The
recent spate of "natural" (or
nowadays probably more correctly, "climate
related") disasters all over the world
caused me to wonder whether their effects
are evenly spread between the sexes. Logically
human beings of both sexes should react
in much the same way to environmental threats,
and absent social factors any differences
in the effect of disasters between the sexes
should be fairly small.
I was interested to turn up some research
that has already been done. I was appalled
at what it showed: more women die than men
as the direct and indirect result of natural
disasters http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/pressAndInformationOffice/newsAndEvents/archives/2006/WomenAndNaturalDisasters.htm;
that 90% of the 140,000 victims of the 1991
Bangladesh cyclone disasters were women
http://www.wedo.org/files/June%20%20GA%20statement%20climate%20change%207%2031%2007.pdf;
that more women than men died during the
2003 European heat wave; and that the 2006
tsunami killed 3-4 women for each man
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2005/03/25/tsunami-women050325.html
. How could that be so?
In a speech in 1999 Lord
Hoffman, an English law lord, said ".....unless
you know the question, you will not be able
to get the right answer. Once the question
has been identified, the answer is usually
relatively easy...". That prompted
me to think that in order to find out why
women are more affected by climate change
than men, by first asking "in what
ways are women more affected?" we might
get some clues as to why women are affected
in that way.
Some interesting patterns emerged when
further digging revealed that:
-
In Sri Lanka, swimming
and tree climbing are taught mainly
to boys; that helped males cope better
than females, and survive, when the
waves of the tsunami hit. Social prejudice
keeps girls and women from learning
to swim, which severely reduces their
chances of survival in flooding disasters.
- Women stayed indoors because of social
prohibitions against leaving home.
- In Aceh many women were found dead
with babies still clutched in their arms.
Some personal accounts by survivors tell
of mothers pushing their children to safety
on buildings or trees that withstood the
tsunami, but being swept away themselves.
The long dresses women were obliged to
wear under Aceh's shariah laws made it
harder for them to move quickly. They
could not run as fast as men, nor swim.
Some who were in their homes but casually
dressed when the first wave struck ran
to put on "acceptable" outdoor
clothes before seeking safety, and as
a result were drowned or barely escaped.
http://www.wrmea.com/archives/August_2005/0508040.html
- In times of disaster and environmental
stress women become less mobile women
become less mobile because they are the
primary care-givers.
- After a natural disaster, women are
more likely to become victims of domestic
and sexual violence; from fear, they often
avoid using shelters http://www.feminist.com/news/vaw44.html
- The household workload increases substantially
after a disaster, which forces many girls
to drop out of school to help with chores.
- Nutritional status is a critical determinant
of the ability to cope with the effect
of natural disasters. Women are more prone
to nutritional deficiencies because of
their unique nutritional needs. Some cultures
have household food hierarchies, generally
favouring males. In sub-Saharan Africa,
women carry greater loads than men, but
have a lower intake of calories because
the cultural norm is for men to receive
more food. http://www.genderandenvironment.org/admin/admin_biblioteca/documentos/Factsheet%20Adaptation.pdf
- Women plant, produce procure and prepare
most of the world's food: women are responsible
for approximately 75 percent of household
food production in Sub-Saharan Africa;
65 per cent in Asia; and 45 per cent in
Latin America. http://www.madre.org/articles/int/climatechange.html
- The time-consuming task of gathering
and transporting water generally falls
to women. As water becomes scarce, women's
workload increases dramatically. Girls'
school attendances, and eventually enrolments,
drop as they trek longer distances to
find water.
From the information I was able to access
it seemed to me that the ways in which women
are affected more than men were fairly consistently
associated with their caregiving obligations
or with social or religious mores.
The next problem was what
if anything can we do about these appalling
statistics? There is probably no real scope
for direct action because most of the foundational
problems are entrenched cultural or religious
mores that are not really susceptible to
even local political intervention. Could
aid agencies do what governments can't?
Perhaps it all comes down to education,
giving women the benefit of the capacity
for critical thought that comes with improved
general education, and educating women to
look objectively at and perhaps think differently
about their roles and behaviours when they
have adverse consequences, like behaving
in a certain way when under threat. That
might at least bring them closer to a position
of choice. http://www.unesco.org/iiep/PDF/Fund73.pdf
But each possible solution brings more
problems and more questions. Where does
the money come from? Should it come from
the nations that have caused, and those
which are still contributing to, climate
change? How should fair contributions be
determined?
In September last year
The Council of Women World Leaders (CWWL),
the Women's Environment and Development
Organisation (WEDO) and the Heinrich Boll
Foundation North America organised a roundtable
called "How a Changing Climate Impacts
Women". The participants recognised
that while there are no references to gender
in the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC), statistics show that climate
change is not gender neutral.
In December 2007 four global institutions
– Women's Environment and Development
Organisation (WEDO), United Nations Development
Program (UNDP), World Conservation Union
(IUCN), and the United Nations Environment
Program (UNEP) -- met with Women environment
ministers and leaders at the UN Climate
Change Conference in Bali to ensure for
the first time that "gender issues
are prominent in climate policy and action".
As a result of the meeting, the Network
called upon the signatory countries and
the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention
on Climate Change to:
- Recognise that women are powerful agents
of change and that their full participation
is critical in adaptation and mitigation
climate policies and initiatives, and
hence, guarantee that women and gender
experts participate in all decisions related
to climate change;
- Take action in order to ensure UNFCCC
compliance with human rights frameworks,
international and national commitments
on gender equality and equity, including
the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW);
- Develop a gender strategy, invest in
gender-specific climate change research
and establish a system for the use of
gender-sensitive indicators and criteria
for governments to use in national reporting
to the UNFCC Secretariat;
- Analyse and identify gender-specific
impacts and protection measures related
to floods, droughts, heatwaves, diseases,
and other environmental changes and disasters;
- Given that millions of poor women affected
by climate change live and work outside
the reach of formal markets, design and
implement funding mechanisms accessible
to them to reduce their particular vulnerabilities.
In addition, increase equitable access
by poor women and men to climate change
market-based approaches such as the Clean
Development Mechanism.
The actions of these groups
is a positive and essential step: unless
the interaction between gender and climate
change is placed and kept firmly on the
agenda, any policies to slow and redress
climate change and its consequences are
unlikely to assist disadvantaged women.
Their proposals also allow action to be
got in train now, through established international
organisations which have the capacity to
allocate the necessary funding. And if we
all encourage our government to support
their initiatives through the United Nations
– to which all wealthier countries
are financial contributors -- then we are
all making a contribution to the solution.
Addressing the issue of
gender and climate change requires long-term
objectives and long-term commitment from
the international community. The women's
organisations who are currently involved
simply can't shoulder the financial burden,
and nor should they. And with the frequency
and severity of environmental disasters
increasing it is also critical that the
work of those organisations should not be
hindered by the qualification "pending
funding". http://www.idealist.org/if/i/en/av/Job/258372-146
Copyright Kellie Tranter 2008 |
