Introduction:
Violence against women and girls is one of the most widespread, persistent, and devastating human rights violations in our world today. However, it remains largely unknown due to the impunity, silence, and stigma surrounding it. Out of every three women, at least one woman experiences physical or sexual violence at the hands of a male during her lifetime. The United Nations defines violence against women as “any violent act that is motivated by gender bias and that results in, or is likely to result in, harm or suffering to women, whether from the physical, sexual or psychological aspect, including threats of such acts or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life.”
Violence against women and girls escalates in conflict and armed dispute environments on a large scale. Although armed disputes and conflicts have taken a devastating toll on all civilians in general, women and girls have been disproportionately affected by this situation, as hostilities have resulted in the suffering of civilians in different environments of armed dispute due to the severity of the economic crisis, the damaged infrastructure, the collapse of services, but in addition to this, women have had to face limited mobility due to cultural standards prevailing between the sexes. Also, because they are responsible for providing food and care in their homes, they have had to deal with the challenges associated with limited access to food, water, sanitation, and health care services, which have witnessed a steady deterioration following the continuation of armed hostilities in some countries witnessing armed disputes and conflicts.
In the Middle East, disputes and instability in many of its countries have exacerbated pre-existing patterns of discrimination against women and girls and exacerbated the violations of their human rights. In this regard, armed conflicts spread in Yemen, Syria, Libya, Iraq, and Somalia have generated multiple levels of violence against women and girls, including indiscriminate killings, torture, arrests, enforced disappearances, sexual and gender-based violence, and forced marriage, which is attributed to the involvement of the warring parties and forces in the use of violence against women, in particular sexual and gender violence, as a cruel tactic of war, terror, torture, and political repression to achieve its strategic goals, including those aimed at driving populations to flee and taking control of contested lands and natural resources.
Women and girls in overcrowded refugee and displaced environments in countries in the Middle East are among those most affected by crises caused by conflict, forced displacement, and COVID-19, due to their being at high risk of sexual violence, exploitation, and trafficking, particularly in the humanitarian situation continued to deteriorate due to the decrease in humanitarian access and resources in general. In this context, economic despair and the breakdown of social safety networks in the midst of armed conflicts in the Middle East have led to an increase in girls and women resorting to negative coping mechanisms including child marriage and survival sex.
The exacerbating violence against women and girls in conflict countries in the Middle East raises important concerns about the widespread human rights violations against women and girls in these countries. Maat for Peace, Development and Human Rights expresses its deep concern about the grave violations against women and girls in conflict countries In the Middle East region, it presents a report dealing with forms of violence against women in conflict countries in the Middle East, focusing on Syria and Yemen as two cases to study, within the framework of the Sixteen Days Campaign to Eliminate Violence against Women, which begins on November 25 of each year and continues until the tenth of December.
Keywords: violence - women - conflict countries - Yemen - Syria
 |
 |
English 
العربية