As International Women’s Day approaches, and as the world continues to face intense conflicts and wars, I feel compelled to share the story behind this research and why I began this work.

I was originally an educator and a technical practitioner who understood the importance of data. Yet, for a long time, I paid little attention to datasets related to political violence. Like many people working in technology, I was focused on methods, models, and systems, often disconnected from the realities that data represents.

Everything changed when my country, Myanmar, descended into conflict. As the violence escalated, I witnessed devastating news: thousands of people losing their lives, communities being torn apart, and many women becoming direct targets of violence. These events were no longer distant statistics. They were part of my daily life. 

That experience made me begin asking questions.

What could the data reveal about these patterns of violence?

Could we observe signals within the data that might help us better understand or even anticipate such events?

This curiosity became the starting point of my research.

• Political violence, including targeted attacks on women, presents significant threats to global stability and human security, yet remains an underexplored domain in time-series forecasting research.
• One of the most striking observations in this work is the coexistence of low-intensity and high-intensity violence events. Many conflict datasets are dominated by smaller, more regular incidents, while the most devastating events occur rarely but carry immense human impact. 
• While the model proposed in this research is designed specifically for forecasting Political Violence Targeting Women (PVTW), studying these patterns helps me better understand how violence unfolds over time and how targeted violence against women manifests within broader conflict dynamics.

On this International Women’s Day, I hope more of us in data and technology choose to work with real-world data that helps us better understand and address the challenges women face in our societies.