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Destruction of supply routes and health infrastructure is hampering women’s access to food, safety, and life-saving services
Date: Tuesday, 20 May 2025
[Press release]
Cairo – UN Women’s latest Gender Alert on Yemen reveals the devastating impact of intensified airstrikes on women and girls. It unpacks how renewed hostilities are dismantling what remains of essential services, displacing thousands, and compounding the risks faced by the most vulnerable including women and girls. The alert documents the spiraling consequences of recent bombardments on women’s survival, well-being, and rights, and calls for urgent international action to restore humanitarian access and invest in gender-responsive assistance.
Since early 2025, strikes on critical infrastructure, including Al Hudaydah port and Sana’a airport, have disrupted the delivery of food, fuel, medicine, and humanitarian aid. Health facilities, water networks, and civilian shelters have been damaged or destroyed, further constraining access to basic services. Women and girls are bearing the brunt of this devastation. With mobility restrictions, caregiving responsibilities, and discriminatory norms, women’s access to aid is becoming limited and their vulnerability is deepening as displacement surges and resources deplete.
New internal displacement has surged with over 6,000 persons becoming internally displaced. 26 per cent of affected households are headed by women who are forced to navigate displacement with limited or no income, security threats, and growing exposure to violence and exploitation. In total, an estimated 2.3 million women and girls are currently displaced across the country.
The Gender Alert also highlights the consequences of infrastructure destruction on health. Over 400 pregnant and lactating women and 9,600 children lost access to health care following the damage to four health facilities and one water reservoir. These figures point to a deepening crisis in a country already facing the highest maternal mortality rate in the region.
Due to fuel shortages and supply chain disruption, basic commodities, including menstrual hygiene supplies, are increasingly out of reach. UN Women estimates that approximately 1,600 menstruating women and girls who have been recently displaced require immediate access to hygiene items, with at least 40,000 sanitary pads needed monthly to uphold their dignity and well-being.
The report underscores how the breakdown of social and economic systems is driving a surge in gender-based violence, early marriage, and negative coping strategies such as begging, and coerced labour. Women and girls in displacement sites and airstrike-affected areas are especially at risk, as overcrowded shelters without adequate protection measures increase exposure to abuse and exploitation. One woman-led organization spoke of the psychological and financial strains on men as " triggers behind increased incidence of domestic violence”, with women unable to escape due to fear of airstrikes or social restrictions.
The closure of small businesses, informal markets, and female-led income-generating activities - such as small vendors, incense-making and tailoring - has further strained what was already a fragile foundation of women’s economic resilience. As inflation soars and livelihoods vanish, women heading households are forced to take on expanded caregiving roles with no support, while also absorbing the financial burden of providing food, shelter, and healthcare in a collapsing economy.
The alert is informed by data from humanitarian partners and displacement tracking systems, complemented by key informant interviews with 10 women-led organizations operating across Yemen. These organizations report severe funding gaps, restricted mobility, and increased demands for services they are ill-equipped to deliver under current conditions.
“The situation for women and girls in Yemen is deteriorating at an alarming rate. Numbers in the Gender Alert reflect a breaking point. The cumulative impact of displacement, poverty, violence, and the collapse of health and protection services must not be ignored,” said Dr. Moez Doraid, UN Women Regional Director a.i for the Arab States. “Investing in women’s safety, dignity, and leadership is a lifeline, not a luxury, in this crisis. We must act now to protect their rights, restore services, and prevent further suffering.”
UN Women and its partners call on the international community and humanitarian actors to urgently prioritize the restoration of aid delivery routes, scale up funding for gender-responsive services, and ensure that women-led organizations are fully included in humanitarian coordination, response and decision-making. The inclusion and leadership of women are essential to reaching those most affected and to delivering an effective, accountable and equitable response that leaves no one behind.
To read the full Gender Alert: https://arabstates.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2025/05/gender-alert-facing-crisis-upon-crisis-impact-of-airstrikes-on-women-and-girls-in-yemen
About UN Women
UN Women is the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. A global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide.
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