War is becoming more dangerous for women. Their leadership is key to peace.
The ways in which wars are being fought – from the use of sexual violence to weaponized technologies – are making conflict even more deadly for women and girls. Their leadership is needed more than ever.
We are living in a time of great conflict, with the highest number of active armed conflicts since 1945. The toll of these wars is growing – especially on women and girls, who hold the least amount of power.
As the UN Secretary-General describes in his 2026 report on Women, Peace, and Security, battlelines are being blurred, international law is being ignored, and unprecedented technologies are being deployed against civilians.
Part of the problem is that our definition of security has never fully recognized the work women do to prevent conflict. Instead, it is defined by the institutions that respond to conflict, rather than by the women who maintain and restore peace.
Until we change that, we will continue to invest in war more readily – and more disproportionately – than we invest in peace.
As the global lead of the United Nations’ Women, Peace and Security agenda, UN Women calls for:
- the protection of all women and girls
- their meaningful participation in peace and security
- greater investment in women-led peacebuilding and conflict prevention
We must ensure women participate and lead in decisions about peace, security, and recovery – and that their needs and experiences shape humanitarian responses.
Conflict is becoming more dangerous – more deadly – for women and girls
Global conflicts are putting women and girls in the crossfire
The number of active conflicts around the world is growing, as are the numbers of women and girls exposed to it – resulting in their displacement and the dismantling of protections, health care, schools, and access to water and food.
War affects every aspect of a woman or girl’s life, and these effects are often different from how men and boys experience war. They also are often disproportionate.
War forces more women to flee their homes, pushes more women out of school or work and into poverty and hunger, and destroys the health systems and support services that women rely on for themselves and for the care of their families.
During war, women’s unemployment also skyrockets. Jobs and livelihoods are destroyed, and care responsibilities, and gender inequality and discrimination exclude women from earning opportunities – deepening poverty and fuelling insecurity. Nearly two thirds of working-age women in conflict countries are unemployed, compared to a third of men. Women living in conflict zones, where food is already scarce, are also twice as likely to live in extreme poverty – meaning that 170 million women and girls struggle to survive on less than USD 3 a day.
Technology, including AI, is being weaponized.
New technologies, including the digitalization of weapons and the use of AI, are being developed and deployed in ways that cause the most destruction, as quickly as possible.
These tactics – overwhelmingly shaped by men – disproportionately impact women and girls.
In Gaza, Myanmar, Sudan, and Ukraine, long-range weapons are being used to target homes as well as energy infrastructure, schools, hospitals, markets, and displacement camps, putting women directly in the line of fire.
In Ukraine, energy cuts are worsening safety concerns and health impacts for women, as well as making it even more difficult to care for their children and other family members.
In Haiti, digital technologies and platforms are being used by perpetrators to preserve images of sexual assault to extort or further humiliate victims.
Sexual violence, an age-old war tactic, is surging.
In warzones across the world, sexual violence is being used increasingly and systematically by male perpetrators to inflict as much terror and control as possible. And it is often being carried out with immunity.
Between 2022 and 2025, UN-verified cases of sexual violence in conflict zones, including rape, quadrupled.
In Haiti, cases increased by 163 per cent in 2025.
In the war in Sudan, sexual violence against women has become one of its most defining features. In the conflict's first three years, the number of survivors needing support has quadrupled.
As perpetrators are emboldened, the systems that hold them accountable and protect survivors are actively being dismantled by war – and major reductions in international aid.
Many women’s organizations – which provide lifesaving assistance, survivor protection, psychosocial support, and economic support – are on the verge of closure due to aid cuts and violent threats.
In a UN Women survey, forty per cent of women’s organizations in crisis-affected settings said they expect to shut down temporarily or permanently within the next year because of funding cuts.
Women are essential – but overlooked – leaders of peace and security
The Women, Peace and Security agenda is built on the recognition that women’s leadership and women’s security are both indispensable for national and international security.
Across the world, women are delivering: In 2025, the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund supported more than 15,000 women working to prevent conflict. Their efforts helped avert, resolve, or refer more than 992,000 conflicts at community and individual levels.
This is security.
Women prevent violence before it begins – and help restore peace within and after conflicts
Women, with their deep social and community connections, mediate local disputes before they escalate. They identify the warning signs of unrest long before anyone else does.
Women help keep, maintain, and restore peace. They negotiate safe passage for civilians and humanitarian access. They prevent the recruitment of children into armed groups. And long after international actors have left, women rebuild communities.
Women support survivors and provide security
UN Women’s work on the ground in conflicts and crises – and in areas of peace – has introduced us to women at every level of the security sector.
Women serve as police officers, soldiers, peacekeepers, and border officials, strengthening trust between security institutions and communities. They document human rights violations and advocate for accountability. They support survivors of sexual violence and help restore dignity and justice. They clear landmines so families can return home.
The meaningful participation of women in the security sector helps ensure women’s needs and experiences are at the centre of security institutions – making them more representative of and responsive to the populations they serve.
Women are being shut out of peace talks, even as impacts on them worsen
Just as their leadership is most needed, women are disappearing from peace tables.
In 2025, women accounted for only five per cent of negotiators across 57 peace processes worldwide, down from seven per cent in 2024. (In peace processes led or co-led by the UN, women accounted for 22 per cent of negotiators.)
This lack of representation partly explains how only 19 per cent of peace agreements made in 2025 – 10 out of 53 – included at least one reference to women, girls, or gender-related or sexual violence. None of the 13 ceasefire agreements reached in 2025 specifically prohibited conflict-related sexual violence.
For peace to prevail, women need protection – and meaningful participation
The reality is that the world is spending an enormous amount on military power and less on what prevents war: women as leaders, negotiators, and mediators.
Last year, global military expenditure hit a record-breaking $2.9 trillion. Yet, wars continue to rage, and the bloodshed goes on.
Meanwhile, investment in gender equality – a foundation of security – is falling, with funding dropping by $3 billion from 2023 to 2024 (USD 24.6 billion to 21.7 billion).
For all women and girls, UN Women calls for:
- Protection: International law must be upheld, impunity must end, and women’s needs and experiences must be centred in peace negotiations.
- Participation: Peace processes must include women’s full, equal, meaningful, and safe participation – with at least one in three participants being a woman, moving towards parity. To be most effective, security institutions also require women’s meaningful participation and leadership.
- Support: Peace requires investments in conflict prevention, women’s economic security, social protection, and women-led organizations. At least 15 per cent of aid to conflict-affected countries should be allocated to gender equality as a principal objective, with at least 1 per cent going directly to women’s organizations.
Before the first shots are fired or the first drone takes flight, security is built when communities trust each other, when survivors believe justice is possible, when girls can walk safely to school, when families can return home after conflict, and when disputes are resolved before they become wars.
Women and girls show us the way.