Climate Change and Gender-Based Violence: Outcomes, Challenges and Future Perspectives

Abstract

Climate change (CC) is often described as an environmental problem raising political concerns and debates but also perceived as a social human problem (Clayton 2019;Dias et al. 2020). CC presents a broadly systemic health risk, making the world more dangerous to live in, further enhancing social and psychological stress of people (Johnson 2020). Translated into extreme weather events or natural disasters, such as droughts and desertification, floods, forest fires and cyclones, CC is extremely complex and has implications in several areas of life. These events often result in undeniable social, economic and environmental consequences, impacting more significantly on the most vulnerable populations.According to the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) "…socially and economically disadvantaged and marginalized people are disproportionally affected by climate change." (IPCC 2014), exacerbating social inequalities. Accordingly, CC impacts are somewhat biased since they tend to be regressive, falling more heavily on the poor than the rich (Skoufias 2012). It has been reported by Islam and Winkel (2017) that socially and geographically disadvantaged people, i.e., those who face discrimination based on gender, age, race, class, caste, indigeneity and disability, are particularly vulnerable to climate hazards. This suggests that the impacts of CC are not gender-neutral. Peoples' adaptation, vulnerability and resilience to CC

COVID-19, Climate Change, and Conflict in Honduras: A food system disruption analysis

“…The hurricanes also impeded public health efforts by damaging hospital infrastructure including potable water and cold chain equipment for vaccines ( PAHO and WHO, 2022 ). Gender-based violence, which affects household food security ( Okpara and Anugwa, 2022 ), can be impacted by changing social and economic dynamics within households as a result of both climate change ( Caridade et al, 2022 ) and the COVID-19 pandemic (Chandan et al, 2020); Honduras saw a 14% increase in reports of gender-based violence between February and May 2022 ( Fromm et al, 2022 ). Scholars have described “the three Cs” as “uneven crises” with compounding, inequitable impacts on vulnerable populations including women, lower-income households, racially/ethnically marginalized groups, and communities in climate hotspots ( Belsey-Priebe et al, 2021 ; Sultana, 2021 ).…”

Identifying the Preparedness Components for Sexual Violence in Natural Disasters: A Systematic Review

“…The findings of this study show that one of the effective preparedness components for sexual violence in natural disasters is empowering the community as well as the medical staff by increasing resilience, education, and training. In other studies, researchers have found that community knowledge is crucial to preventing sexual violence during disasters and providing the necessary resources in the event of one ( 9 , 18 , 72 , 73 ). Raising public awareness of dangerous behaviors helps in preventing sexual violence and letting those who are exposed to it know what services and treatment they should receive ( 34 , 74 - 77 ).…”

Measuring transformative WASH: A new paradigm for evaluating water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions

“…A growing body of work has documented the links between WASH access and gender‐based violence (Abu Sharekh, 2021; Pommells et al, 2018) and intimate partner violence (Choudhary et al, 2020; Mushavi et al, 2020). Recent work has connected water insecurity with community‐level and intra‐household conflict, and how these relationships may be shaped by regional conflict (Pearson et al, 2021) and exacerbated by climate change (Caridade et al, 2022; Mack et al, 2021). While traditional water conflict metrics have tended to be implemented at regional scales, we can learn a lot about community and household conflict through short survey modules, with additional precautions for assessing physical and sexual violence.…”