WUNRN
SOUTH AFRICA - CLIMATE CHANGE ADDS
TO RURAL WOMEN'S BURDENS
04 Jun
2010
Written by: AlertNet Correspondent
A woman collects firewood near
Bennde Mutale, a remote rural village in South Africa's Limpopo province.
Climate change is increasing the burden of rural women by forcing them to walk
further to find water and other resources like firewood, experts say.
By Fidelis Zvomuya
BENNDE MUTALE, South Africa (AlertNet) - In the fierce, dry midday heat, 14-year-old Mavis Shilumane is fetching firewood, which she will carry on her head the five kilometres back to her village, in time for her to cook dinner for her family.
Like most women and girls in her village, she
is walking further afield these days to find sufficient quantities of firewood,
a walk that presents dangers in a brushy rural area where both stray lions from
nearby
"We can no longer get firewood near the
village. So we have to travel here. I think it's just because people are
cutting down trees to make way for crop production and also the increase in the
population," she said, piling up branches to carry home on her head.
Collecting wood is not Shilumane's first chore of the day. At 5:30 a.m., she rose to collect water for the family from the nearest river, seven kilometres away, before heading off to school.
Shilumane is the only girl in a family of five; her mother died of AIDS when she was 10 years. Now she must carry out all the women's work for the family.
Life is getting harder for women and girls in some of the world's poorest and most climate change-affected corners. That's particularly true in remote Bennde Mutale, a dry, marginalised village of 120 households in eastern Limpopo province, on a bone-jarringly rough road near the border with Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
The village is rugged, near-forgotten and beyond the reach of power lines. It has no bank, no post office, few cars and little infrastructure. More than 60 percent of its residents live below South Africa's poverty line.
At night, most people light kerosene lamps
and candles in their houses or fires in their huts and go to bed early, except
for the farmers guarding crops against elephants and buffalo.
Forests and water supplies are disappearing and that is creating extra work for the village's girls and women, who must spend ever longer hours each day trekking to find them.
RURAL WOMEN MORE CLIMATE-VULNERABLE
Rural women are more vulnerable to climate change than men, and the country needs to take this gender effect into account in its national planning, President Jacob Zuma said recently.
He identified climate change as a critical
area of concern for the country's poorest.
"Natural disasters affect women directly and severely because of their social roles and the impacts of poverty. When there are floods, cyclones, or drought, women bear the brunt," the president said.
"Climate change is a gender issue especially in our rural areas. The ability to adapt to changes in the climate depends on control over land, money, credit and tools. Also it depends on ... good health, personal mobility, household entitlements, food security, secure housing in safe locations, and freedom from violence," Zuma said.
A study conducted in South Africa's rural KwaZulu-Natal province by the German think-tank Heinrich Boll Stiftung showed that women's workloads were increasing as a result of climate change.
"For example, in attempting to increase household economic security, women turned to other sources of income such as selling fruit and second-hand clothing. This work was carried out in addition to normal household duties," the report said.
WORKING HARDER, FEELING DRAINED
As a result, women worked longer hours than men and were physically affected as well as emotionally drained from having to worry about the well-being of dependent children and youth, the study found
Climate change is also likely to increase poverty levels, heightening already existing vulnerabilities, the report said.
In general, rural South African women's lives are more intimately connected to the environment than men's. Often, men tend to be away in the cities working while women look after children and work the land.
In Bennde Mutale, primarily a livestock herding village, climate change is already helping make life harder for women.
With government-drilled borehole wells out of service and other water sources dried up, women must walk seven kilometres to the nearest river to collect water, or buy from private well owners nearby, a cost beyond the means of many families.
Shilumane, typically, sees the work as good training for what she expects will be her upcoming marriage.
"I must make sure that I prepare myself for marriage at this age. Most guys will start looking when a girl is my age. They will not marry someone with a history of laziness," the 14-year-old said.
"I know our actions are putting the environment in a precarious environmental situation. But due to droughts and without electricity or other forms of energy, we turn to trees" for fuel, she said.
FEWER RESOURCES TO ADAPT
Nontokozo Seshothela, a Pretoria-based environmental gender activist and consultant, said rural South African women are often less able to adapt to climate change than men since they represent the majority of low-income earners.
"Generally they have less education than
men and are thus less likely to be reached by extension agents and they are
often denied rights to property and land, which makes it difficult for them to
access credit and agricultural extension services," Seshothela said.
Themba Linden, a political adviser for Greenpeace, said the effects of climate change compounded already existing problems such as food security, water scarcity and HIV/AIDS.
He said sub-Saharan women spend 40-billion hours a year collecting water - an amount of work equal to France's entire annual labours, according to a United Nations Development Programme report.
Increased water scarcity will particularly affect women, girls and to some extent boys, because they would have to travel further to collect water, or would have to use a less safe water source closer to home, Linden said.
This in turn suggests that water-borne disease could spread more easily, a particular risk factor for people living with HIV/AIDS, for whom diarrhea can prove fatal. South Africa has one of the world's highest rates of HIV/AIDS.
Gender needs to be taken into account when
climate adaptation funds are set up so that projects targeted women
effectively, Linden said. South Africa should also improve early warning
systems which target women as well as men.
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