Policy Brief: Invisible at the Intersection – the Protection Gap Facing Older Women in Armed Conflict
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When discussions of women in armed conflict take place, the focus is usually on women of reproductive age, displacement, and sexual violence. When discussions of older persons take place, they often focus on humanitarian needs and healthcare.
Older women sit at the intersection of both conversations—and are frequently overlooked in both.
Our new policy brief argues that older women remain largely invisible within international legal, humanitarian, and accountability frameworks addressing violence during armed conflict and humanitarian emergencies. Their experiences are often shaped not by a single factor, but by the intersection of age, gender, disability, chronic illness, reduced mobility, caregiving responsibilities, social isolation, dependence on continuous medical care, and the difficulty in rebuilding their life post-conflict.
The documented experiences of older women during the 7 October 2023 attacks provide a stark illustration of these gaps.
A protection gap hiding in plain sight
International law provides important protections for women, older persons, persons with disabilities, and civilians. Instruments such as CEDAW, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the ICCPR, and the ICESCR all contain protections relevant to older women.
The problem is not the absence of legal protection. The problem is that these frameworks operate largely in parallel. They rarely address how age and gender interact to create distinct patterns of vulnerability during armed conflict.
As a result, older women often fall between existing protection systems.
October 7 Systematic and Widespread Attacks on Civilians- including Older Women
During the attacks, older women experienced violence not simply because they were civilians, but because multiple intersecting vulnerabilities combined to increase their exposure to harm.
In several heavily affected communities, a large proportion of those killed or abducted were over the age of 65. Many were attacked in their homes during the initial stages of the assault, when rapid movement and access to shelter were critical for survival.
Our analysis identifies five key patterns where older women face in armed conflict:
1. Health conditions and disability increased exposure to violence
Many older women lived with chronic illnesses, reduced mobility, and dependence on daily medication. For some hostages, captivity meant interruption of life-sustaining medical treatment. This increases their vulnerability during armed conflict, making it much less likely to seek protection, defend oneself, and endure harsh and inhumane conditions of captivity.
2. Mobility barriers became lethal
In many communities, civilians had only seconds to reach protected spaces. Older women with mobility impairments or physical limitations were often unable to access shelters in time.
Evidence also shows that some remained trapped in homes that later became sites of shootings, arson, and abductions. Many have escaped crime sites during the attack in ways that older people often could not.
3. Caregiving responsibilities increased risk
Older women are often caregivers for spouses, grandchildren, or relatives with disabilities. This affected survival decisions.
Some remained with family members rather than fleeing. Others were attacked or abducted while sheltering alongside children and dependents.
Caregiving is rarely treated as a conflict-related vulnerability, but it clearly shaped exposure to violence.
4. Older women were also vulnerable to conflict-related sexual violence
Public discourse often associates conflict-related sexual violence primarily with younger women. Evidence from October 7 challenges that assumption.
Available documentation indicates that sexual violence affected victims across age groups, including older women. Yet older women remain significantly underrepresented in research, investigations, and policy frameworks addressing conflict-related sexual violence.
5. Hostage-taking affected older women differently
More than one-fifth of the hostages taken into Gaza were aged 65 or older.
For older women, captivity often involved medical neglect, interruption of treatment, restricted mobility, and heightened mortality risk.
Hostage-taking should not be understood solely as deprivation of liberty. For medically vulnerable older women, it can become a form of life-threatening violence.
The overlooked digital and psychological dimension
The attacks also demonstrated how digital platforms can amplify violence against older women. Images and videos of abduction, torture, and murder of elderly victims and hostages were circulated online, extending psychological harm to families and communities.
Survivors also faced profound trauma from displacement, the destruction of long-established communities, loss of spouses and friends, and the need to rebuild their lives at an advanced age, which makes their lives post-atrocity extremely harsh.
Why this matters beyond October 7
These patterns are not unique to Israel.
Evidences from various armed conflicts have similarly shown that older persons—particularly older women—face heightened risks during armed conflict and humanitarian crises.
What October 7 provides is a particularly well-documented case study demonstrating how existing protection frameworks fail to account for these intersecting vulnerabilities.
What needs to change
Our policy brief makes seven recommendations. Three are particularly urgent.
First, emergency preparedness must become age- and gender-responsive. Evacuation planning, shelter accessibility, emergency communications, and humanitarian assistance should explicitly account for older women with disabilities, chronic illnesses, and caregiving responsibilities.
Second, international investigations should systematically document violence against older women. This includes killings, abductions, medical neglect, sexual violence, psychological harm, and enforced disappearance, supported by age- and sex-disaggregated data.
Third, hostage-taking and captivity should be recognised as distinct forms of violence against older women. International frameworks should explicitly address the consequences of medical dependency, disability, and age-related vulnerability during detention.
Making older women visible
The central lesson is simple.
Age and gender do not operate separately during armed conflict.
Older women experience violence through the interaction of multiple vulnerabilities that existing protection frameworks often fail to recognise.
Making older women visible is not simply a matter of inclusion. It is a matter of effective protection, accountability, and justice.
O7J and UN Human Rights Mechanism & Special Procedures
This Policy Brief forms part of our multi-front legal actions, where we engage with United Nations Human Rights Mechanisms and Special Procedures. Learn more about our broader actions towards accountability and justice.
Through submissions to Special Rapporteurs, Working Groups, Independent Experts, and CTED, we contribute to UN reporting and monitoring processes, support complaints and accountability procedures on behalf of victims, and provide legal analysis that informs the development of international standards relating to torture, enforced disappearance, hostage-taking, conflict-related sexual violence, and the rights of women, children, older persons, and persons with disabilities.
The goal is not only justice for the victims we represent, but also stronger international protection frameworks for future conflicts.
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