Citation: Mlambo, C.; Mvuyana, B.; Sithole, V.L. Factors Inﬂuencing Women’s Health in Conﬂict Zones in Africa. Women 2024, 4, 216–225. https://doi.org/10.3390/ women4020016 Academic Editors: Maria Grazia Porpora and Kedra Wallace Received: 24 July 2023 Revised: 28 April 2024 Accepted: 30 April 2024 Published: 19 June 2024 Copyright: © 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). Article Factors Inﬂuencing Women’s Health in Conﬂict Zones in Africa Courage Mlambo 1, * , Bongekile Mvuyana 1 and Vikela Liso Sithole 2 1 Faculty of Management Sciences, Mangosuthu University of Technology, Durban 4031, South Africa 2 Department of Economics, Walter Sisulu University, Mthatha 5100, South Africa * Correspondence: mlamboct@gmail.com; Tel.: +27-781188511 Abstract: This study sought to examine the factors that inﬂuence women’s health in conﬂict zones for the period spanning 1975–2018. The investigation was motivated by the fact that war and violent conﬂict strain already underdeveloped healthcare systems and frequently put disadvantaged groups—particularly women and children—at risk of being denied access to essential services like healthcare. Living in or close to conﬂict zones puts women at a higher risk for sexual assault, poor reproductive health, unwanted pregnancy, and poor maternal health outcomes. By destroying infrastructure, food, water, and sanitation systems, armed conﬂict reduces access to healthcare. The results showed that the remittances and life expectancy have a negative relationship with maternal mortality. Development assistance, the number of refuges, and military expenditure were seen as having a positive relationship with maternal mortality, but no signiﬁcant relationship was found with either economic growth or internet usage. This calls for new policy and self-care interventions. There is also a need to explore how to maximise the beneﬁts of technology in delivering health interventions to hard-to-reach populations. There is also a need for policymakers to explore how to maximise the beneﬁts of technology in delivering health interventions to hard-to-reach populations. Keywords: women; women’s health; conﬂict; war; sexual violence 1. Introduction Armed conﬂicts pose a serious threat to public health, and they also pose signiﬁcant challenges to health systems [1–3]. Epidemics, disruptions to the healthcare system, and population displacements are examples of immediate consequences resulting from armed conﬂict. In times of conﬂict, everyone suffers, but children, girls, and women are partic- ularly at risk. Rostomian [4] concurs and states that mothers, children, and young girls bear a disproportionate share of the burdens of conﬂict because their health depends on regular access to functioning healthcare systems. This causes challenges during times of violent conﬂict. According to Firoz [5] and Ndebele [6], women who live in conﬂict- or post-conﬂict-affected areas are especially susceptible to sexual assault, poor reproductive health, unintended pregnancies, and poor maternal health outcomes. Crisis situations overburden and impair the healthcare systems. Beyond the battleﬁeld, the repercussions of conﬂict affect future generations. Conﬂict has an impact on the infrastructure, people, and ﬁnancial resources that make up a nation’s current health system. Due to the damage to infrastructure, food-distribution channels, water, and sanitation systems during violent conﬂict, the provision of healthcare services is greatly affected. Requejo et al. [7] and the Red Cross [8] assert that healthcare facilities are frequently destroyed in violent-conﬂict situations, health personnel ﬂee and or stop working out of fear, and aid personnel are frequently unintentional or intended targets of attacks by conﬂict participants. As a result, women, children, and other population groups cannot access the essential healthcare they need. In addition, even though armed conﬂict also impacts some nations with advanced and effective health systems, many conﬂict-affected states already have deﬁcient health systems even before the conﬂict begins. Women 2024, 4, 216–225. https://doi.org/10.3390/women4020016 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/women