- The Guardian
- Issue #2135
The climate crisis is not gender neutral. Women and girls experience the greatest impacts, which amplify existing gender inequalities and pose unique threats to their livelihoods, health, and safety. Across the world, women depend more on, yet have less access to, natural resources. In many regions, women bear a disproportionate responsibility for securing food, water, and fuel. Agriculture is the most important employment sector for women in low- and lower-middle income countries. During periods of drought and erratic rainfall, women, as agricultural workers and primary procurers, work harder to secure income and resources for their families. This puts added pressure on girls, who often have to leave school to help their mothers manage the increased burden.
Sajida Batool and her family had nothing to eat for 15 days as a result of the 2022 floods in Pakistan. Their house was under water, they contracted malaria but could not access medicines or hospitals. Her education suffered. Sajida is just one of 33 million Pakistani victims of the catastrophic floods, who lost their lives, homes, and livelihoods.
Turkana county is one of the most arid areas of Kenya. Several years of inadequate rainfall have pushed coping capacities to the brink. Women struggle to collect enough water, but when food is scarce, they eat less than men.
The UN estimates that 80 per cent of the people displaced by climate change are women. Last year’s devastating floods alone left almost 650,000 pregnant Pakistani women deprived of access to healthcare, forced to give birth under the open sky. The relentless floods also left eight million girls and women without access to basic menstrual hygiene products and toilets to manage their period.
As gender-based violence is exacerbated by climate crises, girls are more likely to be traded off into child marriages in return for food amidst climate-induced starvation. Climate change is not just an environmental phenomenon, it is a social injustice crisis that aggravates existing injustices in communities. Any discussion on climate action is tokenistic in nature and futile in structure unless it addresses the plight of women in climate crises.
Climate change is a ‘threat multiplier’ – it escalates social, political, and economic tensions in fragile and conflict-affected settings. As climate change drives conflict across the world, women and girls face increased vulnerability. to all forms of gender-based violence, including conflict-related sexual violence, human trafficking, child marriage, and other forms of violence.
When disasters strike, women are less likely to survive and more likely to be injured due to long standing gender inequalities that have created disparities in information, mobility, decision-making, and access to resources and training. In the aftermath, women and girls are less able to access relief and assistance, further threatening their livelihoods, wellbeing and recovery, and creating a vicious cycle of vulnerability to future disasters.
Women’s and girls’ health is endangered by climate change and disasters by limiting access to services and health care, as well as increasing risks related to maternal and child health.
With women across the world rallying for their rights and demanding climate justice, hope for change is not dim. From their mass demonstrations against gender-based violence in France in 2019, to the ongoing fight for reproductive rights in Argentina; from the recent ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ movement in Iran, to their leadership of climate marches, women have proven that they possess the potential to organise the masses, lead them and speak truth to power.
