United Nations: The security situation across the Sahel is deteriorating rapidly, threatening peace and security in West Africa's coastal States and beyond, delegates warned the Security Council today, condemning the deliberate targeting and exploitation of women and girls caught in the crossfire.
According to EMM, the Sahel is where the world's gravest concerns converge - terrorism, coups, environmental collapse, poverty, hunger, dwindling development financing, shrinking humanitarian access, and a declining UN presence on the ground, as stated by Sima Sami Bahous, Executive Director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women).
These crises, she explained, impact violently and disproportionately on the bodies and futures of women and girls. Over 1 million girls in Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso are out of school due to terrorist attacks or threats, she emphasized, noting that abduction is a tactic of terrorism in the Sahel. In Burkina Faso alone, the number of women and girls abducted increased by over 218 percent last year. Bahous urged Governments and regional bodies to ensure women's full, equal, meaningful, and safe participation in transitional Governments and peace and security efforts. She called for at least 15 percent of violent extremism prevention funding to be invested in gender equality and the rapid deployment of women protection advisers to the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS).
Levinia Addae-Mensah, Executive Director of West Africa Network for Peacebuilding, echoed these sentiments, emphasizing that women are not just victims but have a tremendous capacity to foster change. Her organization's work highlights extraordinary resilience and leadership by women in building peace, particularly in the Sahel, where women's social networks are on the frontlines of peacebuilding, mediating local conflicts, leading trauma healing initiatives, organizing humanitarian response, and operating early warning networks. She stressed the need for the UN peacebuilding architecture to emphasize the central role of women as equal and strategic leaders and for local women-led initiatives to access resources directly.
Offering insights into the complex security landscape, Leonardo Santos Simão, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of UNOWAS, presented the Secretary-General's latest report on the Office's activities, highlighting the surge in terrorist activity in Mali, Benin, Togo, and Nigeria. He noted the growing sophistication of these activities, including the use of drones and alternative internet communication, and increasing collusion with transnational organized crime. He welcomed the establishment of a joint defence force by the Alliance of Sahel States - Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger - and the establishment of a Criminal Court in Bamako to address war crimes and serious human rights violations.
In the ensuing discussion, many delegates expressed concern about the human rights situation of women and girls across the region, including abductions, sexual slavery, forced marriage, and rape. Denmark's delegate stressed the need for women to receive access to justice, protection mechanisms, and life-saving services. Slovenia's representative emphasized that sexual and gender-based violence is systematic.
Sierra Leone's delegate, speaking also for Algeria, Guyana, and Somalia, voiced concern over the evolving security situation in the region and the unprecedented surge in terrorist violence by groups such as Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). Pakistan's delegate underscored the need to focus on the root causes of terrorism and welcomed efforts by ECOWAS and the African Union to expedite counter-terrorism coordination mechanisms.
The representative from the Republic of Korea noted that the Sahel region accounted for 51 percent of global terrorism-related deaths in 2024, according to the 2025 Global Terrorism Index. Greece's delegate observed that while piracy incidents in the Gulf of Guinea have fallen, the threat is evolving, with potential exploitation of maritime routes to finance operations. The United States delegate urged Sahelian States and their coastal West African neighbours to pursue a coordinated response to terrorism, respecting the rule of law and human rights.
The Russian Federation's representative expressed concern over the use of modern communication and drones by terrorists, suggesting that Ukraine is supporting terrorism in Mali. France's delegate emphasized the need for counter-terrorism efforts to be grounded in a comprehensive approach. China's representative called for a balanced strategy, stating that security and development are interlinked.
In his national capacity, Panama's representative, Council President for August, emphasized that solely military solutions are inadequate and counterproductive in countering extremism.