In a quiet village on the outskirts of Hebron, Palestine, a woman named Mariam* felt the walls of her life closing in after receiving a single, devastating notification. A trusted friend had surreptitiously photographed her without her veil and was now using those images as leverage, demanding payment under the threat of public exposure. Thousands of miles away in the Jiwaka province of Papua New Guinea, Lilly* approaches her home with a familiar sense of dread. She knows that if her husband has been drinking, the evening will bring not only physical violence but a calculated form of isolation: he will seize the household’s only mobile phone, cutting her off from the digital resources and social networks that are her only link to safety. Meanwhile, in the heart of war-torn Ukraine, Iryna*—a young woman living with HIV and a survivor of sexual assault—found herself fleeing the violence of the full-scale invasion, suddenly stripped of her medication, her support system, and the communication tools necessary to find help in a landscape of chaos.
These three women live in vastly different geopolitical realities, yet they are bound by a common thread: the escalating volatility of gender-based violence (GBV) in an increasingly digital and crisis-prone world. Today, a woman’s safety is no longer just a matter of physical locks and safe havens; it is a complex negotiation played out in homes, in public squares, and across the glowing screens of smartphones. As technology advances, the boundaries between physical and virtual harm have blurred, creating a “shadow pandemic” of technology-facilitated violence. However, in the face of these emerging threats, a powerful multilateral partnership is proving that when local organizations are backed by flexible, sustained funding, they can transform from emergency responders into architects of long-term resilience.
According to global statistics, one in three women will experience gender-based violence in her lifetime—a figure that spikes dramatically during periods of armed conflict, climate disasters, and economic instability. The rise of digital violence, including deepfakes, non-consensual image sharing, and tech-enabled stalking, has added a layer of psychological warfare that pushes women out of public life and denies them safety in the very places they should feel most secure: their schools, workplaces, and homes. To combat this, two distinct but complementary United Nations grant-making mechanisms, working in tandem with UN Women, are reshaping the feminist funding landscape. The UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women (UN Trust Fund) focuses on long-term institutional strengthening, while the United Nations Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF) provides the agility and rapid response needed in crisis zones. Together, they ensure that when the headlines fade, the infrastructure of protection remains.
The efficacy of this dual-layered support is most visible in Ukraine. Long before the 2022 invasion, the Ukrainian Foundation for Public Health (UFPH) had been working with the UN Trust Fund to build a robust safety net. Between 2011 and 2014, they focused on the intersection of health and protection, training a generation of social workers, healthcare providers, and law enforcement officers to support women living with HIV and survivors of domestic abuse. This decade of capacity-building created a dormant but powerful network of responders. When the full-scale war erupted, this foundation allowed for an unprecedentedly rapid pivot.
In April 2022, just eight weeks after the conflict began, UFPH partnered with the WPHF and UN Women Ukraine to launch the “Safe Women Hub.” This digital platform was designed specifically for the modern refugee—women like Iryna who were displaced and disconnected. The Hub provided anonymous mental health counseling, legal referrals, and anti-trafficking resources through the very devices that often carry the threat of digital violence. Because the institutional knowledge had been funded years prior, the emergency response was not built from scratch; it was an evolution. For Iryna, the Hub was a lifeline that provided her with a temporary shelter and the specialized medical counseling she needed to survive the dual trauma of war and sexual violence.
In the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the Rural Women’s Development Society (RWDS) demonstrates how resilience is built through community-led resistance to oppression. For over 40 years, RWDS has established 58 women’s clubs across the territory, creating trusted physical spaces where women can congregate. However, as the conflict intensified and movement became restricted, the organization realized that the newest frontier of violence was digital.
The UN Trust Fund’s investment in RWDS’s organizational resilience allowed the group to maintain specialist services for highly vulnerable populations, including widowed women and those living with disabilities. Simultaneously, the WPHF provided flexible funding that empowered youth and women’s groups to act as “early warning” reporters. When Mariam was targeted with digital blackmail in Hebron, her local women’s club was her first port of call. RWDS didn’t just offer her psychological support; they actively worked with the Palestinian Cybercrime Unit to have the non-consensual photos removed and engaged with community and religious leaders to frame digital safety as a collective moral responsibility. Rulla Sarras, the Director of Funding and Development at RWDS, notes that in the current climate of conflict, the definition of protection must be holistic. “They want to live in their homes safely, free from attacks,” she says. “Even amid war, women are caring for their families and communities, and they need to feel secure—physically, mentally, and emotionally.”
A similar transformation is taking place in Papua New Guinea, where rates of violence are among the highest in the world. In the Jiwaka Province, the organization Voice for Change (VfC) has utilized UN Trust Fund support to overhaul the local justice system from the ground up. Their work led to the creation of provincial gender-based violence strategies and local by-laws that made marketplaces safer for vendors like Lilly. By establishing a network of Women Human Rights Defenders, VfC ensured that women were no longer fighting for their dignity in isolation.
With subsequent support from the WPHF, VfC expanded these efforts into “Family Safety Committees.” these committees bring together a diverse coalition of police, peace mediators, and justice officials to streamline referral pathways for survivors. Crucially, they have begun addressing the digital divide. In a region where a husband’s control over a mobile phone can be a tool of domestic imprisonment, VfC teaches women how to safely navigate online spaces and use technology to stay connected to support networks. The early institutional funding from the UN Trust Fund built the “engine” of the organization, while the WPHF provided the “fuel” to navigate the specific, emerging challenges of the post-pandemic digital landscape.
The success of these interventions points to a larger truth in the global effort to end gender-based violence: funding must be as dynamic as the threats women face. We are currently witnessing an unprecedented global funding crisis, where resources for women’s rights organizations are often the first to be cut. In this environment, the partnership between the UN Trust Fund and the WPHF serves as a blueprint for a more effective, feminist funding model. By combining the “long game” of institutional investment with the “short game” of crisis agility, the UN system is moving away from fragmented, project-based aid toward a unified, survivor-centered ecosystem.
The stories of Mariam, Lilly, and Iryna are not just stories of victimization; they are testaments to the power of local leadership when it is properly resourced. Whether it is a digital hub in Kyiv, a women’s club in Hebron, or a safety committee in Jiwaka, these organizations are proving that the path from crisis to resilience is paved with sustained, flexible, and trust-based investment. Ending violence against women and girls requires more than just awareness; it requires the fortification of the frontline organizations that refuse to let women and girls disappear into the shadows, whether those shadows are in the physical world or behind a screen.
*Names have been changed to protect the identities of the survivors.
