to reconstruction plans. Women’s participation will lead to more responsive and durable peace that more adequately addresses the challenges they face.
Protecting women from violence is not a peripheral concern in conflict. Rather, it is a necessity for building sustainable peace. On this International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the world must move beyond commemoration to action. That begins with listening to and resourcing women’s organizations, addressing the gendered realities of conflict, and holding the actors who perpetuate violence accountable. Overall, sustainable peace requires not only ending conflict but ending the structures of power that allow violence against women to persist.
