Naturally, when climate change occurs, the most affected are women and children. If it has to do with relocation from their original settlements or domains, the fear of “where do we go” comes to mind. They also consider the fact that once they leave where they are, especially to an unknown place, something funny and harmful may affect their lives. This also can cause them a lot of trauma.
Climate Change like flood, has caused a lot of havoc to women whose occupation mostly is farming, fishing inclusive and trading. When flooding occurs, their farms where they get farm produce are affected and even markets where to sell become a problem.
When situations like this occurs, definitely poverty sets in since their source of livelihood becomes affected. When their farms are affected, feeding their families, especially the widows becomes difficult.
Of course when flooding occurs, it goes beyond the normal rivers where some women who are engaged in fishing business get their daily bread. Anybody who engages in daily agricultural business and is being denied that even, per day is bound to run into financial problem.
Cases of flooding which have occured in many parts of Nigeria, especially the coastal regions is unpredictable weather patterns which should be looked into.
During the period, you have less food, decreasing access to safe water. Living conditions become more difficult. In Internally Displaced Camps (IDPs), food and materials donated and distributed are not always enough. In this case, women and girls who need good water for sanitation suffer.
When droughts occur as a result of flood, women have poor harvest.
During evacuation, a lot happen to women and girls who may be observing their “monthly visitor”.
When we talk about climate change, we are not just talking about changing of the weather, it’s consequences on humans, especially on women and children on a daily basis are something anybody cannot joke with. They struggle to survive and recover.
Women suffer more due to inequalities and discrimination because of gender. Discrimination among women and girls tend to multiply when disasters occur as they are forced to succumb to all demands, especially rape.
From the recent flooding in some of the coastal villages in the country, we know that climate change-related crises are already instigating deep, life-altering changes for some of the poorest and most marginalised women and girls in the world.
Increased risk of violence against women and girls. In a camp for displaced people, a girl who was just 15 and her sister 19, lie awake at night listening to any sounds that may alert them to men walking into their makeshift shelter which has no proper doors. Some nights they don’t sleep at all for fear of being attacked.
When one of them was interviewed, it was a new reality. “I feel insecure because we have a very poor shelter. Sometimes, the thieves come in and try to harm us. It’s so scary… the thieves don’t want to take any material things, they want to harm women. So, that’s why they don’t look for our things. They just want to attack women”, she said.
As a result women and girls may be forced to migrate to camps for displaced people where living under temporary tarps or bare plastic sheets can expose them to violence from strangers.
Another girl, who was 14, said she was also forced to move into a camp after her house flooded in a small village in one of the coastal villages.
According to her, “in the night I cannot sleep. There was no door. Just a plastic sheet was above our heads. My mother never slept. She was worried for me and my sister.”
There is increased risk of child marriage. When the floods hit one village two years ago, a girl suddenly had to face the prospect of getting married at the tender age of 14. Her parents were struggling after they lost everything in the floods and they felt that marriage into another family would keep her well-fed and safe.
In her words: “Because of poverty parents marry off their daughters like me at a very early age. I cannot go to school since I got married. Life is tough for girls of young age in the village.”
When a disaster strikes, girls can be more vulnerable to child marriage than usual. In some places they are considered an extra burden in times of crisis.
For poor families who have lost their homes and livelihoods, child marriage can be seen as a ticket out of, or at least, a way to diminish the effects of crippling poverty, whilst also ensuring the perceived security of their daughters from violence.
When floods occur, girls are more likely to miss classes or drop out of school.
In small rural villages, some girls clutched their books tightly as they wade their way through knee-high water to get to school everyday. Sometimes, they miss their first classes even though they love going to school and adore their books.
You discover that after the floods some years, while their parents go out to struggle to make up for the lost period, their workload at home increased. They will start to help their mothers more at home by looking after their younger ones, fetching water and doing the household grocery shop at the local markets.
In times of crises, girls are often forced to drop out of school or miss classes because household chores become a strain with fewer family members available to share the pressures at home. Girls are often enlisted to take care of family members, or to help with domestic chores such as cooking, cleaning or finding water, and school is considered a lower priority in times of need.
Sometimes whole schools are destroyed in a crisis or even closed for long periods of time. A girl was interviewed about her feelings missing school during the period and she said: ” I love to go to school and never miss or not attend… (but) last one month our school was closed because of flood. I felt bad and missed…school so much.”
Increased risk of death and injury are possible
25-year-old girl narrated how difficult survival during the floods is. “My sister was pregnant and she delivered in the middle of water. There was no help and I was with her….pregnant mothers cannot swim this distance and often tend to stay in the house which is more dangerous”, she explained.
Marginalised women and girls, the disabled and the elderly are more vulnerable to death and injury in the face of a natural disaster.
Due to their traditional given roles as caretakers, women and girls often stay back in a disaster to protect their children or adults in their care while men sometimes escape.
Not only that but deeply ingrained social norms sometimes dictate that women and girls sometimes have to wait on permission from the men in the household to leave their houses. In some places, women are also often unable to escape when caught by sudden floods or other disasters as they are not encouraged to learn to swim.
It effects on the availability of food and chances of earning a living is worrisome.
Imagine that you live in a pastoral or farming community and the food you eat every day comes from the crops you grow daily or the livestock you rear for milk, meat or for selling in return for cash.
Now imagine the same land you rely on slowly dries out or gets inundated with water and destroys a season’s worth of crops.
This is the reality facing many young women, from the coastal villages. A 20-year-old mother, Abigail was part of a pastoralist family that owned several animals which they reared for their food and income.
Years of climate change-related drought, dried out her land and killed off all the livestock, leaving her family without any food or money to survive. At the same time, her husband took her children and abandoned her.
In her words: Our life was so good because we had our livestock. We used to eat, drink milk, sell [the animals], make butter… it’s so painful when you have a small baby and you have nothing.”
In many rural communities, men control the income in their households. Women who rely on men for economic support are left struggling in times of crisis when men either abandon their families, or leave to look for work elsewhere or are even killed by natural disasters.
Women in rural communities have limited access to and ownership of their land as well which directly impacts the food they have available to eat.
“We lost our crops. Our small goat died in the flood water. Cows are sick. My children suffered a lot during flood. Now we have no crop in our storage. I, along (with) my husband have to work in people’s fields to bring food (to) our table. Life is becoming harder every year after floods”, she said.
Government at every level should support and provide women and girls around the world with food, water, survival kits and safe toilets so that they can survive the climate change affecting their lives when they occur.
Efforts should be made by relevant authorities to ensure that women and girls are safe in IDP camps and adequate arrangements should be made before evacuation.

By: Eunice Choko-Kayode