Four years since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, the women’s rights crisis is being normalized. Not a single decree restricting women and girls has been repealed; measures once framed as temporary are now entrenched as the norm. This gender alert counters such normalization by presenting 10 insights gathered through UN Women’s research and analysis undertaken since August 2021. Despite systemic repression, Afghan women remain resilient, sustaining hope and continuing to contribute as frontline workers, entrepreneurs, and advocates. Yet, enforcement of restrictive decrees has consolidated nationwide, reinforced by the 2024 Law on the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Education and employment bans have sidelined a generation, with nearly 80 per cent of young women excluded from education, employment or training. Women’s mobility and safety have further eroded, with mahram requirements and surveillance undermining access to services, livelihoods, and public life. Women’s representation in decision-making has disappeared entirely, though inheritance rights remain a narrow entry point. Funding cuts are further constraining women-led organizations, jeopardizing the few remaining civic spaces. At the same time, large-scale refugee returns, many forcibly, are compounding vulnerabilities. The alert calls for sustained, flexible funding for women’s organizations, a minimum of 30 per cent of aid directed to gender equality, and the centrality of women’s rights in all humanitarian, development, and political interventions.

Between October 2023 and late November 2024, Lebanon experienced the largest escalation of hostilities with Israel since the 2006 War. Intense Israeli airstrikes coupled with evacuation orders across Lebanon, including in eastern and southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut, resulted in mass displacement and heightened socioeconomic vulnerabilities among affected populations. As of 24 November 2024, close to 900,000 individuals were displaced due to the conflict, with women and girls making up 51 per cent of the internally displaced population. Of an estimated 260,000 households, close to 21 per cent were women-led households. Additionally, more than 80,000 Syrians and 3,466 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon were among the displaced. The conflict took a profound toll on people’s lives. Lebanese health officials estimate that, since the escalation of hostilities on 8 October 2023, 4,047 people have been killed and 16,638 wounded, including at least 790 women and 316 children. As commonly witnessed in other contexts, this latest Gender Alert confirms that while the conflict impacts civilians indiscriminately, women and girls have been disproportionately affected due to multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination that heighten their exclusion and risks.

This publication provides a detailed analysis of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Sudan, focusing on its disproportionate impact on women and girls. As the country faces the largest internal displacement since the Syrian civil war, millions of Sudanese, particularly women and children, are grappling with severe challenges. This report highlights key data on displacement, malnutrition, lack of access to healthcare, gender-based violence, and food insecurity. It also explores how deeply entrenched gender inequality exacerbates the vulnerabilities of female-headed households and the critical barriers women face in accessing essential resources. It also offers a comprehensive overview of the socio-economic and health impacts on women and girls, drawing from recent assessments and data. The report emphasizes the need for targeted humanitarian interventions. We consider it as an essential resource for understanding the gender dimensions of Sudan’s humanitarian crisis and calls for focused action to mitigate its effects.

The war on Gaza has become one of the world’s most brutal man-made humanitarian crises. The war has directly impacted more than 2.2 million people, resulting in an unprecedented number of civilians killed, alongside overwhelming displacement. Since 7 October 2023, more than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, including at least 10,000 women, and an estimated 82,000 people have been injured. The Israeli incursion into Rafah has led to the displacement of nearly 800,000 people since May 2024, many of whom had already been displaced multiple times since October 2023. In tandem, the situation in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has also deteriorated, with more than 500 people killed and 5,000 injured since 7 October. As the death toll increases, severe humanitarian needs continue to grow at an unprecedented rate, in a context where needs were already dire before the current escalation. The war on Gaza remains, among other things, a war on women. Over the past eight months of the war, UN Women has been documenting how the lives of women and girls have deteriorated across sectors, including food security, water, shelter, health, and safety. This Gender Alert is on the work of Women-Led Organizations (WLOs).

As the war on Gaza reached its six-month mark, it continues to be a war on women. According to UN Women estimates, more than 10,000 women have been killed to date, among them an estimated 6,000 mothers who left 19,000 orphan children behind. Women who have survived have been displaced, widowed, and are facing starvation. 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. Since the start of the war, UN Women has been documenting the experiences of women in Gaza in a series of gender alerts that look at various aspects of how the war is impacting the daily lives of women and girls, including food, water, shelter, health, and protection. This new alert is the latest in this series, and it focuses on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services, which are integral to women’s health, dignity, safety, and privacy.