Protecting Women and Children in Conflict Is a Lifesaving Imperative
As we mark Day 8 of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, we bring critical attention to the heightened risks faced by women and children living in conflict-affected areas. Conflict disrupts every aspect of life homes, schools, livelihoods, and community systems and in these fragile environments, the dangers of violence, exploitation, and abuse multiply.
Women and children often carry the heaviest burden during crises. When families are displaced, when services collapse, and when fear becomes a daily reality, their vulnerability deepens. Gender-based violence, child abuse, exploitation, and neglect rise sharply during conflicts, yet survivors often face significant challenges in accessing help. Many lack safe reporting options, medical support, psychosocial care, or protection services. Community structures that once offered informal safety nets are weakened or destroyed.
Today’s central message reminds us that protecting women and children in conflict is not optional it is a lifesaving necessity. Ensuring their safety and dignity requires coordinated action among humanitarian actors, community leaders, government institutions, and international partners. It means strengthening protection systems that continue to function even in the most insecure environments.
ENWS Calls for the Protection of Women and Children in Conflict-Affected Areas
As ENWS (Ethiopia Network of Women’s Shelters), we mark Day 8 of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence by amplifying a critical message: protecting women and children in conflict-affected areas is a lifesaving imperative.
Across Ethiopia, conflict disrupts homes, schools, livelihoods, and community systems. In these fragile environments, the risks of gender-based violence, exploitation, and abuse increase dramatically. Women and children, already disproportionately affected carry the heaviest burden during crises. Displacement, the collapse of essential services, and daily insecurity deepen their vulnerability.
We witness firsthand how gender-based violence, child abuse, and exploitation rise sharply during conflicts. Yet survivors often face immense barriers to accessing help. Many lack safe reporting options, medical care, psychosocial support, or protection services. Community structures that once offered safety and support are weakened or destroyed entirely.
At ENWS, we emphasize that protecting women and children in conflict is not optional it is a humanitarian and moral necessity. Ensuring their safety demands coordinated efforts among government institutions, humanitarian actors, community leaders, and international partners.
ENWS Commitment and Role
ENWS and its member shelters continue to provide lifesaving, frontline support in conflict-affected regions, including Amhara, Oromia, Tigray, Afar, and other crisis-hit areas. Through both direct emergency response and indirect support via partners, we ensure survivors receive shelter, medical referrals, psychosocial counseling, legal assistance, and protection services often in extremely difficult conditions.
As a women-led national network, ENWS strengthens the capacity of shelters through mutual collaboration, shared expertise, resource mobilization, and coordinated emergency action. We stand with women, girls, boys, and adolescents who need immediate pathways to safety, dignity, and recovery.
Our Call to Action
On this Day 8, ENWS calls on all stakeholders to:
- Prioritize the protection of women and children in all conflict and humanitarian response programs.
- Strengthen referral pathways and essential services, ensuring survivors have reliable access to medical, psychosocial, legal, and shelter support.
- Invest in local women-led and child protection organizations, such as ENWS and our member shelters, who provide critical services in hard-to-reach and high-risk areas.
- Mobilize communities to challenge stigma, encourage reporting, and create safe environments for women and children.
- Ensure accountability for all acts of violence, even within insecure or unstable contexts.
Violence can be prevented, and survivors can be protected, when we work together.
As ENWS, we reaffirm our commitment to building a future where women and children, especially those affected by conflict, can live free from fear, violence, and harm.
Together, we can transform fear into safety, vulnerability into protection, and crisis into hope.
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