''Women can be effective actors of change when empowered''
A General View :
Climate changes are changes in the usual climate which include heavy rainfall, drought and heat waves which in turn has vast impacts as a result of which it is a threat to food production, the rising sea levels increasing the risk of flooding and have other impacts on the human and ecological system. All of this affects the lives of women, their economic activities, their maternal health and education is affected by these climatic changes. The inequalities increase and as women are already in a disadvantaged position, they face difficulties in dealing with these disasters.
There are some facilities provided by the Paris climate agreement to ensure that women receive support to cope with the hazards of climate change. The International Panel on Climate Change found that gender inequalities are further exaggerated by climate-related hazards, and they result in higher workloads for women, occupational hazards both indoors and outdoors, psychological and emotional stress and higher mortality as compared to men.
It’s Impacts on Women:
Climate changes affect women in various ways. Mostly the women leave their education and when they do so they have little information on how to cope up with these disasters. The burden falls on the women when the lands become dry then they have to travel to long distances to fetch water. Women are the primary caregivers and have the responsibility of managing their household and also manage the natural resources but despite all this they are more vulnerable to flooding and droughts. Given the responsibility of caregivers, they usually stay back and look after their children while on the other hand during a disaster the men escape and look for another income opportunity. While the men go away, these women are left behind with their children and they look after themselves and provide for themselves so having no male figure around this results in sexual exploitation of the women.
In Chitral, the communities that are affected by climate changes, force their male members to leave their homes and search for alternate sources of livelihood , so due to this the responsibility of the community and the household both fall on the women, they are forced to perform the community tasks as well.
In the rural communities, the women usually gather food and collect water, so when the droughts reach its peak they have to travel to in order to acquire these resources. In Pakistan the monsoon flooding destroyed many crops and the farmers were negatively impacted, so the men had to go to different places and find work with high wages and due to the unpaid work of the women, they have to work for low wages so this in turn creates a gender inequality.
About 200,000 people were forced from their homes by drought and floods in Ethiopia, women living in overcrowded shelters faced higher levels of sexual violence there and more frequent trips to fetch water and firewood.
When girls and women are displaced due to catastrophes and when they’re unable to continue their education, they go on pursuing economic opportunities. Women and girls also face higher rates of child marriage, domestic violence, sexual violence, and illegal human trade due to these climate changes.
In Malawi, climate change disruptions created 1.5 million child brides. As climate change exerts economic pressure on families the number of child marriages increases. Girls are considered a burden in times of crisis so this becomes an easy way out.
The household responsibilities like cleaning, cooking, looking after the children become difficult after being affected by climate change, so it puts an increasing load on women. The girls drop out of school, as the household chores become a burden with fewer family members so after dropping out from their schools they start helping their mothers in domestic household activities and look after the members living in that particular house. It can be said that in this way both women and girls are affected.
According to the study conducted by Stephanie Buechler in the US Border of Mexico, she said “decreasing water availability weakened women’s ability to invest in their careers.” Women in Mexico had a hard time acquiring milk as they made cheese for an additional income. The livestock owners replaced cows that needed a lot of water with cows that needed less which in turn became hard for those women. The new cows produced less milk. So, these women had less access to milk, they had to go further to a community about an hour away that still had more water underground than they did.”
Climate changes also affect the health of pregnant women. After natural disasters when people become refugees and are displaced from their homes, this may also include pregnant women so they are unable to receive adequate health care and due to food and water insecurity they do not get the nutrients that are required. Without hospitals and health centers it becomes difficult to give birth. There is a reduced access to reproductive and maternal health care services due to climate change impacts. The newborns are affected by the exposure of heat on the pregnant mothers. Worsening heat waves also expose women who have to travel to get water to health problems like dehydration, heat stroke, and sexual violence.
The effects of climate change in Pakistan are felt in many parts of the country and especially in the rural areas. In the desert of Tharparkar located in the Thar Desert there are unusual climatic changes, which in turn affect their crops and damages their land. They have to survive in these climate changes because they have no control over it. Their agriculture is affected by the water scarcity and this forces the women to fetch water from the wells that are located at long distances and due to the heavy pots that they carry on their heads in turn result in hair loss among women.
Food insecurity due to climate largely affects the health of the women because if there is less food available, the men get to eat more. So during the times of climate driven food insecurity mostly women go without food than men in India, Iran, South Africa, Ghana and Nicaragua. During food scarcity, girls are provided with less food, which make them susceptible to malnutrition and other diseases. These climatic changes including extreme weather events aggravate the risk of mental illness among women. They are more affected than men. The World Health Organization in 2018 notes that women are more likely to suffer from mental illnesses than men due to extreme weather events and this is linked to high prevalence of sexual violence. They also suffer from a high risk of emotional stress and depression.
According to Global Research, due to a disaster women are more likely to die or get injured due to a disaster and they are also subject to other impacts such as rape, trauma and increased workloads. Another study found that in Dhaka after a 1998 flood, it became difficult for the women to leave their houses to seek medical help; it restricted the women from leaving their homes without any male member.
How to tackle this issue
Climate changes affect the women negatively. In order to overcome this problem, voices of women should be raised. There must be forums where they raise their voice and inform the people about how climate changes affect their lives and how they suffer due to these climate changes. Their ideas should be given importance. They should engage in policymaking, discussions and initiatives on climate change. They should be empowered and made part of the solution. The unequal consequences of climate change for women have led to considerable efforts to deal with the impacts of climate change. Women from around the world are leading a change towards addressing the climate crisis and bringing in a more gendered perspective on the issue. Awareness about climate change among women is needed and they should be provided with facilities that include adaptive measures for overcoming these climate change calamities.
''Don’t be afraid; tell the truth because actions speak louder than words.''