WUNRN
WORLD WATER DAY - MARCH 22, 2010
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Water Quality Is a Matter of
Children's Rights, Say UN Experts on World Water Day - Statement by Group of
United Nations Human Rights Experts
to Mark World Water Day, 22 March,
2010 - Special considerations noted for GIRLS.
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Al Jazeera - Everywoman
Women & Politics of Water -
Video
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Women and Water - A Truly Global Struggle
World Development Movement - Global Water Crisis
The grim reality of the global water crisis is that it disproportionately impacts on women. Primarily, it is women who manage water in the household; it is women who tend to crops, and it is women who have the main responsibility for raising children. Lack of access to water substantially increases the burden of their responsibilities.
The
relatively low status of women in many societies and their lack of economic and
cultural power may help to explain why issues of water access and sanitation do
not enjoy the global profile that they deserve.
It
is no surprise then that women have often suffered disproportionately from the
push to privatise water in the developing world. In many cases however they
have also been at the forefront of successfully fighting back and developing
workable, public approaches to meeting their communities' water and sanitation
needs. It is time that international decision makers recognised that women as
experts must be at the heart of developing and delivering solutions tothe
global water crisis.
Women collecting water in
Why water access is critical for women
In
most parts of the world women are the 'water managers' for their families. Lack
of access to water impacts on:
- Household
chores: cooking,
- Cleaning,
washing
- Childcare
- Child-bearing
- Food
production
- Sanitation
needs
- Education
Impacts of water on women
Household chores
It
is usually women who are responsible for household cleaning, cooking and
washing. All these tasks require water. The role of sourcing water also
normally falls to women and girls. Hours are taken out of their days collecting
water, time that could have been spent earning money, receiving an education,
or caring for their children.
This work is also extremely physically demanding with women carrying weights of
approximately 20kg. In South Africa, the total number of kilometres walked each
day by the female population, in the course of gathering water for their
families, is the equivalent of sixteen times to the moon and back. In
Childcare
For women who have childcare responsibilities, the burden of keeping their children healthy and happy in the absence of safe water and adequate sanitation facilities can be heavy. A child dies every 15 seconds from water-related diseases, such as diarrhoea, typhoid, cholera and dysentery. In fact, child mortality rates correlate more closely with lack of access to water and sanitation facilities then with any other factor, including overall poverty levels or access to health facilities.
Child-bearing
Diseases
linked to inadequate water and sanitation contribute to many of the serious
health problems faced by mothers and their capacity to cope with difficulties
during pregnancy, childbirth and beyond, especially in terms of their ability
to care for and breastfeed their baby. Bottle-fed infants, in the absence of
sterile conditions and clean water, are at a much higher risk of water-borne
illness than their breastfed counterparts.
Women protesting for their
right to water in
Food producers
Women
are responsible for half of the world's food production and in most developing
countries rural women produce between 60-80 per cent of the food. But women own
less than two per cent of the world's private land. Lack ofresources mean women
often have to rely on rain to water their crops. A study of the status of rural
women in Karnataka state in
Sanitation needs
Women have specific sanitation needs, yet in many areas there are no adequate toilet facilities. Urinating, defecating or dealing with menstrual hygiene in public is not only humiliating but can also be dangerous, especially at night where rape and assault can be genuine risks.
Education
Wheregirls
have to collect water, this often prevents them from going to school, as
collecting water is too time-consuming or too tiring. Studies also show that
schools without latrines can have a negative impact on girls' enrolment and
attendance, especially once they have begun to menstruate. A survey of 70
schools in
Women fight back
Water
privatisation has been pushed as the solution to the global water crisis over
the last 15 years, yet this has failed poor people, mostnotably women. Prices
have increased and access towater has not significantly improved. There are,
however, many examples around the world where women have come together and
played a leading role in fighting to keep water in public hands.
Women
have also been at heart of many of the public sector reform processes of
state-owned water supplies; in
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are international commitments to reduce global poverty by 2015. MDG 3 aims to promote gender equality and empower women and MDG 7 includes the aim to halve the proportion of people without access to clean water and sanitation by 2015. These two goals are inextricably linked. The Water Millennium Development Goal will not be reached unless women's knowledge and experience are at the heart of delivering it.
Women have played a crucial role as water managers in their homes and local communities -through anti-privatisation struggles, participating in local water projects and in public sector reform initiatives. The importance of women's participation in water issues has been recognised over the years but they remain under-represented in the broader water industry. Careers in water management are still dominated by men, both nationally and internationally......
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