WUNRN
ADOLESCENT GIRLS & CLIMATE
CHANGE: WEATHERING THE STORM
Plan International & UK Aid -
2011
Direct Link to Full 44-Page Report:
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WILL CLIMATE CHANGE MAKE LIFE HARDER
FOR GIRLS?
A new study suggests that climate change will make life even more arduous for adolescent girls in the developing world.
| August 2, 2011
GIRL POWER: Girls interviewed in
In many developing countries, teenage girls' days are filled with hard labor as they enter into an adulthood of second-class citizenship. Now, a study finds, climate change threatens to make girls' lives even harder.
The report from the nonprofit Plan
It recommends increasing access to
high-quality education as a means toward helping girls address gender
discrimination as well as finding paid work and building more resilient
families. That, in turn, the report argues, will help reduce girls'
vulnerability to climate change-related weather disasters.
"Inevitably children everywhere are
badly affected, and girls in particular bear the greater burden. Their lives,
prospects and human rights must be protected," former President of Ireland
and U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson wrote in introducing
the report.
As the U.N. climate treaty talks wear on,
she argued, negotiators and policymakers must better take into account the
needs of young women, adding, "In many national and international fora and
in planning at more local levels children's voices are still absent. Decisions
on climate change must be inclusive and participatory if they are to
work."
The report draws on private interviews with
about 60 girls between the ages of 13 and 18 in flood- and cyclone-prone
regions of
Last to leave the home
For example, the chairman of a local government office in
"There is a mass tomb of the victims
of Cyclone
Sidr nearby,
and most are women and girls," Sultan Mahamud said of the 2007 cyclone
that killed more than 3,000 people.
The report is part of a growing body of
academic and advocacy literature aimed at focusing attention on gender. It's an
issue that activists say has been largely ignored amid discussions of cutting
greenhouse gases, industry offsets and carbon markets. But it could take on
greater significance as governments develop a Green Climate Fund to help
vulnerable countries protect themselves against climate impacts.
By focusing on teenage girls, the authors stress, they are not making light of the
impacts climate change will have on boys and men. In fact, they note, men often
die in greater numbers during certain types of disasters because they are more
likely to carry out dangerous rescues.
But in a world where 75 million girls
between the ages of 10 and 19 drop out of grade school, and one of every three
girls in developing countries is married by the age of 18, the report argues
that young women face unique risks.
According to the report, women and girls
accounted for 90 percent of deaths from a 1991 cyclone in
Workloads likely to
increase
Meanwhile, as rising global temperatures make water and timber more scarce,
workloads for young girls are likely to increase.
One 14-year-old Ethiopian girl named Melkam
interviewed for the report said that in periods of drought, she wakes up at 4
a.m. to collect firewood. That hourlong process leads to a two-hour walk to a
market in the town of
The report argues that existing programs aimed at helping countries deal
with climate change don't deal directly with gender issues, and maintains that
global financing mechanisms need to specifically address the rights of girls.
The authors wrote: "Climate change and gender must not be seen in
isolation, but should be addressed across all government departments --
including education and finance ministries."