Climate Change Devastating Women’s Lives

Esther Musili

Leading Kenyan Aid worker Esther Musili is speaking alongside Foreign Secretary David Miliband next Tuesday (September 23) at a fringe meeting of the Labour Party Conference in Manchester.

Musili sees the devastating effects of global warming every day and – as the UK’s Climate Change Bill approaches its final parliamentary reading – she will tell the MPs and party stalwarts how it is destroying lives and directly impacting upon women.

She is the executive director of Christian Aid partner organisation UCCS (Ukamba Christian Community Services) which helps more than 24,000 people in Eastern Kenya where global warming has contributed to desertification and water scarcity.

She explains how the lives of women are being decimated by climate change: Mothers are struggling to feed their families - some are reduced to prostitution; whilst girls’ chances of education are effectively being eliminated.

Women and young girls who previously walked two or three kilometres to fetch water are now walking triple that distance. Some are even forced to queue overnight, she says.

Long walks to fetch water leave women physically exhausted and vulnerable to rape - with the inherent risk of contracting HIV-Aids. It also means mothers can be away from their families for most of the day, meaning they are unable to cook and support their young ones, says Musili.

Daughters – who traditionally carry water from the age of seven onwards – are missing school or unable to do their homework. Those who still go to their classes may have to carry water there – because there’s no water at the school.

The knock-on effects of disruption to education are long-term. Musili says: ‘when you educate a woman you educate a nation’.

Without education, women have reduced employment possibilities and no understanding of written information, including leaflets on vital health practises or notices on life-saving drives such as vaccinations.

Musili’s organisation is working to help communities mitigate the effects of climate change by improving access to water closer to villages, providing sub-surface damns to store ground water in geological strata, and trapping sand and water in riverbeds. It also provides advice on ways to alleviate and conserve water through tree nurseries and small gardens.

In addition, UCCS works with community elders to hammer out agreements that will help reduce the risk to women going for water – seeking consensus on a female dress code for water collection and the hours when women would be safest if they must walk long distances.

The organisation also distributes seeds to particularly vulnerable households.

The experiences of people in Kenya, who are supported by Musili’s organisation, demonstrate powerfully how poor people are suffering the most from climate change when they have done the least to cause it.