As conflict continues in Ukraine, Gaza, Iran and elsewhere, the cost is being recorded not only in deaths and displacement, but also in ruined libraries, mosques, churches, museums, archives and historic neighbourhoods.
UNESCO has verified damage to 527 cultural sites in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion; 164 sites in Gaza since October 7 2023; and damage to the World Heritage-listed Golestan Palace in Tehran following a nearby airstrike.
These losses are usually described as attacks on “history”, “civilisation” or “the past” and sometimes as a “loss for all humanity”.
But as our new research details, such destruction can also negatively affect communities’ sense of belonging and identity – and erode women’s sense of safety and security amid conflict.
Islamic State’s campaign
Islamic State’s campaign across Syria and Iraq from 2013 involved mass violence, human rights abuses and forced displacement. The Islamic State committed genocide against the Yazidi minority, including systematic killings and sexual slavery.
At the same time, Islamic State methodically targeted cultural and religious heritage, including museums, archaeological sites, churches, shrines, cemeteries, mosques and other historically significant and sacred places.
UNESCO called this “cultural cleansing”. There was an intentional strategy to destroy cultural diversity through attacks on people identified by their cultural, ethnic or religious background, combined with attacks on their key cultural and religious centres.
We spoke with Syrian and Iraqi women affected by the Islamic State’s heritage destruction. We found such destruction was experienced not only as cultural loss, but as a form of gendered harm.
For the women we spoke to, heritage destruction was part of a wider campaign of domination: an attack on their memories, identities and personal safety.
Response to heritage destruction
Since Islamic State’s attacks, international responses to heritage destruction have become more extensive.
In 2016, the UN Human Rights Council called on states to protect the right of everyone to take part in cultural life, including the ability to access and enjoy cultural heritage.
That same year the International Criminal Court convicted a terrorist leader of the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against historic and religious buildings in Timbuktu, Mali.
In 2017, the UN Security Council condemned the unlawful destruction of cultural heritage, recognising it as a threat to global security.
These developments helped to shift heritage destruction from a specialist conservation issue to a matter of human rights, criminal accountability and international security.
But they say almost nothing about how women experience heritage destruction in distinctly gendered ways.
What women told us
For the women we interviewed, heritage sites were not only places of worship or symbols of the past. They were also spaces where women could gather, support one another and sustain everyday relationships in societies often structured by gendered expectations.
Several women described churches, mosques and shrines as places where they could socialise with other women and support one another through “our joys and sorrows”.
These sites presented an opportunity for women to form communities in feminised spaces where gender relations and matters such as courting, marriage and childbirth could be navigated.
Women use heritage sites in ways shaped by social norms around worship, family, mourning, care, sexuality, reproduction and community life.
When those places are destroyed, the loss is not merely architectural. It can also remove spaces of female solidarity and emotional support.
One Yazidi woman described shrines as spiritual centres where people bury and visit their dead, pray, gather and hold ceremonies. Destroying these places interrupted ways of mourning, worshipping and sustaining traditions.
Other women described the loss in more intimate terms. A Chaldean Christian woman recalled the destruction of the church where members of her family had been baptised and where she had married. A Sunni Arab woman described the destruction of a mosque as if something had been destroyed “inside me”.
Cultural destruction can be a way of attacking people by destroying the places that anchor their lives, relationships and sense of safety.
The women we interviewed connected heritage destruction to fear, displacement and mistrust. One woman explained seeing heritage destroyed made her feel unsafe in her own hometown. Another said such destruction made her “afraid and scared”, leading her to leave her home and job and migrate to Jordan.
This was especially acute for women from minority communities. One Yazidi woman explained her community had “lost the trust” in the Islamic community and no longer felt safe living with them or being present in their areas.
For her, the destruction of what was beloved to the Yazidi community produced an enduring “loss of security”, anxiety and fear that such violence would be repeated.
A bigger loss
These findings have implications far beyond Syria and Iraq. In Ukraine, Gaza, Iran and other conflict zones, protecting heritage should not be treated as a luxury that comes after human protection.
Heritage sites are used to mourn, pray, gather, educate, remember and rebuild.
Rather than treating destruction as a loss for “history” or “all humanity,” we need to ask what it does to those most affected. Who used this place? Whose memories and culture did it sustain? Who felt safe here? And what happens when all of this is suddenly taken away? For many women affected by war, when heritage is destroyed, they lose much more than monuments.
Published on May 25, 2026