Daily Times

The worsening climate situation in Pakistan calls for a greater understanding of rural women as change agents who need to be given a position at the decision-making table. Gender-balanced climate policies that elevate and empower women will contribute to the creation of a more resilient, peaceful, and sustainable future.

Considering the correlation between gender and climate concerns and research demonstrating the disproportionate effects of climate change on women and young girls, the future of millions of rural women under the brewing crisis appears bleak. As a result, the government needs to work harder to develop a framework for a gender-inclusive climate strategy. It is necessary to remove societal and institutional barriers that keep women from taking an equal role in climate change decision-making.

In rural settings, women are typically the primary household caregivers. They are responsible for everything from fetching water from far-off rivers and wells to caring for sick family members. In some places, women spend up to four hours every day making numerous dangerous foot journeys to get to the water for their households. In other instances, women and young girls sacrifice their education and risk harming their physical and mental health to take care of their households. Women require access to clean water for personal hygiene and sanitation in addition to using it for cooking, drinking, bathing and cleaning. Furthermore, groundwater in coastal locations is unsafe for oral consumption due to the rapid incursion of salt water. Preeclampsia and gestational hypertension rates among pregnant women in certain coastal areas are greater as a result of the use of saline water.

A gender-inclusive strategy is necessary to remove societal and institutional barriers that keep women from taking an equal role in climate change decision-making.

Rural women are subject to significant gender limitations and constraints; thus, they lack the resources, information, and authority needed to speak out for themselves and fight for their rights. Unfortunately, climate change and the hazards it poses have made these gender discrepancies even worse, making women less prepared to face and overcome present and future challenges. Since they provide significant contributions to the country’s farming, and cottage industries, all of which are extremely susceptible to water shortages and climate change. Unfavourable weather patterns result in the termination of women’s appointments in these industries, while men relocate to metropolitan areas in search of alternate economic prospects. Women left behind find themselves even more burdened by domestic duties since they receive little or no financial support.

In addition, women make up the majority of people who have been uprooted or relocated as a result of climatic threats. Over 70% of those who were displaced in Pakistan in the wake of the 2010 floods were women and children. These unprotected women and children living in refugee camps and squatter colonies are frequently the victims of forced prostitution, human trafficking, and gender-based abuse. But women aren’t deterred and they keep fighting on the front lines of the global catastrophe.

Women are still mostly absent from the climate discussion, even though it has picked up steam in recent years. This is partly because policymaking has historically been plagued by bureaucratic methods. The decades-old system, which is tilted in favour of the higher echelons of society with minimal accommodations for the ordinary populace, is still governed by a small group of people, mostly male officials. Democratic institutions are still ineffective, and there is a clear lack of inclusion at all levels, with women and other excluded groups receiving little attention in the discussion of public policy and in instances, where women are given the authority-She is mostly urban women-qualified and settled in metropolitan which leaves the grave issue. The exclusion of rural women and policy deafness to her problems persists.

Let’s all consider the topic of whether gender parity can be achieved if the issue of a woman cotton picker, a woman working in health care, a maid, a farmerette, a cleaner, a cook, a caretaker, and a housewife is not discussed by themselves.

The writer is Research Associate (Sustainable Development Policy Institute) and can be contacted at nudratfatima
@sdpi.org.