Uprooted: Resilience in crisis

Forced to flee

Around the world, a record number of people have been forcibly displaced from their homes due to conflict, climate catastrophe, disasters and economic crisis. For the tens of millions of women and girls among them, the threat of abuse surges. Uprooted as they are, they risk falling prey to trafficking, sexual violence and harmful practices like child marriage.

Hear their stories

A woman sits on a park bench with her back to the camera. — The war in Ukraine forced Maria to turn to an abuser for help. © UNFPA Ukraine/Artem Nykyforov

Aisha* was 17 years old when she found herself alone, in the middle of war.

She had been living with her mother in Sudan’s capital city of Khartoum, but when her mother died of kidney failure in the spring of 2023, the teenager was left on her own.

Devastatingly, fighters in her area took notice. “Two armed men entered my room. One of them pressed his gun against my head while the other began taking off my clothes.”

On this year’s 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, UNFPA is drawing attention to the heightened risks of abuse faced by women and girls uprooted from their homes. Here, three displaced survivors of gender-based violence in conflict zones share their deeply personal journeys.

Drivers of displacement

Last year, the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, reported that more than 117 million people had been forcibly displaced due to conflict, violence, disasters and other crises. The majority are internally displaced – forced to flee their homes for more stable areas of their countries – with many unable ever to return. For millions of others across the world, grinding poverty, inequality and discrimination are driving them across border and over oceans in search of a better, safer life.

Although the drivers of displacement are varied, its effects, especially on women and girls, are too often the same: Heightened vulnerability to violence, poverty and abuse.

Click on the map below to learn about the fallout of migration and displacement for women and girls around the world.

The designations employed and the presentation of material on the map do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNFPA concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. Due to coding limitations, the wording across the indicators is standard, both in the global page and the individual country pages. The wording is applied homogeneously to all reporting offices and is by no means an endorsement or statement of recognition of sovereignty. A dotted line represents approximately the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir agreed upon by India and Pakistan. The final status of Jammu and Kashmir has not yet been agreed upon by the parties.

A dispute exists between the Governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning sovereignty over the Falkland Islands (Malvinas).

The boundaries and names shown and the designations used on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations.

Women on the front lines

Every woman and girl has the right to safety, no matter the context they are surviving.

Around the world, wherever crises occur, UNFPA works to shield women and girls from the worst effects of conflict, climate shocks and other catastrophes. And where they have survived gender-based violence, trafficking and harmful practices, UNFPA supports their access to essential health services, psychosocial counselling and justice.

UNFPA is assisted on this critical mission by partners on the ground, like the six exemplary heroes below. Read their stories.

Uprooted: Resilience in crisis