Oxfam logo
The Future is Equal
Oxfam logo in green

women

25 years of UN promises to elevate and strengthen Palestinian women’s voices in peacebuilding have failed, says Oxfam

UN member states have wasted 25 years of potential by largely ignoring the crucial role that Palestinian women and girls should have played in building peace in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT), says Oxfam

In a new report, ‘Arming Injustice with Impunity’, published in the wake of the October 31 anniversary marking 25 years since the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 was adopted and the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda, Oxfam says that the UN’s initiative has not only failed Palestinian women, but has reinforced the status quo by failing to confront the root causes of violence: Israel’s illegal occupation and militarization, and the international
community’s complicity in selling arms and failing to hold Israel to account.

The WPS Agenda calls for women’s full participation in peace processes, protection from violence, and gender-responsive approaches to conflict prevention and recovery. While widely endorsed, its implementation has often been narrowed and inconsistent, particularly in contexts of prolonged occupation and systemic injustice.

Oxfam’s report, based on research conducted through consultation with partners and specialists in the field, outlines the devastating impacts upon women of Israel’s illegal occupation. In Gaza, almost 70,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 170,000 injured since October 2023, with women and children making up the majority of the casualties. Ninety percent of the population has been displaced, with Gaza left in ruins. Women face disproportionate burdens from the
collapse of infrastructure, healthcare systems, denial of maternal care, and increased exposure to trauma, starvation, and gender-based violence.

These harms extend beyond the battlefield: Palestinian women in detention have also been subjected to systematic abuse, including sexual and gender-based violence, which UN investigations have found may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In the West Bank, armed settler attacks – often backed by Israeli forces – have led to sexual harassment, threats of rape, and destruction of homes and schools. Women and girls live in fear, leading to school dropouts, miscarriages, and long-term psychological harm. Women human rights defenders face detention and repression, while internal patriarchal structures, exacerbated by militarization and unlawful occupation, further marginalize women’s
participation in political and public life.

Despite these challenges, Palestinian women-led civil society organizations continue to play key roles in providing education, protection support, and advocacy. However, the report criticizes the international community’s failure to uphold the WPS Agenda’s core commitments. States continuing to sell arms and militarily cooperating with Israel undermine their global commitments to women’s rights, gender equality and peace.

While the Palestinian Authority (PA) has adopted National Action Plans (NAPs) on WPS, their implementation is hindered by political fragmentation, lack of funding and lack of political will.

Originally envisioned to challenge power structures and centre women in peacebuilding, the WPS agenda in the OPT has been narrowed by militarized approaches and political fragmentation, that overlook the root causes that prevent full gender equality, protection, participation and justice, Oxfam says.

Oxfam believes that the WPS Agenda should return to its core: confronting militarism, enforcing international law, and prioritizing gender justice. For Palestinian women, peace requires dismantling Israel’s unlawful occupation, restoring justice and accountability and ensuring their
voices are central in shaping a just and lasting future.

For further details contact: [email protected]

Killer facts:

  • Almost 70,000 Palestinians killed and 170,000 injured in Gaza since October 2023 — the majority being women and children.

  • With 90% of Gaza’s population forcibly displaced, with no safe zones remaining, women face trauma, humiliation, and increased vulnerability to GBV.

  • Healthcare collapse: hospitals bombed, health workers killed, and maternal care denied.

  • Armed settlers commit gendered crimes including sexual harassment and threats of rape.

  • Women human rights defenders face arbitrary detention without charge or trial.

  • Civil society groups provide vital support but face severe restrictions under occupation.

  • The WPS Agenda has failed to address militarization and occupation in the oPt.

  • In a context of genocide and unlawful occupation, arms-transfers to Israel have played a part in undermining global commitments to gender equality and peace.

Notes to Editors:

The full report, Arming Injustice with Impunity: How Support for Israel’s illegal occupation and militarization undermines States’ commitments to gender equality and the WPS Agenda, is here

Another recently published Oxfam report on WPS, Beyond Rhetoric – Feminist Leadership for a Transformative Women, Peace and Security Agenda at 25 is here:

The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda was established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 in 2000. It was the first resolution to formally recognize the unique impact of conflict on women and girls, and the critical role they play in peacebuilding and conflict prevention. The agenda is built around four key pillars: prevention, protection, participation, and relief and recovery.

Palestinian women face what has been described as ‘double jeopardy’: the combined impact of Israel’s prolonged military occupation and entrenched patriarchal laws and norms within Palestinian society. Discriminatory legal frameworks—many of which predate 1967—continue to restrict women’s rights in areas such as marriage, mobility, access to healthcare, and political participation. These are further compounded by the extreme challenges presented by Israel’s illegal occupation, including violence, displacement, and restrictions on movement. One particularly harrowing dimension is the treatment of Palestinian women in detention. According to a March 2025 report by the UN Commission of Inquiry, Israeli detention practices are marked by widespread and systematic abuse, including sexual and gender-based violence, which has intensified significantly since 7 October 2023. Women and girls have reported being subjected to forced nudity, threats of sexual violence including rape, and physical assault of a sexual nature during interrogations and searches. The Commission concluded that such acts amount to war crimes—including outrages upon personal dignity and inhuman treatment—and crimes against
humanity, including torture. It further found that these abuses reflect an intentional policy aimed at humiliating and degrading Palestinian detainees through sexual, reproductive, and other forms of gender-based violence, observed across multiple facilities and transit locations.

Contact information:

For more information, please contact: [email protected]

Arming Injustice with Impunity – How support for Israel’s illegal occupation and militarization undermines States’ commitments to gender equality and the WPS Agenda

Twenty-five years after the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) adopted the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda, women in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) have no peace and no security. The agenda promised a new era of elevating women’s voices in conflict and peacebuilding, a transformative vision of gender equality and feminist peace. But the reality for Palestinian women and girls has been daily, brutal violence for decades under Israel’s prolonged illegal occupation, culminating in the genocide we are witnessing today. Indeed, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women described the situation in Gaza as an unfolding ‘femi-genocide’ due to the crimes inflicted on women and girls by Israeli forces.

The briefing paper highlights how the WPS Agenda has failed to confront two major obstacles to peace for Palestinian women: the arming of Israel and militarization; and the unlawful occupation of the OPT which, sustained by international support and a lack of accountability, continues to erode Palestinian women and girls’ rights, protection, and participation in political and public life. It notes that the WPS agenda has at times been understood in relatively narrow terms and calls for States signed up to the agenda to take a wider lens and address the broader political, military and legal context that disproportionately impacts Palestinian women and girls.

Notes to Editors:

Download Arming Injustice with Impunity report here.

Contact information:

For more information, please contact: [email protected]

25 years on from UN pledge, local women’s rights organisations and peacebuilders get just 0.1% of aid as donors pour billions into arms

The same governments that pledged support in 2000 to the UN’s flagship resolution on “Women, Peace and Security” (WPS) have since spent 25 years paying it lip-service, according to a new Oxfam report today that reviews its progress.

The report called “Beyond Rhetoric” shows that while military spending has risen by $1.5 trillion in 84 countries in 2024, aid for gender equality and peace fell by 7.1%. Women’s organizations are now getting less than half a cent of every dollar of aid.

Amina Hersi, Oxfam’s Head of Gender, Rights and Justice, said: “Feminist-led peace hasn’t failed – it has been betrayed”.

“A generation after world leaders promised women a seat at the table, the same powerful states that authored the blueprint have simply not backed it properly. Women peacebuilders are being left to nurture shattered communities, shouldering most of the responsibility but without enough political space or financial backing to do so.”

Oxfam warns that promises made toward securing women’s leadership in peace and security building are collapsing.

Case studies from Colombia, the DRC, the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), and South Sudan find that national action plans remain mostly empty pledges, even as rising militarization means that important women rights actors and peacebuilders become further sidelined.

NATO members alone have increased defence spending by $159 billion over the past decade, while global funding for gender-responsive peace has flatlined and is now in freefall.

The same NATO powers touting feminist foreign policies and National Action Plans on WPS —including Canada, the US, the UK and France — along with the UN Security Council, have largely failed to act in the face of atrocities in the DRC, the OPT, South Sudan and beyond.

Funding for global gender, conflict, peace and security aid only accounts for just 2.6 per cent ($7.5 billion) of total ODA ($289 billion). Of the $148 million in global gender, peace and security aid that went to women’s rights in 2023, only $4.7 million – 3.1% – actually reached local women rights organisations. More starkly, between 2014 and 2023, just 0.1 per cent of overall ODA reached women’s rights and women-led organisations directly; while cuts in 2025 threaten to close almost half of such organisations in crisis settings within months.

Attacks on women and girls during conflicts have soared. Verified cases of conflict-related sexual violence rose by 50% in 2023 while the incidence of grave violations against girls increased 35%. The report also highlights:

  • In Colombia, over 180 women human rights defenders were killed in 2023 alone, and the gender provisions in its own peace accord remain among the least implemented.

  • In DRC, only 13% of parliamentary seats are held by women, and there is evidence of high levels of conflict related sexual and gender-based violence and displacement fuelled by mineral extraction and widespread militarisation and conflict.

  • In OPT, Israel’s genocide in Gaza and violent repression in the West Bank, on top of decades of illegal occupation, has resulted in severe violations of the rights and lives of women. These violations include sexual and gender-based violence perpetrated by Israeli forces, as well as restrictions imposed by Israeli authorities, such as military checkpoints and the destruction of health infrastructure, that have denied women access to essential reproductive healthcare and violated their reproductive rights.

  • In South Sudan, women’s 35% political quota has not translated into genuine influence, amid repression and pervasive sexual and gender-based violence used as a weapon of war.  

“Feminist peace is a political imperative, not an optional extra. Unless governments change course now, the WPS agenda will be remembered as just another broken promise,” said Hersi.

“The real contribution of the WPS agenda is not only about including women in peace processes, but instead a fundamental challenge to transform unequal power structures. This is a process that continues to be led from the ground by feminist actors, often at great personal risk.”

Following the UN Security Council’s Annual Open Debate on Women Peace and Security, Oxfam is calling for member states to deliver a radical reset and redirect some of their military spending toward peacebuilding.

They should guarantee that at least half of WPS funding goes directly to grassroots women’s rights organisations. They should also do more to enforce accountability for those responsible for genocide, war crimes and sexual and gender-based violence.

“The WPS agenda remains an essential tool for women peacebuilders, women’s rights and feminist actors,” Hersi said.

“Whether it survives as a force for justice depends on the global community backing its principles with the resources and political will to make that potential real. Without this happening, the 25th anniversary of the UN Resolution on Women, Peace and Security will be a mark of its decline, not its maturity.”

Notes to the editor

Contact information:

Rachel Schaevitz, Head of Communications, Media & Advocacy: [email protected]  

Climate Justice for Women in Timor-Leste

Oxfam has published a new report: “Climate Justice for Women in Timor-Leste“

Timor-Leste is one of the most climate-vulnerable nations in the world, facing increasingly intense rainfall, cyclones, floods, and droughts. These climate impacts are not only devastating rural livelihoods, food systems, and water security, but are also widening gender inequalities and deepening poverty. Women across the country—especially those in remote and marginalised communities—are bearing the brunt of climate disasters, with limited access to recovery resources, secure land, and decision-making power.

In this context, Oxfam in Timor-Leste has released a vital new report: Climate Justice for Women in Timor-Leste: Tracking Climate Finance to Build Resilience. The report exposes a critical gap in how climate finance is currently distributed. Despite repeated global and national commitments to gender equality, only 2.4% of climate finance in Timor-Leste supports projects that prioritise gender equality. Even more concerning, just 0.4% of climate funding directly supports women’s organisations or cooperatives.

This lack of targeted investment has serious consequences. Women are at the heart of climate resilience in Timor-Leste—they manage agroforestry, lead savings groups, and organise community disaster preparedness. Yet their work is underfunded, underrecognised, and often excluded from climate policy and finance decisions. Without change, climate finance risks reinforcing the very inequalities it should be addressing.

The report also maps the complex network of climate finance decision-makers in the country, from the National Designated Authority and the Ministry of Tourism and Environment, to international donors such as the Green Climate Fund and multilateral development banks. It highlights the lack of transparency and accessible information around climate finance flows, making it nearly impossible for communities—and especially women—to track whether funds are actually reaching those most affected by climate impacts.

Importantly, the report provides a roadmap for change. It calls on bilateral partners, development banks, and the Timorese government to commit a greater share of climate finance to gender equality, create mechanisms to fund women-led initiatives, and improve public transparency through platforms available in Tetun. Ensuring that climate finance supports women’s rights is not only a matter of justice—it is a pathway to more effective, inclusive, and sustainable climate solutions.

This analysis was conducted under the Kōtui Programme, a regional initiative led by Oxfam Aotearoa with support from the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Kōtui aims to improve gender equality and women’s access to resources that enhance their resilience and wellbeing in the face of climate change.

In a time when climate finance must become more equitable and accountable, Climate Justice for Women in Timor-Leste serves as both a warning and a guide. It reminds us that empowering women is not just a side goal of climate action—it is central to building lasting resilience for all.

Read the report here. 

Women’s Experiences of Climate Change Impacts in Timor-Leste

Oxfam has published a new report: “Women’s Experiences of Climate Change Impacts in Timor-Leste”

Across Timor-Leste, women are on the frontlines of the climate crisis—grappling with the intensifying impacts of cyclones, floods, droughts, and environmental degradation. A new report, Women’s Experiences of Climate Change Impacts in Timor-Leste, produced by Oxfam in Timor-Leste in partnership with Alumni Parlamentu Foinsa’e Timor-Leste (APFTL) and Core Group Transparency (CGT), sheds light on the harsh realities and invisible burdens faced by women—especially those in rural communities in Dili, Ermera, and Manatuto.

The findings show that climate change is not gender neutral. Women face compounded vulnerabilities, often balancing the responsibilities of caregiving, food production, and economic recovery in the wake of disasters. Cyclone Seroja in 2021 exemplified the destructive force of climate events, displacing thousands, damaging farmland, and plunging families into long-term insecurity. Women like Manuela Rosario Soares and Teresa Pereira shared moving accounts of how they navigated crises with resilience, despite minimal institutional support.

The report also documents the psychological toll on women, the heightened risks of gender-based violence during displacement, and the challenges women with disabilities face in emergency situations. Structural barriers—such as insecure land tenure, discrimination, and exclusion from decision-making—further intensify these risks. For example, many women are unable to access recovery subsidies because land titles are often held by men, or because they live in informal or prohibited areas.

Yet, despite these challenges, women emerge as powerful agents of resilience. The report highlights how women form savings groups, manage agroforestry initiatives, organize disaster preparedness plans, and step into leadership roles. These contributions are often overlooked, under-resourced, or unsupported by formal systems. Even as women demonstrate leadership and adaptability, they continue to face obstacles accessing climate finance, infrastructure, and platforms for decision-making.

In response, the report calls for stronger gender-responsive policies, inclusive planning processes, and direct investment in women-led initiatives. It emphasizes that to truly build climate resilience in Timor-Leste, the unique knowledge, roles, and needs of women must be recognized and supported at all levels—from government to community-based organizations.

This research is part of the Kōtui Programme, a partnership between Oxfam Aotearoa and the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Kōtui aims to strengthen the resilience, wellbeing, and agency of women in the face of climate breakdown and disaster, particularly for those facing multiple layers of marginalization.

Women’s Experiences of Climate Change Impacts in Timor-Leste is not only a report—it is a testament to the strength of Timorese women and a call to action to build a more just and inclusive response to the climate crisis.

Read the report here. 

MEDIA ADVISORY: New paper on exploitation of Palestinian women working in illegal Israeli settlements

Paper released as West Bank sees escalations in Israeli military and settler violence, killings, injuries, forced displacements, residential demolitions and movement restrictions.

Oxfam has released a briefing paper Palestinian Women Working in Illegal Israeli Settlements: Dependencies, Exploitation, and Opportunity Costs, shedding light on the harrowing daily realities faced by many vulnerable Palestinian women employed in exploitative and harsh conditions in illegal Israeli settlements, where their rights are being systematically violated. 

The paper, which draws on data and case studies from two key reports by Oxfam’s partners: the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS) and the Mother School Society (MSS), examines the lives of women working in illegal Israeli settlements, highlighting the emotional, physical, economic and social consequences of this growing trend, and the ways in which expanding settlements continue to devastate Palestinian livelihoods, particularly in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem).  

Interviewed women spoke of being forced to work without contracts, sometimes in hazardous working conditions, over long hours, with some being subjected to harassment.   

More than 6,500 Palestinian women currently work in Israeli settlements, primarily in agriculture (65.5%) and manufacturing (33.3%), with the number steadily increasing.  

Key findings of the report include: 

  • No contracts: The vast majority of women working in Israeli settlements (94%) do not have written contracts, leaving them acutely vulnerable to financial and labor exploitation and unable to address violations of their rights.

  • Hazardous working conditions: According to Oxfam’s partner, Mother School Society’s survey of Palestinian women, a staggering 93% of these women reported working in unhealthy and unsafe conditions. Examples include working in fields exposed to hazardous pesticides without safety regulations or protective equipment.

  • Long hours: Over 71% of women indicated long working hours as a major burden and challenge both for themselves and their families. A significant portion of them said they worked two shifts, morning and evening, to earn enough money, resulting in chronic mental and physical stress and exhaustion.

  • Job Insecurity: Many women reported having to face long and costly commutes, a lack of health insurance and injury compensation. Many also lacked Israeli-approved work permits, which are required to legally access jobs in settlements, leaving them more vulnerable to exploitation and sudden dismissal.

  • Harassment: Somen women reported wage theft and employees withholding promised benefits, making racial discriminations, as well as harassment, sexual assault, sexual harrassment and physical violence. 

43-year-old Dalal, said: 

“I’ve been working in the settlement for 8 years, I’m the sole provider for my family. Financially, things are tough and my husband is unemployed. If no-one works, who will take care of the household expenses? We only earn 90 shekels a day ($24), what can you buy with that?” 

Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s OPTI Policy Lead, said:  

“We’re urging the international community to end the exploitative employment of Palestinian women in these settlements and uphold their rights and protections.  

“Palestinians living in the West Bank are growing increasingly dependent on settlements for jobs but this is less by choice and more the result of decades of Israeli policies that have eroded the Palestinian economy. Israeli settlement expansion, land confiscation, and restrictions on Palestinian trade, movement, and development have created conditions of poverty and unemployment, forcing more Palestinian women into exploitative labor.  The international community must act to dismantle these injustices and ensure Palestinian women have access to dignified and lawful employment within their own economy.” 

The report calls for assurances of Palestinians’ access to land and resources, ending the exploitation of their labor, and enabling them to build resilient local economies. Only by addressing these root causes and holding the Government of Israel accountable for its actions can Palestinians reclaim their rights to dignified work, economic security, and self-determination. 

Ending the system of oppression requires a just and urgent solution – dismantling the illegal settlements and ending the occupation. 

Notes to editors

Contact information:

For more information, please contact: [email protected]