Effects of war
[2] The widespread trauma caused by these atrocities and suffering of the civilian population is another legacy of these conflicts, the following creates extensive emotional and psychological stress.
Since 2011 Syria has experienced 12,000 child deaths as a result of the conflict that was initiated as an uprising against Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.
According to Shank, "negative unintended consequences occur either concurrently with the war or develop as residual effects afterwards thereby impeding the economy over the longer term".
[17] In 2012 the economic impact of war and violence was estimated to be eleven percent of gross world product (GWP) or 9.46 trillion dollars.
As of 2023/2024, we have seen the impacts of the destruction of infrastructure in areas such as Gaza where buildings such as UN offices, schools, hospitals, bakeries, roadways have been destroyed.
[21] All of which resulting in mass starvation of Gazans, increase in disease, reduction in education and ultimately the forced displacement of Palestinians.
The shortage of labor force during the Iran–Iraq War enabled women to enter fields of employment that had previously been closed to them and absorbed them into a large number of much-needed jobs.
The IPB contrasts the high levels of military spending (estimated by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in 2011 as being US $1,738 billion at worldwide level) against, for instance, the failure to fulfill the pledges of the Millennium Development Goals[27] suggesting that, in general: "Research on the causes of violent conflicts shows myriad factors, but does not indicate that building bigger armies is the key to keeping a county safe from warfare.
In fact, funds spent on weapons may drain resources from social, political, and economic development that may address root causes of conflict.
According to the World Bank and the Office of Disarmament Affairs (ODA), only about 5% of this amount would be needed each year to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
[30] As is obvious, the greater the military expenditure, the less there is left to spend on other aspects, both at communal but also at individual level, such as building and maintaining infrastructure, education and health.
When a war breaks out, many people flee their homes in fear of losing their lives and their families, and as a result, they become misplaced either internally or externally.
[45] Victims of internal displacements are symptoms of war that are often motivated by communal hatred based on ethnic background, race, or religious views.
[48] Males benefit from manual labor, carpentry, masonry, and government services while females had earned their income from informal work.
The largest displacement caused due to war occurred in 1947, after the United Nations agreed to have Palestine divided into two states.
Refugees have reduced levels of well-being and a high rates of mental distress due to past and ongoing trauma.
[56] According to the UNESCO report "The groups most negatively affected by conflict were those that suffered from multiple exclusion, for example based on gender, area of residence, household wealth, language, and ethnicity".
In the case of Iraq, boys were pulled out of school to work for their families, and therefore the education gap for men and women shrank.
[6] Conflict negatively impacts women and men, which often results in gender-specific difficulties that are not recognized or addressed by mainstream communities across the globe (Baden and Goetz, 1997).
"Women and girls suffered disproportionately during and after war, as existing inequalities were magnified, and social networks broke down, making them more vulnerable to sexual violence and exploitation, the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations".
It stated that peace is directly linked to equality between men and women and to development post conflict (Beijing Platform for Action).
Plumper found that most women live longer when they are in peacetime, when compared to a state that is in armed conflict the gender gap of life expectancy drastically decreases in the male to female ratio.
[61] Three of the most common things done by Israeli military occupation includes the apartheid wall, displacement of people, and house demolitions caused by bombings especially in Gaza.
As the number of marital disputes rises after a house demolition, women are forced to look for work in order to support the livelihood of their families.
In contrast, only about a quarter of all cultural assets have been destroyed by natural disasters or have permanently disappeared due to normal deterioration.
[25] This can be seen in the Second Liberian Civil War where rebels had removed the current leader, Charles Taylor, and with the help of the United Nations deployed a new democratic form of government that stands for equal rights and even had a woman president in Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
[76] Political scientist Jeffrey Herbst argues that interstate war is a requisite factor in the formation of strong states.
[76]: 118 War increases both a leader's incentive to establish an efficient system of taxation and the population's willingness to assent to higher taxes.
[76]: 119 Charles Tilly, an American sociologist, political scientist, and historian, claims that within the context of European history, "war makes states".
according to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, common article 2 states that "all cases of declared war or of any armed conflict that may arise between two or more high contracting parties, even if the state of war is not recognized, the convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a high contracting party even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance".
