Her Future at Risk – Research on Gender and WASH in Wartime Ukraine

In Ukraine’s conflict areas, women and girls face severe risks to safety, health, and dignity due to inadequate WASH infrastructure, leading to:

• Lack of gender-segregated, lockable, and lit toilets, increasing sexual violence vulnerability.
• Declined access to essential hygiene items like menstrual products, severely impacting women-headed households.
• Hygiene support gaps: kits often exclude older women, adolescent girls, and people with disabilities.
• Complications for women managing menstruation and caregiving due to a lack of water heaters in collective centers.

Despite these urgent needs, the April 2025 Humanitarian Needs Response Plan significantly reduced WASH and Gender-Based Violence (GBV) programming, leaving broader recovery efforts under-resourced.

The study “Her Future at Risk” examines the gendered WASH access challenges for women, girls, and marginalized groups in these regions.