Women This Week: Rising Rates of Acute Malnutrition in Gaza
Pregnant and Breastfeeding Women and Children Are Most Vulnerable
Women and children are suffering severe impacts from the ongoing military operations in Gaza. In a new report, Doctors of the World has outlined rising rates of acute malnutrition among women and children in the territory. In April 2025, one in five pregnant or breastfeeding women and nearly one in four children treated in Doctors of the World health centers were found to be suffering from or at high risk of acute malnutrition. “Now is not the time for declarations, but for action. More than two million lives are at stake, sacrificed by the illegal deprivation of humanitarian aid,” said Dr. Jean-Francois Corty, the organization’s president. A separate analysis from UN Women has estimated that more than 28,000 women and girls have been killed since the onset of the war in October 2023, a rate of nearly one woman and one girl every hour. Humanitarian conditions in Gaza remain dire, with extremely limited food, medicine, and other humanitarian resources being allowed to cross the border. “We are witnessing a significant increase in cases of low birth weight babies, directly linked to maternal malnutrition and anemia during pregnancy,” said a doctor at Gaza’s Al-Awda Hospital.
Islamabad Enacts Ban on Child Marriage
Following a tense vote, a bill banning marriage before the age of eighteen was passed in the city of Islamabad, Pakistan. Under prior legislation stemming from British colonial rule, the legal age for marriage was eighteen for boys and sixteen for girls. Similar legislation was previously passed in Pakistan’s Sindh province, and supporters hope this vote will encourage more regions throughout Pakistan to enact similar legislation. The new law will also impose strict punishments for violations, including up to a seven-year sentence for those found responsible for coercing children into marriage and a three-year sentence for a man found to have married a girl under the age of eighteen. “This bill sends a powerful message,” says Sherry Rehman, the minister who introduced the bill. She added, “It’s a very important signal to the country, to our development partners, and to women that their rights are protected at the top.” According to a 2018 survey, 29 percent of girls in Pakistan are married by the age of eighteen.
Artificial Intelligence Will Disproportionally Impact Jobs Held by Women
Jobs held by women, such as clerical and administrative work, have been found to be at higher risk of being transformed or replaced by artificial intelligence (AI). According to a new study from the United Nations’ International Labour Organization and Poland’s National Research Institute, jobs traditionally held by women are three times more likely to be replaced by technological development compared to jobs traditionally held by men. Similarly, 9.6 percent of women’s jobs in high-income countries will likely be transformed by AI, whereas only 3.5 percent of jobs held by men will be impacted. The study, which looked at data from nearly 30,000 different jobs, ultimately found that more jobs are likely to be transformed rather than replaced by AI. “Few jobs consist of tasks that are fully automatable with current AI technology,” the authors said. “Transformation of jobs is the most likely impact of GenAI.”
Diya Mehta is the intern for the Women and Foreign Policy Program and contributed to the research for this post.
