<\/p>\n
17 October 2025<\/p>\n
[As delivered]<\/span><\/p>\n As UN Women, in Gaza and across the world, we are in daily contact with women and girls whose voices must be heard.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And I would like to\u00a0start\u00a0today\u2019s briefing\u00a0with one of those voices.\u00a0And I quote:\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe hope the ceasefire lasts. We\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0say\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0fully at peace, but we hope they\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0go back on their words this\u00a0time, we\u00a0really\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0bear it anymore.\u201d<\/span><\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n These are the words\u00a0from\u00a0a 22-year-old woman, a university student in Gaza.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Her words echo what we have heard from so many women and girls across Gaza<\/span>\u00a0since the ceasefire began,\u00a0it is\u00a0a mix of fragile hope, deep exhaustion, and quiet strength.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n They see this ceasefire as a moment of hope\u00a0\u2013\u00a0hard-won, fragile, and long overdue.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And so do we \u2013 as UN Women, as humanitarians, as the international community that now must make this hope a\u00a0 reality.<\/span><\/p>\n Over the past week,\u00a0we\u2019ve\u00a0seen the first signs of progress.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Some food, medicine, and water\u00a0are\u00a0now\u00a0entering Gaza.\u00a0For many women and girls,\u00a0for\u00a0the first time\u00a0in\u00a0months, they\u00a0 can hope\u00a0to\u00a0seek care, receive aid, and sleep without the sound of airstrikes.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But hope,\u00a0as we know,\u00a0on its own, is not\u00a0enough. The\u00a0ceasefire may have paused the fighting, but it has not ended the crisis.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For two years, women and girls in Gaza were killed at a rate of\u00a0roughly\u00a0two\u00a0every hour<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>[1]<\/span><\/a>. This\u00a0number only defines the scale of this war, and it will haunt our collective conscience for generations.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Today, the needs of women and\u00a0girls in\u00a0Gaza\u00a0remain at an all-time high.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Over one million women and girls\u00a0require\u00a0food aid<\/strong>, and\u00a0nearly a\u00a0quarter million need urgent nutrition support\u00a0<\/span>[2]<\/span><\/a>. This ceasefire is our window to deliver,\u00a0to deliver\u00a0fast, to stop famine where it has begun\u00a0and\u00a0prevent it\u00a0where it looms.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Most women in Gaza have been displaced at least four times\u00a0during the war<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>[3]<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0The ceasefire\u00a0is their first chance to stop running, to find safety,\u00a0and to rebuild.\u00a0But winter is coming, and too many still have no shelter.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In Gaza\u00a0today, one in seven families is now led by a woman\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>[4]<\/span><\/a>.<\/strong>\u00a0They need aid that reaches them directly, so they can feed their children, access healthcare, rebuild livelihoods, and restore some stability after losing everything.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n These numbers are not\u00a0just\u00a0statistics.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n They are\u00a0stark\u00a0reminders\u00a0that there will be no recovery without the women and girls who have kept Gaza alive through famine, fear, and flight.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Women and girls\u00a0must be the architects of Gaza\u2019s recovery.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In every crisis, women have shown that when they are given the means, they turn survival into recovery and despair into rebuilding.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Gaza today is no exception.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Every day during the war, women-led organizations, small businesses, health workers, teachers, have been working against impossible odds, holding families and communities together,\u00a0while the world negotiated their future.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At UN Women,\u00a0for us today,\u00a0our mission is clear: to ensure that this ceasefire translates into safety, recovery, and rights for women and girls, placing them at the center of every humanitarian and reconstruction effort.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The task before us is immense. But this moment demands more than simply stopping a war.\u00a0It demands that we start again,\u00a0and that we start\u00a0differently.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n UN Women is coordinating with UN and partners\u00a0and others\u00a0to ensure every clinic, and food parcel reaches women and girls safely, and meets their real needs.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For more than a decade,\u00a0we, as\u00a0UN Women have\u00a0been\u00a0working\u00a0in\u00a0Gaza with\u00a0women-led and women\u2019s rights organizations.\u00a0Many of them never stopped,\u00a0even\u00a0on\u00a0the darkest days.\u00a0They kept providing care, protection, and hope.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Every woman who rebuilds a bakery,\u00a0a clinic,\u00a0or a classroom,\u00a0is rebuilding peace.\u00a0Every dollar invested in women-led aid,\u00a0is a down payment on\u00a0hope.\u00a0The\u00a0data is\u00a0very\u00a0clear\u00a0on this: when we invest in women, every $1 generates an $8 return\u00a0for\u00a0whole\u00a0communities\u00a0<\/span>[5]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Because\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0not just about getting aid in\u00a0and\u00a0who it reaches, it\u00a0is\u00a0also about how we deliver it. If\u00a0we do not put the humanitarian needs of women and girls at the center, and if we do not include women\u2019s organizations in the response, in recovery, and in the work of rebuilding, then women will be excluded from the future of Gaza altogether.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At\u00a0UN Women,\u00a0we are now working\u00a0side-by-side with the UN system\u00a0which\u00a0is on\u00a0the\u00a0ground fully mobilized to scale-up life-saving\u00a0assistance.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n All parties must uphold the ceasefire agreement, fully and without delay.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Member States must step up funding now.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n If we are true about hope,\u00a0we must act on it.\u00a0If we are true about peace,\u00a0we must restore\u00a0it through women.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And if we are true about our shared humanity,\u00a0we must do it now,\u00a0not when the headlines fade,\u00a0but while hope still flickers in the eyes\u00a0of women\u00a0and girls\u00a0in Gaza.\u00a0<\/p>\n [1]<\/a>\u00a033,000 women and girls killed since October 2023.\u00a0UN Women estimates follow the methodology and parameters of the Lancet (February 2025) Gaza Mortality Study, applied to the Ministry of Health data, as of 31 July 2025.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a>UN Women estimates based on IPC Special Snapshot on the Gaza Strip, August 2025.<\/span><\/p>\n [3]<\/a>UN Women estimates based on the latest available Internal Displacement Data Centre (IDMC) data as of 10 October 2025 and statistical modeling.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a>UN Women estimates\u00a0based on the latest available Ministry of Health fatality data as of 31 July 2025 and statistical modeling.<\/span><\/p>\n [5]<\/a>UN Women, UNFPA Study\u00a0\u201cFunding for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and Girls in Humanitarian Programming\u201d,<\/span><\/a>\u00a0June 2020.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 17 October 2025 Remarks by UN Women Chief of Humanitarian Action Sofia Calltorp at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. [As delivered] As UN Women, in Gaza and across the world, we are in daily contact with women and girls whose voices must be heard.\u00a0\u00a0 And I would like to\u00a0start\u00a0today\u2019s briefing\u00a0with one of those […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[2565,2637,1338],"document-source":[2481],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[1769,1945,1829,2265,6650,2005,6257,2533,1741,6245,1841],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[6542],"class_list":["post-312811","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-press-briefing","document-category-remarks","document-category-statement","document-source-un-women","document-subject-armed-conflict","document-subject-assistance","document-subject-casualties","document-subject-ceasefire","document-subject-funding-needs","document-subject-gaza-strip","document-subject-gender","document-subject-health","document-subject-human-rights-and-international-humanitarian-law","document-subject-violence","document-subject-women","entity-united-nations-system","document-language-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/312811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/312811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":312822,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/312811\/revisions\/312822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=312811"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=312811"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=312811"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=312811"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=312811"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=312811"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=312811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Endnotes:<\/strong><\/h3>\n