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NEW YORK CITY: Twenty-five years after the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which committed world leaders to advancing the inclusion of women in peace and security processes, a new UN report reveals a troubling reversal of progress.

While global military spending is surging and armed conflicts are intensifying, women are increasingly shut out of peace processes.

“Despite the promise and the engagement around Resolution 1325, military spending is at record levels, gender equality is under attack, and multilateralism is weakening,” said Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, the deputy executive director of UN Women.

“Last year, 87 percent of peace talks took place without a single woman at the table,” she said, at a time when the world is seeing more conflicts than at any time since the Second World War, with devastating consequences for women and girls.

According to the report, nearly 700 million women and girls now live within 50 kilometers of armed conflict, the highest number since the 1990s. Civilian casualties among women and children have quadrupled over the past two years, while conflict-related sexual violence has increased by 87 percent.

“Women and children are called ‘collateral damage’ — but it is death and suffering,” Gumbonzvanda said. “We are seeing more wars today than at any time since 1946.”

Despite mounting evidence that the participation of women ensures peace processes are more inclusive and lasting, the report highlights the continued marginalization of women in such negotiations. In 2024, for example, 87 percent of peace talks took place without a single female negotiator. Only 7 percent of negotiators and 14 percent of mediators were women.

“This exclusion at the table translates to exclusion in governance and power long after conflict ends,” said Sarah Hendriks, the director of UN Women’s Programme and Policy Division.

“The world is still choosing war over women — and women are paying the price.”

She noted that in conflict-affected countries, women hold only 18 percent of local government seats, about half the global average.

The consequences of exclusion, the report argues, are deadly. In Gaza alone in the past two years, women and girls have been killed at a rate of two per hour, Hendriks said.

The report also found that 58 percent of global maternal deaths now occur in only 29 crisis-affected countries, a number that is expected to rise as a result of shrinking access to reproductive healthcare and a global rollback of women’s rights.

UN Women warned that funding for women-led organizations, which are often at the front lines of peacebuilding efforts, is drying up. Only 0.4 percent of aid to conflict-affected countries reaches groups of this kind directly, and nearly half of the women’s organizations surveyed for the report said they expected to shut down within six months.

At the same time, the budget for the UN’s Peacebuilding Fund, long considered a model for gender-sensitive approaches, has been cut almost in half as donors shift funding toward militarization.

“Women-led networks that reduce violence are being left without support,” Hendriks said. “If these trends continue, we risk erasing two decades of progress.”

The report calls for binding targets for the participation of women in peace processes, the commitment of at least 1 percent of donor aid to women’s organizations during crises, and the redirection of resources from arms to peace-building efforts.

Global military expenditure now stands at $2.7 trillion, $2 trillion more than when Resolution 1325 was adopted. Hendriks described this as a “shocking figure,” adding that the amount is nine times what would be needed to provide universal social protection for women and girls in the world’s poorest countries.

“The heart of the WPS (Women, Peace and Security) agenda is not about making war safer for women and girls,” she said. “It is about ending wars once and for all.”

Gumbonzvanda told Arab News that the effects of war on women are not monolithic.

“The situation of a woman in a refugee camp is very different from that of a widow who has lost property, or a teacher still working under threat,” she said.

“We must understand the diverse realities of women — those living near landmines, those in informal settlements, or those providing healthcare under fire. This cannot be a linear, singular narrative.”

She also emphasized the value of multilateralism and shared learning across regions.

“Land-rights issues in Latin America can inform policies in Southern Africa,” Gumbonzvanda said. “The strength of Resolution 1325 lies in its global scope and collective learning.”

Hendriks told Arab News that one in four governments have identified a backlash against gender equality as a significant barrier to progress.

“Conflict acts as a magnifying glass for rights violations women face across contexts,” she said.

UN Women estimates that 151 million women and girls could be pushed into extreme poverty by 2030, and those in conflict zones are 7.7 times more likely to experience the most extreme forms of deprivation.

As the UN marks the 25th anniversary of Resolution 1325, and 30 years since the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action at the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women, UN Women said this current moment must become a turning point.

“Resolution 1325 remains one of the most celebrated milestones for the women’s peace movement,” Gumbonzvanda said.

“But 25 years on, women are still shut out of decisions on war and peace. That must change.”