According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "gender-based inequity is usually exacerbated during situations of extreme violence such as armed conflict."

How women suffer:

• Violence against girls and women, including rape and sexual slavery.
• Hunger and exploitation in camps for refugees and displaced persons, when men take control of food distribution.
• Malnutrition, when food aid neglects women’s and children’s special nutritional requirements.
• Culturally inappropriate and/or inadequate access to health services, including mental and reproductive health services.

Women bear the burden of caring for those who are ill. This does not change when women are in the midst of war, – children, the sick and elderly – and for maintaining families and households. The already existing problems of inadequate water supply and the deteriorating water quality gets worst with the destruction of infrastructure such as sewage treatments plants. Raw sewage often flows into streets increasing the risk of disease.

When bombs destroy homes, hospitals, schools and food markets, people’s basic needs do not disappear.This only increases the sufferings.

In Afghanistan 21 years of war has resulted in poverty and neglect of health facilities. The health statistics of women in Afghanistan are among the worst in the world.

In the central African country of Rwanda, in 1994, nearly 1 million people were killed during a three month ethnic conflict, the most rapid genocide in history. An estimated 40 to 45 percent of those killed were women.

Most of the women in Asia and Africa are farmers. They make up for up to 80 percent of food produced in many parts of Africa. This makes them victims of landmines. The statistics reveal that of almost 35 percent of mine victims are women and girls.