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Governments treat gendered violence as an afterthought, leaving millions vulnerable across the Indo-Pacific.
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Cyclones to coups: Crises drive violence against womenCyclones to coups: Crises drive violence against women
Over the past two decades, disasters, pandemics and escalating displacement have cost the world millions of lives, trillions of dollars, and caused the forced migration of more than 14 million people in the Asia-Pacific alone.
These crises destabilise gendered social systems, leading to heightened risk of violence against socially marginalised groups, including women, girls, and gender diverse individuals. In a recent scoping review we conducted with our co-authors, we found a clear pattern across the Indo-Pacific: every type of crisis increases violence against women, whether domestic violence, intimate partner violence, sexual violence or other forms of gender-based violence.
Yet perhaps the most surprising finding is not that violence rises – it is how little research is done into these dynamics, despite the exposure of the Indo-Pacific to some of the world’s most severe and frequent crises.
Where evidence does exist, the findings are striking. Nearly half of all studies in our review focus on the Covid-19 pandemic, making it by far the most studied shock. Lockdowns, economic stress, restricted mobility and prolonged proximity to abusers led to marked increases in domestic and intimate partner violence across India, Bangladesh, Australia, Japan, Nepal and Indonesia. Sexual assault by strangers fell in some settings due to strict lockdown conditions, but violence within the home rose sharply. Notably, despite earlier health emergencies such as SARS and dengue outbreaks, the review found no published studies examining violence against women during those events. Covid-19 became the first health emergency to push this issue into public consciousness – what UN Women called the “shadow pandemic”.
The absence of evidence or its unevenness exposes how the gendered impacts of crises are still treated as peripheral, not essential, to crisis preparedness in some contexts. When governments and humanitarian agencies lack localised data, they must respond reactively to violence rather than anticipate it as a predictable consequence of crisis.
Frontline workers – from police and healthcare providers to humanitarian teams – need training to identify warning signs and safely support survivors.
In recent years, growing attention has turned to the concept of compounding shocks. When two or more high-impact crises collide, the consequences for women, girls and gender-diverse people are severe. Across Afghanistan and Myanmar, widespread conflict-related sexual violence, including the deliberate targeting of marginalised groups during Covid-19, further restricts already limited protection and support services. Yet, political violence – coups, riots and electoral unrest – as a humanitarian crisis remains surprisingly understudied despite its frequency in countries like Myanmar, Fiji, Thailand and the Philippines.
Natural hazards – from earthquakes and cyclones to floods and droughts – also consistently heightened violence against women. Despite the increased reports on harassment, exploitation and intimate partner violence in temporary shelters, as well as heightened risks linked to economic hardship, displacement and weakened community support structures, there remains a startling gap in understanding the impact of crisis on violence against women.
Most studies focus on women and girls as survivors of male-perpetrated violence – a crucial emphasis, given they represent the majority of cases. Yet this narrow lens obscures other important dynamics. Men and boys, for example, are underrepresented in studies on sexual violence, despite documented patterns of male-targeted violence during conflict. Research on domestic or intimate partner violence overwhelmingly assumes heterosexual relationships, leaving violence in queer relationships rarely explored – a gap also noted in reviews of climate events and gender-based violence. Research on violence against people with diverse gender or sexual identities during shocks is almost completely absent, reinforcing a dangerous assumption that marginalised groups experience shocks in the same way.
Only five studies in our review discussed Indigeneity at all – from Indonesia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, the Philippines and Nepal – and all were focused on conflict contexts. These included evidence of the targeted sexual violence against Indigenous West Papuan women by the Indonesian army.
Such omissions matter. If violence against women rises predictably during crises, then crisis planning must treat violence against women as a core component of preparedness rather than an afterthought. Governments and humanitarian responders should integrate gender-responsive risk assessments into disaster management, conflict response and health emergency planning. Frontline workers – from police and healthcare providers to humanitarian teams – need training to identify warning signs and safely support survivors. Data collection must also improve; the real-time reporting seen during Covid-19, such as hotline and police data, provided rare visibility into escalating risks. Standardising such data across countries would significantly strengthen crisis preparedness.
What is more, localised research that incorporates the lived experiences of survivors – especially those from the most affected and marginalised groups – is urgently needed. Our review highlights the need for intersectional research designs capable of capturing how shocks affect groups differently, including Indigenous peoples, people with disabilities, and those with diverse gender or sexual identities. Without understanding these differences, policymakers cannot design inclusive, preventative or effective gender-based violence responses.
The Indo-Pacific is entering an era of more frequent and severe shocks, driven by climate change, geopolitical tensions and economic fragility. Without robust, localised and inclusive evidence on how crises intensify violence against women, policy responses will remain incomplete and reactive. Understanding these dynamics is not merely a research endeavour – it is a critical component of protecting rights, security and resilience for millions of women and marginalised communities across the region.
About the authors
Helen Stenger
Dr Helen Stenger is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Monash University.
Phyu Phyu Oo
Dr Phyu Phyu Oo is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Griffith University.
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