and suffering horrendous injuries as they pick up cluster bombs when they play. Women are dying in child birth in "liberated" Iraq because there is no power and no medicines in the looted hospitals. SUSAN MOORE looks at some of the ways war affects War is never clean DESPITE THE HYPE of "surgical operations, war always kills civilians, the majority of whom are women and children. The "smart" bombs of the 1991 Gulf War killed people in the Amerirryah area raid shelter in Baghdad. Between 100,000 and 150,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians, were killed - and 184 American solidiers.
During the war against Afghanistan, US planes bombed a Red Cross building, a wedding and a UN building.
In Palestine, just in the last 2 years, over 50 pregnant women were prevented from crossing checkpoints to get to hospital. 43 of them were forced to give birth in these humiliating circumstances, while nine children were stillborn. Twenty women and sixteen other children died at Israeli checkpoints in the same time period. War doesn't end when they say it has
In the aftermath of the first Gulf war UNimposed sanctions led to at least a million Iraqi deaths, half of them children. UNICEF reports that every month over 5,000 Iraqi children die from causes related to the sanctions.
Depleted Uranium (page 14) and unexploded cluster bombs and land mines continue to cost lives and cause disease and suffering for decades afterwards..
Kabul, a city of 3.5 million people, suffered massively during "Operation Enduring Freedom" in 2001-2. Preliminary samples taken from new-born babies show that 25 percent are suffering from congenital and post-natal health problems. War increases violence against women
Rape and sexual violence are often used during war as a means of terrorising the civilian population. Whether the rape itself takes place in an isolated situation or in front of the woman's family, its purpose is to demonstrate the humiliation of a whole people or ethnic group. The woman is treated as a symbol of her society.
During the war in Bosnia an estimated 20,000-30,000 Bosnian Croatian women were raped by Serb forces. Many women who survived were held in captivity until their pregnancy went beyond the second month in the expectation that they would therefore be forced to bear children conceived through rape as a form of 'ethnic cleansing'
The rape of girls by US servicemen on Okinawa and the murder of three women at Fort Bragg NC shortly after their husbands ("special returned from duty in Afghanistan are the tip of the iceberg.
Soldiers are trained to be killers, and aggression can't just be turned on and off. In a sexist society which sees women as inferior, women will suffer most as a result of this. War forces people to leave their homes
5.5 million people in the Sudan have left their homes as a result of the civil war which started 20 years ago. One million are currently living in exile. 2 million died in the war or the famines that have resulted from it. 160,000 Chechen civilians have been displaced by the civil war there and at least 20,000 are living in tent camps in neighbouring Ingushetia.
With men often involved in the military side, the burden of resettlement falls more heavily on women. They are the ones trying to find ways to house, feed and protect thier children and other dependent family members while struggling to overcome acute trauma. Afghanisatn, Angola, Burma, Congo-Kinshasa, Palestinian Territories, Somalia and Sudan. War continues for refugees who rarely find a place of safety tion once more. develops or is intensified. West Africa. War prioritises military spending for profit over human need Muslim and poverty line in the US. War strengthens the fundamentalists who are anti-women operations officers") in the US. funded "sex preach abstinence. AIDS. magazine, Against the Current.
In 2001, there were an estimated 14.9 million refugees and 22 million internally displaced persons. More than 2/3rd were from
Burundi, Eritrea, the
Women refugees have often fled their homes becomes of sexual violence only to find themsleves in a potentially violent situa
When armies are sent to "keep the peace", the trafficking of women
Refugee women in camps often find officials demand sexual favours. Last year news surfaced of incidents involving "humanitariAfghani asylum seekers are already being deported against their will back to Kabul (above). Will Iraqis follow soon? Health problems caused by the lack