Protection & Access to Justice
The legal protection of women’s land and resource rights and physical protection from gender-based violence in natural resource use contexts are key to ensuring equitable recovery, economic growth, and human rights in conflict-affected settings. Women’s ability to secure and contest their land rights are particularly critical to protecting their productive assets.
However, women often do not have access or the capacity to protect their rights in court, facing complex and gender-biased legal landscapes. Furthermore, as conflict can increase resource scarcity and constrain access to resources, women often face an increased threat of sexual violence as they leave settlements to collect and use natural resources, such as water and firewood. This is often the case in camps for refugees and internally displaced people, where concentrated populations place great pressure on already limited resources. Due to gendered roles in resource use, women can also experience greater exposure to environmental contamination and pollution.
There is great need to better understand the risks women face when carrying out gendered natural resource management roles, to improve sensitivity to these risks in peacebuilding interventions, and to support women’s economic and social development in conflict-affected settings. To strengthen the legal protection of women’s rights and access to resources, programs must ensure that both men and women are aware of the legal structures to protect their rights, including law enforcement, courts, and other dispute resolution mechanisms. Legal aid programs and other measures to support the exercise of these rights are particularly important.
Measures to protect women from physical violence in natural resource contexts include: (1) ensuring that women have safe access or transportation to key resources, (2) ensuring equal representation and promote awareness of women’s rights among actors in security and conflict resolution processes, and (3) promoting simple technologies that reduce risks associated with resource use, such as fuel-efficient stoves that significantly reduce need for firewood. Ensuring the physical and legal security of women in these settings is crucial for their personal safety and health, as well as their ability to maintain sustainable livelihoods that depend on natural resources.
Resources
Pakistan: International Consultant, Technical Advisor, Trafficking in Persons Research and Capacity-Strengthening
Job
Project Context and Scope:
IOM Pakistan is expanding its counter-trafficking (CT) and migrant smuggling prevention portfolio by generating new evidence and building local capacity. Recent initiatives,…
Ecuador: Yachay Wasi Teaches Climate Lessons Through Indigenous Language and a Garden
International
In Ecuador, a small intercultural bilingual school called Yachay Wasi treats environmental education as a political project rooted in Indigenous languages, farming, and justice. In…
Gendered Dimensions of Climate-related Security Risks in the OSCE Area
Report
This report examines how climate change is exacerbating security risks across the OSCE region through gendered and intersectional pathways. Drawing on policy mapping and stakeholder…
Indonesia: The Long Struggle of Women Farmers to Halt a Zinc Mine in North Sumatra
International
SILIMA PUNGGA-PUNGGA DISTRICT, Indonesia — Rainim Purba first heard the rumor in 1996. Back then, in her mid-30s, villagers were saying a zinc mining company…
Pacific Islands: Climate Security in the Pacific: Emerging Trends, Priorities, and Solutions
International
Pacific Island countries are among those most affected by climate change. Rising sea levels, shifting rainfall patterns and increasing extreme weather events threaten land, livelihoods…
When the Smoke Clears: How Hybrid Warfare Exploits Gender Vulnerabilities in Climate Disasters
Spotlight
The hurricane passes. The wildfire is contained. The flood waters recede. Then the real fight begins.
We are beginning to understand how the vulnerabilities exposed in…
Haiti, The Impacts of Cash for Work on Food Security and Gender Equality: Impact Evaluation
Report
Haiti faces severe food insecurity and gender inequality, with nearly half the population lacking adequate food and women especially vulnerable. WFP’s Food Assistance for Assets…
Liberia: From Law to Reality: AWLN Champions Women’s Right to Own Land
International
CAREYSBURG — The African Women Leaders Network (AWLN) Liberia Chapter convened a landmark dialogue on Wednesday at Arjay Farms in Number 7, Kingsville, bringing together…
How Climate and Gender Shape Peace and Security: From Mandates to Meaningful Change
Blog
October 2025 marked twenty-five years since the landmark Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. Amid rising polarization, escalating conflicts, and the intensifying…
Gender is the Key to a Healthy Planet and People: Reflections from the Biodiversity-Health Press Conference at SBSTTA-27
Blog
Traditional health systems, rooted in centuries of empirical knowledge, reveal the interdependence between ecosystems and human health. However, women’s ecological and health-related knowledge has often…
Gender, Development, and Recognition of Anthropogenic Climate Change
Library
Climate change affects everyone – but not everyone understands it in the same way. Using survey data from a study of 103 countries and territories (n = 92,691)…
Afghanistan: UN Trust Fund Supports Women Livestock Farmers in Afghanistan’s Ghazni Province
International
The UN Afghanistan Trust Fund is helping women-headed households in Ghazni raise livestock, offering training and tools to support their livelihoods.
The UN Afghanistan Trust Fund…
The Philippines: DENR Exec Highlights Link Between Women Leaders and Environmental Protection
International
Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Undersecretary for Strategic Communications Marilou Erni emphasized that environmental protection and peacebuilding are deeply interconnected with women as…
UK: UK Announces Commitment to Advance Gender Equality in SA at G20
International
The UK pledges ZAR 18 million (£800,000) to South Africa’s Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) Fund. This will help more than 33,000 people through school-based…
Somalia: Land Grabbing Crisis Deepens in Mogadishu as Women and Children Bear the Brunt
International
A new wave of forced evictions and illegal land grabbing is devastating communities across Mogadishu, displacing thousands of residents — many of them women and…
Global: Indigenous Women and the Path to a Just Energy Transition: Voices from the Land
International
Key Ideas:
The implementation of the energy transition is unfolding at the expense of biodiversity and communities — particularly Indigenous women, says Galina Angarova and Daniela…
2025 Women are Sacred Conference
Event
About the Women Are Sacred Conference
Every two years, The National Indigenous Women's Resource Center proudly hosts the Women Are Sacred (WAS) Conference, one of the…
Integrating Gender Perspectives into Environmental Sustainability: Ecological Security and Post-Conflict Impacts in the Middle East
Library
Understanding the pressing need to incorporate gender views into environmental sustainability initiatives in Middle Eastern conflict-affected areas with a special focus on Iraq, Syria, and…
Energy Justice and Gender: Bridging Equity, Access, and Policy for Sustainable Development
Library
Clean energy transitions are not just about technology. They are also about people, equity, and justice. Women play a pivotal role in advancing sustainable energy…
Tejiendo Autogobierno y Armonía con la Madre Tierra: Propuesta de las mujeres indígenas Iku de Colombia para la Construcción de la Paz Ambiental
Spotlight
Voces de las mujeres indígenas Iku de la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia.
Las mujeres indígenas colombianas pueden ser parte del progreso global que promueve…
Weaving Self-Governance and Harmony with Mother Earth: Proposal of Iku Indigenous Women of Colombia for Building Environmental Peace
Spotlight
Voices from the Iku Indigenous women of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia.
Colombian Indigenous women can be part of the global progress advancing…
Securing Women’s Land Rights: A Pathway to Food Security
Blog
Despite playing a central role in food systems, women lack secure land rights in more than half of all countries, posing serious implications for food…
Canada: Assembly of First Nations Releases 2025 Progress Report on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Calls for Justice, Highlighting Human Trafficking Crisis
International
(June 3, 2025 – Unceded Algonquin Territory, Ottawa) – On the sixth anniversary of the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered…
Gender Inequality, Climate Change, and Armed Conflict: Exploring the Triple Challenges for Female Farmers in Northwestern Cameroon
Library
Armed conflict amidst climate challenges significantly impacts on men and women in sub-Saharan Africa. In dominantly agrarian communities, climate vulnerability aggravates food insecurity, especially for…
Global Survey of Women Building Peace and Security
Announcement
Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security is working to build a data set of information about the work of women peacebuilders around the world…
Nigeria: NGO Launches Project to Empower Women in Peacebuilding, Environmental Protection
International
A non-profit organization in Abuja, the Ark and Rainbow Development Foundation (ARDF), has introduced the SHAPPE Project, an initiative aimed at empowering women and youth…
Gender-Based Violence as a Barrier to Women Rights towards Socio-environmental Sustainability
Library
This study provides an exhaustive analysis of the intersection between gender-based violence and environmental sustainability, focusing on the Colombian experience, particularly within the context of…
Women Building Peace
Library
This volume looks back at a wealth of women’s peacebuilding practice documented by Accord since 1998. Case studies from Cambodia, Sierra Leone, northern Uganda, Papua…
Ensuring African Women’s Access to Justice: Engendering Rights for Poverty Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa
Library
About half of the people of Sub-Saharan Africa live below the poverty line, and 80 per cent of them are women. Their access to justice…
Honduras: Violence, Land Conflicts, Corruption and Impunity Defy Human Rights
International
Persistent violence, including gender-based violence, land conflicts and impunity are among the most serious human rights challenges in Honduras, the UN High Commissioner for Human…