With limited permissible areas for farming, women who go to open fields for farming activities expose themselves to the risk of being raped, abducted or killed.” Speaking to the ongoing situation in Northeast Nigeria, UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous said, “Female-headed households who depend on farming to provide for their families often suffer the most. While the crisis is critical for all concerned communities, women and girls are disproportionately affected and have different and uneven levels of resilience and capacity to cope and recover. The situation has further deteriorated due to the COVID-19 pandemic over 24 million people in the Sahel are currently in need of life-saving assistance and protection including 4.5 million displaced individuals. In the Sahel region, recurrent floods and droughts are aggravating food insecurity, increasing tensions, and fueling humanitarian crises. “Conflict affects women, girls, boys and men differently, and the same is true for the impacts of climate change, yet women and girls and their needs continue to be excluded from policy decisions and the analysis that underpins them,” said Mr. “The situation is especially acute in settings already experiencing conflict and humanitarian needs, Afghanistan and the Sahel being two of the most prominent examples,” said Selwin Hart, Special Advisor to the Secretary-General on Climate Action and Assistant Secretary General for the Climate Action Team, in his opening remarks, noting that disaster-related displacement has quadrupled since the 1970s and more than 800 million persons were undernourished in 2020, a number that has been aggravated due to the combined shocks of COVID-19 and the climate crisis. Moderated by Grace Mbaiorga, a youth expert on disaster risk reduction from Nigeria, the discussion focused on the ways in which the climate crisis, conflict and gender inequality are connected to the detriment of the advancement of the Sustainable Development Goals and the gender equality agenda. The event, “Climate shocks exacerbating humanitarian crisis, insecurity and gender inequality-Voices from the Sahel and Afghanistan”, took place against the backdrop of ongoing violent extremism and displacement, heightening political instability, humanitarian crises, and roll backs of hard-won gains for gender equality in many regions of the world, with particular focus on the Sahel and Afghanistan. NEW YORK (IDN) - At a side event of the 66th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW66) that concluded on March 25, UN leaders, policy makers, and civil society activists highlighted the impacts of climate shocks and environmental hazards on women and girls in humanitarian settings.
0 kommentar(er)
