Change mentality and ease climate burden on women
Buildings submerged by floods in Baringo County.
December. This is the month we have come to associate with sunshine and azure skies. This year, however, we are experiencing something different: The skies have treated us to rain, with scanty sunrays and that common cold.
This is turning out to be one of the coldest Decembers in the city because weather patterns are changing but we often hardly think about it. The other thing that escapes us is the link between the root cause of the changes — climate change — and gender-based violence in our communities.
Kenya has a predominantly youthful population with 68 per cent of youth living in rural areas. This huge demographic is highly reliant on subsistence farming and, oftentimes, it is women and girls who shoulder the bulk of the responsibilities there, including livestock production and water collection.
Despite their crucial role on the arable and pasture lands, only 10 per cent of women have title to the land they till.
And where there is a change in weather patterns, they would be the first to know, and bear the brunt of planting and harvest seasons being affected, exacerbating issues around their vulnerability, already compounded by deep-seated, culturally driven dependency.
This at a time when the World Food Programme (WFP) reports that 2.4 million people in Kenya risk going hungry as consecutive rainy seasons are missed across eastern and northern parts of the country and severe food insecurity is expected to continue into the new year.
Put in more hours
During extreme weather such as droughts and floods, women put in more hours of work to secure household livelihoods.
They fetch water, often after walking long distances — and more in the dry season, when water becomes scarce. This is the same energy that ensures homes get firewood for cooking and, as a result, in our villages we see a lot of deforestation as people cut more trees than they plant — a cycle that perpetuates the unpredictable weather patterns and soil erosion.
When people depend on their land for food and harvests fail, they have to find alternative means of survival. It is mostly the men who leave home to find other jobs as women stay behind for domestic duties.
A recent study by Care International shows climate-related hardships such as dry spells increase incidents of rape and harmful practices such as child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM).
Girls facing economic hardship caused by drought were reported to engage in transactional sex or forced by their families into early marriage.
Climate change brings with it opportunities too. Our mentality to react sporadically has to change with respect to disaster preparedness and response, especially in drought- or flood-prone areas.
Women are hardly at the decision-making table on environmental policy yet they are at the forefront of any shift in climate. Let us start 2022 with a different view on gender and climate change.
Ms Wako-Ojiwa is the Siasa Place executive director. @Nerima W
