Despite two decades of United Nations (UN) reform agendas, women in conflict and post-conflict settings continue to face a pervasive lack of protection that leaves them vulnerable to recurring threats such as sexual violence, forced displacement and political exclusion. Countries like Sudan, South Sudan or the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) show this especially clearly. The UN’s language has become more progressive, the documents are more expansive and the commitments are increasingly more ambitious, but the lived realities of many women globally reflect only a limited substantive change. The organisation continues to operate in ways that prioritise its own reputation and the political interests of its member states over the immediate safety and protection of civilians.
The Illusion of Gender Mainstreaming
The UN often repeats the idea of “gender mainstreaming” (UN ECOSOC, 1997), which was supposed to make every part of peace and security policy sensitive to gender issues. Because gender mainstreaming is often framed as everyone’s task, accountability may become blurred resulting in box-ticking (“gender included”) rather than demonstrable results. Feminist scholars like Cynthia Enloe (2014) and Laura J. Shepherd (2011) argue that mainstreaming became more of a ritual than an actual tool of change. For example, UNIFIL’s Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Action Plan compiled gender-mainstreaming inputs across mission components, yet an OIOS audit found that monitoring forms varied in quality and the process did not adequately track execution—creating space for reporting activity (“gender included”) without clear evidence of results.
Gender advisers inside missions are often asked to deliver impact with too little money and too little institutional authority: they produce assessments and recommendations, yet rarely have the leverage to shape operational planning where decisions are actually made. What began as a feminist demand for structural change has, in practice, started to function like a shield, allowing the UN to claim it “did gender” while leaving intact the deeper constraints that stall real progress. The result is a procedural form of gender work that is auditable, reportable and institutionally safe, but in which “gender” becomes an administrative checkpoint rather than a means of redistributing resources, authority and operational priorities.
Patriarchal Power and the Peacekeeping Paradox
UN peacekeeping is one of the organisation’s most recognisable activities, deployed to help stabilise conflict-affected areas (UN Peacekeeping Operations, 2008, chp. 1.1); its responsibilities include monitoring ceasefires, protecting civilians and supporting the conditions for political transition and humanitarian access (UN Peacekeeping Operations, 2008, chp. 2.3). Its visibility is a double-edged sword: it is also where the UN’s failures become painfully visible.
There have been multiple documented cases of sexual exploitation and abuse committed not by armed groups, but by UN peacekeepers themselves. Allegations have emerged across missions in Haiti, South Sudan and the DRC, among others. This creates a stark and troubling contradiction: those deployed under a protection mandate have, at times, been accused of violating the very civilians they are meant to safeguard.
Accountability is often slow and uneven. Investigations can take years and frequently depend on the willingness of troop-contributing countries to cooperate, particularly where prosecutions would be reputationally or politically costly (UN Secretary-General, 2025, chp. VIII). The result is that relatively few perpetrators face meaningful consequences, reinforcing an environment in which institutional credibility can appear to matter more than victims’ dignity. For women living in internally displaced person (IDP) camps, “protection” can therefore become conditional, shaped by the conduct of individual soldiers and the likelihood of follow-through, rather than experienced as a reliable guarantee grounded in human rights.
Bureaucratic Distance and Local Silencing
A big part of the UN’s problem comes from the distance between headquarters and field realities. Most political decisions are made far away from the communities that are affected by them. Even missions that speak a lot about “local ownership” often involve women only symbolically. For example, during the transition of the UNAMID mission to the UNITAMS mission in Sudan, many local women’s groups lost direct channels of communication with the mission, despite being the ones documenting abuses for years (Khair, 2024).
Women from conflict zones are invited to consultations, but very often their role is limited to providing testimony or a short perspective during a workshop (Ross, 2022, p. 29; UN Women, 2015, p. 306). They rarely have any real influence on mandates, budgets or priorities. Their knowledge becomes something the UN collects, not something it follows. So, they remain framed as victims, even when they have experience that could reshape local security strategies.
The Political Economy of Gender Failure
It is impossible to ignore the economic side of the problem. Gender-related programmes usually get less than 1% of mission budgets (UN Women, 2023). Even that 1% often depends on voluntary contributions, which can disappear when donor countries change priorities. Meanwhile, military logistics, equipment and large contracts take up most of the money.
But the political economy goes deeper. The missions are shaped by the political interests of powerful states, especially the permanent five members of the Security Council. When mandates are negotiated, gender provisions are often softened to avoid disagreements. The WPS agenda looks strong in New York conference rooms, but becomes very thin by the time it reaches the field. This leads to what some call “austerity feminism”: gender equality presented as an idea, but not as essential—reframed through a narrow, instrumental “business lens” (Murphy & Cullen, 2018, p. 8). Humanitarian funding remains heavily intermediated: in 2023, Grand Bargain donors channelled most funding directly to multilateral institutions (58%) and international NGOs (23%), while local and national actors received around 0.6% directly (Development Initiatives, 2024). Women-led and women’s rights organisations face persistent structural barriers to direct financing in crises, and broader funding pipelines often bypass them altogether.
The UN’s economic structures also reinforce global inequalities. Huge amounts of money go to international NGOs and contractors, mostly from the Global North, while local women’s groups struggle to get even the smallest funding (UN Women, 2023). The UN ends up reproducing the same hierarchies it claims to challenge.
Accountability Without Teeth
When something goes wrong, the UN activates its usual set of tools: statements, task forces, new guidelines. These actions create an impression of movement but rarely produce justice. Accountability depends heavily on member states, which means it is inconsistent and often politically negotiated. Whistleblowers face risks, and victims of sexual abuse sometimes never learn the outcome of their own cases. As Susan A. Notar (2006) notes, even publishing the names of perpetrators requires state consent. Without independent investigative mechanisms, accountability is mostly symbolic. It looks like action from the outside, but the internal structure stays the same.
Toward Structural Reform
Real reform would require more than another policy document. Power would have to move downward toward local organisations, especially women’s groups, who already understand the conflict dynamics far better than external actors (UN Women, 2016, p. 24-27). Missions should include them not only in consultations but in leadership roles. Funding for gender work should come from assessed contributions, not optional donations. And investigations of abuse should be carried out by bodies that member states cannot block. This also means rethinking the UN’s assumption that expertise comes from international staff. In reality, women in these contexts often know exactly what protection should look like. The UN needs to treat them not as sources of data but as partners with agency (UN Women, 2016).
Conclusion
The UN’s failures towards women in conflict zones do not come from lack of awareness or bad intentions — they come from the way the organisation is structured. A system built on state authority, diplomatic immunity and layers of bureaucracy will always prioritise stability and appearance over individual safety. Gender desks, WPS reports and policy statements can create the impression that progress is being made, but conditions on the ground often change only slowly.
If the UN wants to be taken seriously by the women it claims to protect, it needs to shift power, not vocabulary. Local organisations must be able to shape mandates, not just comment on them. Accountability has to be real, not based on voluntary cooperation, and gender equality cannot stay an optional part of the budget.
Without these changes, peacekeeping and peacebuilding will continue to look good on paper while women in conflict zones keep carrying the consequences of a system that promises protection but does not fully deliver it.