Crisis Prevention and Recovery

Key statistics on women in crisis

Strengthen women’s security

In Rwanda, up to half a million women were raped during the 1994 genocide.

In Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, an estimated 60,000 women were raped in the war.

In  Sierra Leone, the number of incidents of war-related sexual violence among internally displaced women from 1991 to 2001 was as high as 64,000.

When the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women visited the Darfur region in Sudan, she received testimonies of women and girls who have suffered multiple forms of violence committed by government-backed militia and security forces, including rape, killings, the burning of homes and pillage of livestock.

Advance gender justice

Only one woman has served as a judge on the International Court of Justice since it was established more than 80 years ago.

The 34-member International Law Commission had no women throughout its 55-year history until 2001, when two women were elected.

No more than three women have served at any time among the 14 permanent judges of the 90 International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda.

Expand Women’s Citizenship, Participation and Leadership

By 2005, women accounted for roughly 40 percent of the world’s economically active population. Women’s estimated earned income is about 30 percent of that of men’s in the surveyed countries in the Middle East and North Africa, 40 percent in Latin America and South Asia, 50 percent in Sub Saharan Africa and 60 percent in CEE/CIS, East Asia and industrialized countries.

Women own 1 percent of the land in the world.

Build Peace with and for women

Out of 12 peace agreements reached between 1991 and 2001 that put an end to conflicts in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, El Salvador, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Kosovo, Liberia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone and Timor-Leste, only four (El Salvador, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Timor Leste) included a provision directly related to women.

The most recent peace agreement in Sudan does not allow for women’s participation.

Ensure gender-responsive recovery

Both domestic violence and sexual assault were widely reported to increase in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Examples from Sri Lanka include women battered because they resist their husbands’ sale of their jewelry or disputed their use of tsunami relief funds and mothers blamed by fathers for the deaths of their children

Unpaid work on family agricultural enterprises accounts for 20 percent of women’s informal employment in Ghana and 34 percent in India.

Transform government to deliver for women

As of July 2006, women accounted for just less than 17 percent of all parliamentarians worldwide. At current annual rates of progress, gender parity in national legislatures won’t be achieved until 2068.

Only 9 percent of the world’s mayors are women.

30 percent of Africa’s councilors are women, 26 percent in South America, 24 percent in Central America, 17 percent in Asia and the Pacific, 23 percent in Europe and 2.1 percent in the Middle East.