Flood response aid must give women a voice
Pakistan is experiencing a climate meltdown. Floods have ravaged the nation, submerging a third of my home country and displacing over 30 million.
One in seven Pakistanis have been affected, and many now sleep under the open sky, waiting for relief or death. We’ve experienced similar traumas before, but this time it will take years — and billions — to rebuild.
The international community has witnessed only the beginning of the destruction climate change will wreak on Pakistan, and the rest of the world. Yet, global policymakers and aid agencies have missed a lethal blind spot in their response — women.
Women in this part of the world are often the first casualties of environmental disasters, owing to years of dogmatic seclusion depriving them of the ability to evacuate, or even swim. Many even choose to remain in danger zones, because they are unable to leave without their children.
And for those who survive, life is bleak.
There are an estimated 650,000 pregnant women displaced by the flood, with no access to birthing facilities, or even basic health care, and 73,000 of these women are expected to give birth in the flood zones over the next month, possibly resulting in the premature deaths of thousands of women and children.
Other women are struggling with miserable conditions, with their sanitary and basic health requirements essentially absent from aid priorities, exposing them to infection, blood poisoning, even hepatitis. Years after the floods recede, these women refugees will suffer from more disease and live shorter lifespans than men.
And this is to say nothing of the immediate threat of violence.
As the United Nations has found, disasters exacerbate security risks as scarcity and desperation pervade. Women are often violently overpowered in the struggle for resources, and women and young girls in relief camps live in perpetual fear of sexual assault, and even murder.
We cannot afford to ignore gender-sensitive climate policies and aid administration in the face of insurmountable evidence of the extreme vulnerability of women climate refugees. And if we do, it spells a bleak future for Pakistan.
Because as women suffer, communities crumble.
Women are not only primary care givers to the young, but pioneers of food production and sustainable development in their communities; about 70 percent of employed women across South Asia work in agriculture. The effect of displacement caused by these floods will contribute to the food crisis and produce millions of impoverished, illiterate children without adequate care or a stable future.
What a lost generation means for Pakistan, a nation of almost 230 million, is relevant to us all.
And how the international community responds will have implications for Pakistan and the region’s long-term stability. Because without gender-responsive aid and policymaking, the very fabric of Pakistani society may be torn apart.
After all, it is these women who historically have maintained social cohesion. Studies show women are more likely to invest their finances and empowerment in their children, not only keeping them nourished and alive, but playing a critical role in ensuring their education and future employment.
The U.N. Development Program has warned such communities are vulnerable to poverty and despair, potentially resulting in a total breakdown of law, increased violence and even vulnerability to radicalization and extremism.
The crisis is here. And there is little time left to act.
As a Pakistani woman and activist who has spent her life advocating for greater women’s rights, I am all too familiar with the challenges the women of my country face. Women are subject to marginalization and subjugation, often sanctioned by segments of the country’s religious leadership.
But the tides — for some of Pakistan’s and the wider region’s leading religious and political minds — may be finally shifting.
One such example is the recent Faith For Our Planet conference in Pakistan — a landmark interfaith climate coalition which convened climate scientists and religious leaders in order to discuss the gendered effects of the climate crisis. As the founder of FFOP — Dr. Mohammad bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, Secretary General of the Muslim World League and one of the world’s leading Islamic religious leaders — said, women are a critical part of any climate solution, yet are excluded.
With Pakistan announcing a Climate Change Gender Action Plan last month, it shows the nation is on the right path. But the global response for displaced women is long overdue.
Pakistan, and the world, must prioritize an emergency intervention for women in the flood zones by mobilizing security resources to protect climate migrants, and ensure the aid delivered does not overlook the needs of women.
But that is only the beginning.
The crisis in our country necessitates we train women in disaster management and make their education and autonomy a national and global priority.
For example, an imperative focus of the upcoming COP27 climate change conference in Egypt must be bringing women into the policymaking space. World leaders must act on women’s unparalleled knowledge of sustainable agricultural practices and use of resources to build the climate resilience our country — and the world — desperately needs.
I urge Pakistan and the international community to commit to gender-sensitive aid administration and development in the coming years to ensure the stability and the survival of our next generation.
If not, we risk a mass femicide today. And the destruction of an entire nation tomorrow.
Farzana Bari is a Pakistani human rights activist who has focused her life’s work on justice and gender equality in Pakistan. She has advocated for women's rights for over 25 years, and founded the country's first-ever gender studies department at Quaid-e-Azam University, where she served as the director.