Girls and young women are bearing the brunt of the world's violent conflicts, a landmark report by a leading humanitarian organisation has found.
Plan International surveyed almost 10,000 young people aged 15 to 24 across 10 countries including Lebanon, Sudan and the Philippines for its State of the World's Girls report.
Plan International Australia's chief executive Susanne Legena said the failure of the international community to negotiate ceasefires in conflicts around the world from Ukraine to Ethiopia was "robbing a generation of a future".
"At the very least we need people to stop bombing civilians, stop targeting schools and hospitals," she said.
"We need to find ways to get humanitarian access to the people who need it."
Interviews were undertaken with 104 participants as part of what Plan International said was the largest study of its kind to date.
Some 27 per cent of girls and young women in the survey reported sexual and gender-based violence as a "constant risk of every day life".
More than half of the young people surveyed reported high levels of emotional distress including sleep disturbances and constant worrying, while 38 per cent reported feeling unsafe or very unsafe.
Even prior to weeks of Israeli air strikes in Lebanon, during which up to 1 million people have been forced to flee their homes, many Lebanese had already been displaced by conflict on its southern borders.
"Essential services including water stations, schools and healthcare facilities have suffered enormous damage and 75 per cent of children are at risk of poverty," Plan's report said.
Save the Children reports that 60,000 children have fled into neighbouring Syria from Lebanon in the past week.
The brutal civil war in Sudan, meanwhile, was "having a disproportionate effect on women and children, with allegations of rape, forced marriages, sexual slavery, and trafficking", Plan's report said.
With almost 4 million children driven from their homes in Sudan, it represents the largest child displacement crisis in the world.
"When I became a doctor, I worked with a lot with girls and young women who were abused in the war," said Dr Elzahra Mohammed from Plan International Sudan.
"It is important to acknowledge that girls are not affected the same way as boys … they have different needs."
Experts say armed conflict often deepens gender discrimination and that targeted gender-based violence can be a deliberate tactic in war.
Years of education lost due to violent conflict
Education was disrupted across the countries where children and young people were surveyed, with 52 per cent of girls reporting missing out on learning due to conflict.
The average duration of missed education was between one and two years.
For Lena Nabizada, it wasn't until she was eight years old that she was able to safely attend school.
Born in Afghanistan, the year 11 student and Toowoomba-based youth advocate said missing out on education due to conflict had major consequences for both psychological wellbeing and gender equality.
"Young women see their only way through education," she told the ABC.
"If the women are at home, it's more likely they'll be forced to get married sooner.
"With the Taliban's return, I wouldn't be in high school … I'd probably be at home basically doing nothing."
A quarter of girls surveyed by Plan reported having lost schooling because their school was damaged or destroyed.
In Gaza, where Israel has levelled vast swathes of urban areas in its war on Hamas, the majority of local schools have been damaged or destroyed, according to the United Nations.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports more than 10,600 children and 400 teachers were killed in Israeli military operations between October 2023 and August 2024.
"We need a worldwide, global effort to both broker peace and the conditions that would allow children and young people to normalise their lives and to heal," Ms Legena, the Plan CEO said.
"I've seen in refugee camps, for example in Colombia, where they do accelerated learning programs … and they can catch them up."
Plan International was unable to conduct detailed research in Gaza due to the severity of ongoing violence in the Palestinian territory.
Fatima, a 23-year-old whose name was changed for safety reasons, told Plan that despite the immense challenges of daily survival facing people in Gaza, dreams of a better future allowed them to carry on.
"I take photos and write poetry. I want to be a photographer: holding onto hopes and dreams is a crucial part of survival.
"Aren't we human, just like them?"
A report by Cambridge University experts released last week found that if violence continued into 2026, children in Gaza could lose five years' worth of education.
Professor Pauline Rose from Cambridge said that "as well as planning for how we rebuild Gaza's shattered education system, there is an urgent need to get educational support for children now".
"Education is a right for all young people. We have a collective responsibility to protect it."
