Afghan Women Vulnerability to Climate Change
REPORT BY SARA
Climate change is one of the most critical events the world is dealing with. It is very sad that we human beings are destroying our home, which is the only planet we can live on. The main cause for the recent climate hazards is the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to the earth's atmosphere. The greenhouse gases such as Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Methane (Ch4) and Nitrous Oxide (N2O), emitted predominantly by the industrialised countries, cause global warming and other climatic changes. Climate change results in severe droughts, floods, heatwaves, and other similar events, and is going to be accelerated in the upcoming decades if the developed countries do not reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions. These climatic hazards affect developing countries like Afghanistan more than developed countries.
Afghanistan is one of these developing countries with less resources. My people are poor and dependent on agriculture. Most of the people who are living in the villages are facing food shortage and are mostly being affected by malaria and cholera. The whole year they work hard on their farms to collect their agricultural products in order to sell them and buy clothes and healthy food. They cultivate rice, wheat, vegetables, and plant trees, but droughts affect their farms and, thus, they face tremendous challenges. When floods and droughts impact their farms, they lose most of their agricultural products and they become poor. This means that most of them cannot afford to pay for the basic needs of their lives.
These are not all of the negative aspects of climate change, as it affects women differently. Afghanistan is a culturally Islamic country. Women in my country are dependent on men and they are mostly represented by the male members of their family. This makes them more vulnerable, as the men do not pay attention to their rights. Although women work hard in their farms to help their husbands and fathers to cultivate agricultural products, their role in managing the natural resources is not considered in the decision-making process. In the rural parts of Afghanistan, women are responsible to provide clean water and fire-wood for their family, whilst also conducting house chores. Therefore, they face many challenges in providing clean water and firewood, especially when their living area is impacted by droughts and floods.
PHOTOS BY HADIA
On the other hand, most of the Afghan women do not have access to land and natural resources and, thus, they are very poor. This makes them even more vulnerable than men to climate change. Although they work hard on farms, they do not have the right to share their ideas about selling the agricultural products. In addition, droughts in Afghanistan lead to food shortages, which causes poverty, stress and anxiety in families. Women especially bear the burden of all of these misfortunes. Poverty also increases the level of violence against women and girls in Afghan families.
Moreover, when a family does not have enough money to afford to pay for the education of all of their children, they do not allow their girls to go to school so that they can provide the opportunity for their sons to go to school. In very unpleasant situations, girls are even sold by their fathers or brothers so that the rest of their family can have enough food and clothes. Therefore, Afghan women and girls are the most vulnerable human beings in the world, as climate change exacerbates poverty and poverty increases the level of gender inequality in Afghanistan.
The world should pay closer attention to the negative aspects of climate change in Afghanistan, as we are currently living in a climatic crisis and have to bear the burden of the hazards caused by developed countries. Developed countries should work hard to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases they emit to the atmosphere rather than paying money to adapt to climate change. Merely adapting to these climatic hazards is not helping and is preventing action from being taken on the main issue—reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Reference:
IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group 1 to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intragovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L Connors, C. Pean, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonny, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekci, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds)]. In Press.