Fiona Harvey: A New Report Reveals Climate Change Is Increasing Gender-Based Violence
Climate breakdown and
the global crisis of environmental degradation are increasing violence against
women and girls, while gender-based exploitation is in turn hampering our
ability to tackle the crises, a major report has concluded. Attempts to repair environmental
degradation and adapt to climate breakdown, particularly in poorer countries,
are failing, and resources are being wasted because they do not take gender
inequality and the effects on women and girls into account.
Campaigners called for
governments and institutions to take note, saying that the impacts
on women and girls must be at the heart of any viable strategies on
the climate and ecology. The International
Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) carried out what is understood to
be the biggest and most comprehensive study yet of the issue, taking two years
and involving more than 1,000 sources of research.
“We found gender-based
violence to be pervasive, and there is enough clear evidence to suggest that
climate change is increasing gender-based violence,” said Cate Owren, a lead
author of the report, published on Wednesday. “As environmental degradation and
stress on ecosystems increases, that in turn creates scarcity and stress for
people, and the evidence shows that, where environmental pressures increase,
gender-based violence increases.”...
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2020/02/a-new-report-reveals-climate-change-is-increasing-gender-based-violence/