During Conflicts And Humanitarian Crises, Women And Gender Diverse Persons Face More Brunt Of Gender-based Injustices

With 78th World Health Assembly of the UN health agency, the World Health Organization (WHO) being held later in May 2025, The Lancet Commission on Gender and Global Health has launched an important multi-disciplinary report that shows how gender and health nexus can be better understood and addressed to serve equity and social justice goals.

Dr Ravi Verma who is one of the Commissioners of The Lancet Commission on Gender and Global Health and Executive Director, International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW), Asia, said that “To understand why gender presents such challenges for the global health sector The Lancet Commission reviewed massive amount of literature - social, political, legal and economic literature to find and assess how some of these forces are at work in the gender domain and how intertwined are the issues of capitalism, imperialism and capitalism in their effects on people's health and well-being. We see this humanitarian crisis emerging out of all this history of colonisation, imperialism and capitalism which has been brought out so lucidly.” He was speaking in SHE & Rights (Sexual Health with Equity & Rights) session which is hosted by Global Center for Health Diplomacy and Inclusion (CeHDI) and CNS with IPPF, ARROW, APCAT Media and WGNRR.

“Bringing gender justice in health policies and programmes and practices is important. The report has highlighted how in various countries if programmes have promoted gender equality, they have had much better and wider positive outcomes than just about dealing with the illnesses,” said Dr Verma.

Ground realities of gender diverse peoples in Afghanistan

Parwen Hussaini of Afghanistan is at risk of her life along with her lesbian lover Maryam (Maryam is under arrest). Parwen serves as a Programme Associate at Roshaniya, a LGBTQI+ rights group in Afghanistan.

Parwen was born in Gazhni province of Afghanistan and identifies as a lesbian and Afghan. She narrowly escaped persecution and arrest by the Taliban on 20th March 2025 and she is now in Iran. “I have endured hardships my whole life until this point. Since the current Taliban regime has come to power, we basically had no options, we have no hope; there is nothing to live for gender diverse people. The situation for Afghan women is deplorable. They cannot leave their house for work or for any other reason,” said Parwen. “We had no rights, we were criminalized then and we are criminalized now. The only difference is that back then there was some space and some room for us.”

Parwen and her lover were engaged to get married when they tried to escape. Her lover (Maryam) is being tortured and imprisoned by the Taliban and in prison for over one and a half months (as on 10 May 2025).

They are devastated since that day on 20th March 2025 when Parwen, Maryam and Maeve (a transgender person) tried to come to Iran. But on that day, everything backfired because the Taliban apprehended and detained Maryam and Maeve and they have been in captivity since then. Luckily Parwen was able to get through the airport security. Parwen was lucky that her brother agreed to sign off as a male chaperone to give permission so that she can reach the airport and get on board. But Mariam was not able to get a male relative chaperone because her family refused, and got arrested.

After several failed attempts, she eventually got support from “Roshaniya” group, which reached out to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, UN special Rapporteur in Afghanistan and others but no relief came through. However, Peter Tatchel Foundation UK stepped forward to support them.

Right now, Parwen faces an uncertain future in Iran because if her visa expires, they will deport her back to Afghanistan and if that happens, she will be imprisoned and tortured and possibly face a death penalty.

Gender justice is a fundamental human right and it is critical to advance progress towards all sustainable development goals.

Nemat Sadat, CEO of “Roshaniya” (an advocacy network dedicated to assisting LGBTQI+ Afghans) and one of the first Afghans to have openly come out as gay and to campaign for LGBTQI+ rights, gender freedom and liberty, said: “We have a list of over 1,000 LGBTQI+ peoples who still remain in Afghanistan. To this date, we have supported the safe evacuation of 265 people to different countries and we hope that Parwen will also get to a safe place. Right now, her future looks very uncertain because it is very difficult for someone to leave Iran to go to another country as Iran is under sanctions. There are 7 million Afghans in Iran and many of them are trying to secure humanitarian visa to go to a western country. So, it could take years and Parwen does not have that kind of a time frame.”

South Sudan conflict and women and other marginalised persons

“The ongoing conflict in South Sudan has disempowered a lot of excluded and marginalised peoples including women, LGBTQI+, people living with HIV, persons with disabilities, sex workers, among others. So, when it comes to gender justice the issue of gender-based violence becomes central. There is physical violence, domestic violence, and sexual harassment and sexual abuse. They are raping women rampantly. Due to the conflict there is also increased risk for the displacement of women and girls in South Sudan (which puts them at greater risk of violence). There is also limited access to justice and support for young women, women with disability, and people with HIV because of their condition,” said Rachel Adau, Executive Director of the Women’s Empowerment Centre South Sudan.

“Our healthcare system is breaking down and affecting reproductive health of young women and girls. The maternal and child healthcare is at its worse because the health facility itself has no services to offer. We advocate for pregnant women to go to the hospital to deliver, but the health facilities have no gloves, no beds, no midwives, and other essential supplies. So, they cannot deliver their child safely. This discourages women from going to the health facilities, which again is very risky for their lives,” added Rachel.

Lebanon, women, gender diverse and other marginalised persons

“Since the Gaza war, 4000 people in Lebanon have been killed and 1.3 million have been displaced mainly from the areas that were affected by the war - that is South Lebanon. The war has caused an estimated US$ 11 billion in damage and 9% decline in the Lebanon's GDP. Hospitals and healthcare facilities were bombed, and the local organisations played the main role in providing shelter, food, medical and even mental health support. However, it is the vulnerable and marginalized groups - mainly the LGBTQI+ individuals, refugees, people living with HIV, people with disabilities, elderly and others that are paying the price more than anyone else in society,” said Bertho Makso, Regional Community Engagement & Networks Lead at the International Planned Parenthood Federation at its Arab World Regional Office.

Across the Global South we face a lot of humanitarian crises: Why?

“Across the Global South, we continue to face a lot of humanitarian crises. We face floods, hunger, war, conflicts, and women and girls continue to be the most affected, the most at risk, and more importantly the LGBTQI+ community are most at risk and most affected. When we think about all the inequities then it is them that suffer the most. We see alarming gender-based violence, disrupted access to essential services like education and health care, and we also have heightened risk of women and girls facing sexual exploitation, early marriage and displacement,” said Nelly Munyasia, Executive Director, Reproductive Health Network of Kenya.

Kenya’s Constitutional Promise on gender equality threatened by regressive GCD

“Kenya has not only signed the regressive Geneva Consensus Declaration, but this month Kenya would be hosting the so-called ‘family values conference’. This is more problematic because this creates an environment for the anti-rights movement to penetrate deeper into policy spaces in Kenya. We continue to call out collectively and speak against this regressive group of individuals who purport to be ensuring that they are restoring African ‘values’, but what they are trying to preach is not African when they talk about killing of the LGBTQI+ community and when they spread hatred,” said Nelly Munyasia.

“Kenya as a country does recognize the intersex persons. We are focusing on ensuring that we implement the constitution, we hold the government accountable and support the government too, to deal with the anti-rights groups that are well funded and well-coordinated. But we are not going to be gagged, we are not going to stop, and we are going to ensure that everyone enjoys their rights not only in Kenya but Africa as a whole.”

Gender inequality is in itself a perpetual humanitarian crisis which girls and women and gender diverse peoples have been facing on an ongoing daily basis historically

“Perhaps there may not be a single girl or woman or gender diverse person on this planet who can say that he or she or they have never ever faced any type of violence or abuse or threat. The threat and danger of sexual and other forms of gender-based violence haunts so many of us every moment - sometimes even inside our homes. Wars and conflicts, extreme climate events, religious bigotry, or other forms of humanitarian crises exacerbate gender inequality and violations of human rights manifold,” said Shobha Shukla, Coordinator, SHE & Rights (Sexual Health with Equity & Rights) initiative and Executive Director, CNS.

To quote The Lancet Commission on Gender and Global Health report, “We are in ‘the fight of our lives’ against the anti-gender rhetoric and a rollback of gender rights. Now is a crucial moment in time to turn the tide on the rise of anti-gender rhetoric and to increase understanding of the importance of gender in public health”.

“Arriving at gender justice in global health is not a technical exercise- this is an exercise in understanding people's lives, their history, the politics, the economy, their culture and their local relations and context. This means we must identify those spaces where power and privileges are exercised inequitably and find some ways to disrupt that. The report calls for disrupting those spaces where the power dynamics are being played out and people are taking that for granted. That means it requires a lot of tactics and strategies at multiple levels,” said Dr Ravi Verma, one of the Commissioners (and authors) of The Lancet Commission report.

Let us work together and support each other for a feminist and gender just inclusive world order where everyone has equal rights, equal dignity and equal access and control of resources, irrespective of their caste, creed or gender identity. Gender inequality and toxic masculinity must end with us.

Shobha Shukla, Coordinator, SHE & Rights (Sexual Health with Equity & Rights) Initiative| Email: editor@citizen-news.org

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