Women, Conflict and Insecurity: Femicides and Democratic Backsliding, 25 Years After Women, Peace and Security

Bianca Orfila-Molinet

Introduction

The year 2025 marks the 25th anniversary of the United Nations’ landmark Security Council Resolution 1325, more commonly referred to as Women, Peace and Security. Many have heralded the resolution as a milestone in global efforts for women’s rights, but others continue to question its contributions to gender equality movements. Skeptics have argued that the resolutions’ real-life applications have been minute, few, and implicitly flawed. To examine Resolution 1325’s impact in 2025, it is crucial to cast a keen eye on rates of femicide, violence against women, and the prevalence of anti-feminist ideologies. Furthermore, as this trend of violence continues, so too do the patterns of breaking down democratic institutions, figures, and long-standing traditions. 

Women, Peace and Security: Fact or Fiction?

The United Nations formally adopted Security Council Resolution 1325, Women, Peace and Security, in October 2000. It serves as an outline composed of legislative and societal actions that governments can take to protect and promote women and girls. In it, the UN acknowledged the fact that women and girls are often targets of violence and are frequently excluded from participation in conflict resolution processes. The resolution encourages actions to be taken by member states in the form of increasing female representation in government, peacekeeping, and conflict areas, as well as including gender perspectives in ideological frameworks going forward. The UN substantiated these frameworks for gender equality-based legislation by implementing training guidelines to emphasize women’s roles in peacekeeping, security, and negotiation attempts. Moreover, Women, Peace and Security recognized the difference in treatment and effectiveness of peacekeeping entities after conflict, resolving that even after a conflict is officially concluded, women and girls face rates of violence that are differentiated and higher than those of men and boys. 

While this resolution was intended to mark an astounding victory for women’s rights activists worldwide, its quarter-century anniversary brings questions to light about its effectiveness. For instance, critics argue that the resolution is too mild to solve the centuries-old problems women and girls face in conflict. In recent years, data has reported that over 15% of women in the world lived within approximately 30 miles (50 km) of conflict in 2022, an increase of more than double since 1990. Furthermore, Women, Peace and Security’s efforts to include women in leadership and administrative roles in peacekeeping have gone unseen. While the UN is the main advocate for Resolution 1325, the organization has not seen a female Secretary-General since its creation in 1945–an 80-year absence of female leadership. Critics argue that states’ failure to implement the guidelines from Women, Peace and Security undermines the resolution. Because member states decide if and how to enforce UN resolutions, implementation can vary widely and cause an imbalance in effectiveness. 

Femicide in Modern Day

The UN defines femicide as referring to all types of gender-related killings of women and girls. This definition can be complicated and extremely nuanced when utilized as a legislative guide. Because of the vague nature of the definition, it is important to create criteria that successfully identify when a killing is identified as gender-based. A homicide can be classified as being influenced by gender when the action results from the continual oppression of women and girls. Examples of killings that would be considered “femicide” include, but are not limited to, homicides resulting from intimate partner violence, murder following rape, “honor killings,” dowry-related murders, killings of women accused of witchcraft, gender-motivated killings associated with armed conflict or gangs, and deaths resulting from trafficking and other forms of organized crime. 

Femicide is not an uncommon issue; in fact, a report released by UN Women and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime stated that every day, more than 133 women and girls are killed by someone in their own family. Moreover, the same report published astonishing numbers, stating that from 2018 to 2022, the United States, Mexico, and Brazil all saw a rising trend in gender-related killings of women and girls. The UN states that one woman is killed every ten minutes in the world. 

The gender-based killings in Kenya highlight the femicide problem. In 2024, Kenyan women started a movement to bring attention to the high rates of femicide in their country. After the killings of 21 Kenyan women in January of that year, protests railed the country as people took to the streets to denounce the government’s avoidance of the topic of femicide. Hashtags like #StopKillingUs, #EndFemicideKe, and #TotalShutDownKE trended on social media as symbols of resistance. Additionally, the Africa Data Hub has found an increase of almost 20 women killed in Africa per year for any reason since 2018 and an overall increase in gender-related killings. 

Gender-based violence, or GBV, is also visible in other ways. Similarly, the UN itself admonishes that sexual violence is “devastatingly pervasive,” with World Health Organization data indicating that one in three women experiences physical or emotional violence by both partners and non-partners in their lifetime. Continual violence against women can also be seen in cases of child molestation and rape. UNICEF identifies that one in eight girls or women alive in the world today experience rape or sexual assault before the age of 18. This extensive history of violence against women, combined with the current reality of continual violence, shows that femicide is a topic of the present, not the past.

Democratic Institutions Debilitated

The concept of democratic backsliding refers to a phenomenon that consists of the steady erosion, or dismantling, of a state’s democratic customs and institutions and is usually aligned with far-right ideologies. The rise of right-wing ideologies has become more prevalent all over the world, notably in countries like Italy, Brazil, France, and many others. The topics of femicide and democratic backsliding may not seem intertwined, but when a country cannot protect its women, it cannot protect its democracy. This can be seen in the 2020 publication by UN Women, where democratic backsliding is being identified by the elimination of gender-inclusive ideologies and frameworks. As states undermine previously established norms of gender equality, their respective democracies deteriorate due to the loss of accountability and stability.

For example, in Poland, the ending of the in vitro fertilization (IVF) programs, the elimination of emergency contraceptive legislation, and the proposal of an all-encompassing ban on abortion in 2015 and 2016 led to public upheaval. Despite the previous government’s promises to address violence against women, the corrosive policies that were implemented affected the government’s plan to create policies to combat violence against women. The country’s official year of democratization was 1989, but Poland has since been recognized as a state with major democratic backsliding issues. Alongside anti-feminist policies, the state also implemented illiberal policies such as weakening checks and balances through the judicial system, pressuring media outlets to publish pro-government stories, and replacing leadership teams in the country’s public companies. Poland’s case shows that anti-feminist and anti-democratic policies go hand in hand. Femicide in Poland is also a prevalent issue. From 2016, when new gender-exclusive legislation was passed, to 2018, Poland saw an increase of approximately 137% in femicide. In 2022, women represented 34% of intentional homicides in the state. 

Hungary serves as yet another example of democratic backsliding through repeals of gender-inclusive policy. Another example of this rests in the case of Hungary. Hungary, like Poland, achieved democracy in 1989 but has faced problems with its political system since. In fact, in an article published in the Loch Johnson Society Editorial, Claire Scafidi wrote, “In 2011, Hungary created a new Constitution that redrew legislative districts, cut parliamentary seats from 386 to 199, and turned the executive power into an autocracy.” This has been accompanied by reductions in gender-aware policies and erosion of pre-existing feminist policy. For instance, the first policy changes implemented in 2010 onward revolved around legislation removing gender-sensitive articles from databases, no-excuse anti-abortion policies, the concept of equal pay for men and women, as well as standardizing marriage as entirely heterosexual. These illiberal policies, as well as others presented in the 2011 Hungarian Constitution, mark a pattern of anti-democratic policies. Changes in policy standards in Hungary correlate with rising issues of femicide and gender-based violence. Around 54% of women in Hungary state that they have experienced physical, psychological, or sexual abuse by a partner, which is the highest rate in the European Union. Although Hungary does not have an official legal definition for femicide, third-party measurements estimate that femicide rates have grown since the state adopted anti-democratic legislation.

Conclusion & Future Implications

The connections between femicide, GBV, and democratic backsliding can be argued further. In the 25 years since its creation, the United Nations Security Council Resolution on Women, Peace and Security has paved the way for legislation regarding gender equality. However, this pavement has not been utilized in the way the original authors had intended, leading to inadequate implementation of policies and resulting in negative consequences. The historic resolution’s supporting legislation is still too weak, some argue, to be put forth realistically in a changing world. This world that is growing now is built on far-right, anti-democratic ideologies. These ideologies rebuke the implementation of gender equality legislation, and UNSCR 1325 is overshadowed by the looming threat of democratic backsliding. As this problem persists, so too do femicide rates all over the globe. As is the case in Hungary, Poland, and Kenya, when a government reduces its citizens’ access to democratic institutions, femicide and GBV rates increase along with it. Going forward, it is essential to address conflict resolution and peacekeeping efforts through a lens that is focused on gender equality, maintaining democratic institutions, and uplifting women and girls.