For women in war-torn regions, suffering, displacement, pain and death are daily prospects, for themselves and their children – whether they’re soldiers or not. And they’re usually not.
A report released last week by the Human Rights Watch, an international, nongovernmental research organization, detailed the rampant sexual violence experienced by women in Sudan, where a civil war has raged since April 2023 between two factions: the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces.
“The Rapid Support Forces have raped, gang raped, and forced into marriage countless women and girls,” Laetitia Bader, deputy Africa director of the Human Rights Watch, told CNN. “[A]nd both warring parties have blocked them from getting aid and support services – compounding the harm they face and leaving them to feel that nowhere is safe.”
Not far north, in Palestine, women are suffering by the hundreds of thousands, amid the Israel-Hamas War that began in October 2023 with a deadly Hamas attack in which over 1,000 people died and over 200 hostages were taken – an attack answered with a military blitzkrieg from Israel that’s killed over 39,000 Palestinians through a mix of bombings and blockades.
A June 2024 study conducted by food insecurity research organization Integrated Food Security Phase Classification shows that about half a million women are grappling with severe scarcities, owing to the restrictions on humanitarian aid in Palestine. Leaders at UN Women, who surveyed Palestinians on the subject, added that “women struggle to protect their children’s physical and mental well-being while bearing increased caregiving and domestic responsibilities,” and will often forgo eating themselves in order to feed their families.
And, an April 2024 study from UN Women itself shows that over 10,000 women have died amid the ongoing violence and famine – an estimated 6,000 of them mothers, who left behind roughly 19,000 children. “Women who have survived have been displaced, widowed, and are facing starvation,” UN Women researchers added. “More than one million women and girls in Gaza have almost no food, no access to safe water, latrines, washrooms, or sanitary pads, with disease growing amidst inhumane living conditions.”
Time does little to ease these burdens, as women in Ukraine can attest. The ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia has raged since the latter’s invasion in February 2022 – 56% of the 14.6 million people in need of humanitarian assistance amid the fighting are women and children, UN Women found when researching the matter for a February 2024 report.
“Women, children, and female-headed households are among the most vulnerable populations,” experts said in the study, “as they often lack resources and coping mechanisms, face barriers to accessing services, and are more exposed to … risks.”
While soldiers and civilians suffer during times of war, it’s historically been women and children who endure the worst atrocities. A 2021 study conducted by an international group of researchers found that the situation has been worsening in recent years. “The number of women and children affected by armed conflict has grown steadily since 2000,” they wrote, “due to a combination of increasing population sizes, urbanization of many conflicts, and a steady rate of … events around the world.”
The numbers are staggering to contemplate. But we must – because behind each statistic, are women with harrowing personal stories to tell.
There’s the woman in Sudan who was raped by several members of the Rapid Support Forces, and was unable to get an abortion to end the resulting pregnancy. “When the woman found out she was pregnant, her husband expelled her and took away their children. She was left on the streets,” a doctor working in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum told the Human Rights Watch.
Worse, she was unable to find a doctor willing or able to perform the procedure before her first trimester – and her opportunity to safely and legally abort the child – ended. “We had to offer her psychological support so that she could accept the condition,” the doctor, who was also unnamed by researchers, added. “It was the only option available to us.”
And, there’s Nedaa’ Alhemdiat, a 31-year-old Palestinian woman whose luxurious life was upended by war. She now lives with her husband and two children in a tent shared with 13 other members of their family. Her children start their days searching for firewood as she bakes bread and washes clothing with hands that ache and shake. “I never felt this old in my whole life,” she told Mondoweiss, a publication that curates news on Israel and Palestine.
She added: “I cry every night, wishing this nightmare would end.”
