SIW RESOLUTION
BREAKING IMPUNITY AND ENSURING PROTECTION: AN AGENDA OF ACTION FOR WOMEN VICTIMS OF WARTIME VIOLENCE
Women in armed conflict are both victims and protagonists, often facing extreme vulnerability, being subjected to sexual and gender-based violence, displacement and loss of livelihoods, while playing vital roles as caregivers, workers and, in some cases, combatants.
Violence against them can be a tactic of war, and conflict disproportionately affects their lives and communities. Women are subjected to physical, sexual and psychological violence, including rape, sexual slavery, abduction and torture, used as a weapon of war to terrorize and humiliate communities. They are displaced on a large scale, facing shortages of food, medical care, menstrual hygiene and privacy.
Girls and women are affected in times of war, often exposed to indiscriminate and targeted violence across multiple fronts. Most are separated from their families, detained or victims of violence. Many are widowed or lose their children and have to find the resilience and resources to cope with the challenges and traumas of war. Their suffering is often systematically dismissed and silenced. War destroys their homes and jobs, they lose their livelihoods, forcing them to take responsibility for supporting their families in conditions of extreme poverty. The lack of access to health services, especially for pregnant women, is critical, putting their lives and those of their children at risk. The proportion of women killed in conflict has increased, and in recent conflicts, women and children constitute a majority of fatalities.
In addition to these immediate harms, women experience profound long-term consequences that often remain unaddressed. They endure chronic health complications resulting from sexual violence, heightened economic vulnerability, increased caregiving burdens, and elevated risks of trafficking and exploitation. Many survivors face stigma, threats of retaliation, or an absence of safe and accessible legal mechanisms, preventing them from reporting violations or accessing justice. Displacement conditions further worsen their suffering, as overcrowded shelters, inadequate sanitation, and the absence of secure spaces expose women and girls to additional risks of harassment and assault. Women with disabilities, elderly women, and teenage girls experince multiple and overlapping vulnerabilities that are frequently overlooked in humanitarian and protection responses.
Women who are detained during conflict face an additional and often hidden layer of abuse, including abusive detention practices, physical and psychological torture, denial of medical care, and conditions that fall far below basic standards of dignity and safety. Their experiences inside detention facilities remain among the least documented and most silenced, despite the severe and lasting impact of detention-related violence on their health and well-being.
In the 25 years since the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1325 – known as the Women, Peace and Security Agenda – the evidence of the vital role women play in establishing and maintaining peace on a global scale has only grown. An agenda for women victims of war violence must focus on four pillars: prevention, participation, protection and relief and recovery, according to this resolution. To break impunity, it is crucial to implement laws against violence, guarantee access to justice with a gender approach, and ensure that the voices of survivors are heard.
Women seek truth and justice, and play a crucial role in building long-term peace, restoring security in their communities and promoting equality. However, structural and financial support for women working for peacebuilding and life-saving aid for women and girls caught up in conflict remains woefully inadequate. Instead, conflicts and military spending are increasing, as is the number of women killed, raped and displaced by war. The facts and figures are alarming and constitute a call to action.
Therefore, the Socialist International Women calls for:
1. Ratification and Compliance with International Standards
- Demand the ratification of international treaties that protect the rights of women and girls.
- Ensure that national laws and services comply with international human rights standards.
2. Implementation and Strengthening of National Laws and Policies
- Implement national laws and policies that guarantee access to justice and protection for women and girls.
- Demand free government care for women victims of sexual violence (e.g., treatment for STDs, HIV/AIDS, unwanted pregnancy).
3. Ending Impunity and Ensuring Justice in Conflict and Post-Conflict Contexts
- End impunity for violence against women and girls in conflict zones.
- Prosecute perpetrators in both conflict and post-conflict contexts.
- Ensure comprehensive, survivor-centered reparations that avoid stigma and have a transformative impact.
- Strengthen international accountability mechanisms, including cooperation with the International Criminal Court and regional tribunals, and impose sanctions on actors who use sexual or gender-based violence as a weapon of war.
4. Survivor-Centered Support and Humanitarian Response
- Guarantee survivor-centered reparation systems designed with women's participation and dignity at the core.
- Strengthen humanitarian responses by providing safe shelters, mobile clinics, reproductive healthcare, mental-health services, and confidential reporting mechanisms.
5. Meaningful Participation of Women in Peace Processes
- Ensure meaningful, permanent participation of women in peace negotiations, ceasefire discussions, humanitarian planning, and reconstruction — as equal decision-makers rather than symbolic participants.
- Promote women’s leadership in peace processes, including quotas or binding commitments in peace talks, transitional justice efforts, and reconstruction planning.
6. Protection of Women Human Rights Defenders and Peace Builders
- Provide legal, financial, and security guarantees for women activists, journalists, and community leaders who expose violations and work toward peace.
7. Multisector Coordination and Global Mobilization
- Foster coordination among governments, women’s organizations, civil society, media, and the private sector to collectively combat rights violations.
- Demand justice, peace, and sovereignty, recognizing that gender-based violence is unacceptable and that women play a crucial role in conflict prevention, resolution, and peacebuilding.
- Call on global leaders to mobilize political will and economic investment to ensure women live with safety, dignity, and full protection of their rights.
8. Equitable Access to Education and Peace Education
- Ensure equitable access to education for girls, including school attendance in crisis and conflict contexts, and remove social, economic, and cultural barriers to their full development.
- Require states to integrate peace education from early childhood and substantially increase public investment in early childhood education as a tool to prevent violence and build more inclusive and just societies.
Three decades after the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, we are at a key moment. While the challenges ahead have become more acute, there are also reasons to be hopeful and trasform the current context into an opportunity. Achieving tangible improvements in the realities of women and girls requires consensus in all sectors of society. Today more than ever, from the Socialist International Women, we reaffirm that there is no peace without equality, there is no justice without women, there is no democracy without inclusion.
The Socialist International Women (SIW), Council meeting in Valetta, Malta, on November 28, 2025.
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