Gender justice in an unequal world: war, austerity, and debt crises

Our region is experiencing a dangerous military escalation led by the United States and the Israeli occupying state, within the context of a geopolitical conflict that extends beyond the borders of any single country or war. This war does not confine its effects to one battlefield; rather, it is reshaping regional balances of power and forcing societies to bear immense human and economic costs.
In Palestine, large-scale bombardment continues in the Gaza Strip, accompanied by unprecedented destruction of civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, and water and electricity networks. At the same time, the military and political support provided by the United States and several Western powers to the occupying state continues, deepening impunity and undermining the rules of international law.
The escalation has also extended to Lebanon, where civilians face the risk of a widening war as a result of cross-border shelling. The region is also witnessing rising military tensions linked to the conflict with Iran, within a broader regional confrontation in which military influence intersects with control over resources, energy, and trade routes.
In Sudan, war between competing armed forces has continued since 2023 and has become one of the most severe humanitarian crises in the world. Millions of people have been displaced from their homes, and large segments of the population face the threat of acute hunger, according to warnings from the United Nations World Food Programme.
Women in Sudan are paying a compounded price through violence, displacement, and the collapse of care networks and essential services.
At the same time, millions of migrant women workers in Gulf countries continue to live under the kafala sponsorship system, which restricts their freedoms and exposes them to multiple forms of abuse in both work and living conditions, as documented by reports from the International Labour Organization and international human rights organizations.
These wars are unfolding alongside a deepening debt crisis across the region and in many countries of the Global South. Governments are spending vast resources on debt servicing at the expense of investment in health, education, and public services, as highlighted in reports by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Economic reform programs promoted by the International Monetary Fund are also often associated with austerity policies that reduce social spending and increase the cost of living.
When public services decline, and the basic infrastructure of social protection collapses, the cost of survival shifts into households. In this context, women shoulder the largest share of this burden through unpaid care work and the daily management of family life. Multiple estimates show that women perform the overwhelming majority of unpaid work related to caring for children, the elderly, and managing household needs.
This burden increases sharply in contexts of war and conflict, where care work becomes a daily struggle for survival amid insecurity and the collapse of essential services. As the scope of unpaid work imposed on women expands under these conditions, their exposure to multiple forms of violence and abuse also increases—whether within private spaces or in public spaces associated with securing basic necessities. In this way, women pay a double price for war: not only as those directly harmed by violence, but also as those who carry the hidden burden of keeping life possible amid collapse.
In this climate of wars and economic crises, we are also witnessing increasing restrictions on activists and social movements across the region. In Tunisia, a number of activists associated with the “Flotilla of Resilience” have been detained and referred for investigation under terrorism laws, including a couple with two young children. This development reflects a troubling trend toward the use of exceptional legal frameworks to criminalize civil action and popular solidarity.
All these developments reveal a profound crisis in the international system that claims to protect rights. International institutions appear incapable of stopping wars or holding those responsible accountable. Meanwhile, major powers continue to arm conflicts and provide them with political support, while societies bear the costs of destruction, displacement, and poverty.
It is within this context that the seventieth session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women is being held under the theme of enhancing women’s access to justice. Yet justice cannot be reduced to legal reforms or improved access to courts.
Gender justice cannot be achieved in a world that allows occupation to persist without accountability, fuels wars, imposes austerity on debt-burdened societies, and continues to exhaust land and natural resources.
Gender justice is inseparable from the global economy, from sovereignty over resources, and from peoples’ right to self-determination.
On March 8, 1917, women textile workers in Petrograd took to the streets to protest hunger, war, and exploitation. The protests of working women began, and within days the Tsarist regime collapsed. This history reminds us that International Women’s Day was born out of political and social struggle against war and poverty.
Today, under these conditions, we ask the same question once again.
What kind of justice can be achieved in an unequal world?
Throughout the month of March, we open a discussion on the relationship between gender justice and war, between the global economy, debt, and austerity, and between care and climate justice.
Justice is not a celebratory slogan.
Justice is a question of power and the distribution of wealth and resources.
The question we pose today is clear:
What justice do we want?
And whom does this justice serve?