Day six @the Hub

The climate crisis is a threat multiplier for women and girls. Ms. Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences spoke about the way forward to address some the impacts during an event on the sixth day at the Hub.

Climate change and ways to mitigate gender-based violence; Organizer: UN Women & the United Arab Emirates (UAE): “Climate change is not only an ecological crisis, but fundamentally a question of justice, prosperity and gender equality, and intrinsically linked to and influenced by structural inequality and discrimination,” Ms. Alsalem said in her report to the UN General Assembly in 2022.

Women and girls are more susceptible to gender-based violence in countries vulnerable to climate change, she said at the event. For instance, scarcity of water, forces women and girls to walk longer over unsafe distances to fetch clean drinking.

When slow or sudden-onset disasters strike and threaten livelihoods, communities may resort to negative coping mechanisms, such as trafficking, sexual exploitation and harmful practices like early and child marriage and drop out from schools, Ms. Alsalem pointed out. We have to address women and girls’ vulnerabilities and place them at the centre of policies and response, she underlined. 

Mouza Al-Shehhi, Director of the UN Women-UAE Liaison Office for the Gulf Cooperation Council highlighted the ongoing campaign - 16 days of activism for violence against women. She highlighted that despite the campaign (which had been launched in 1992), violence against women continues and she called for more resources to address the problem and uplift survivors.

The aid community must ensure that survivors of gender-based violence have a voice and be part of the decision-making process during a response, underscored Sajeda Shawa, OCHA’s head of office in UAE. Ten per cent of the events in the Humanitarian Hub focus on issues related to gender-based violence, and the rest all have a gender dimension, she added.