WUNRN
Women and the Right
to Water
Marilee Karl - Co-Founder Isis International, Honorary Chairperson Isis International-Manila Board of Trustees
Isis International would like to thank the organizers for inviting us to participate in this panel on women and the right to water. We want to share a few experiences of women in the Isis International network. We are eager to learn from the other organizations here. We hope that together we can strengthen the struggle of women worldwide for the right to water.
Water is not gender
neutral
Too much water, not enough water, polluted water, water too far away, water, water all around but not a drop to drink…..whatever the situation, it impacts women and men differently because of gender inequalities that affect all aspects of life. Water is not gender neutral. People and countries experience these water situations in different ways.
Water cannot be seen in isolation. Climate change has an effect on water, including the increasing numbers and intensity of typhoons and the long seasons of drought that are challenging food production and sanitation and causing increased health problems.
The long road behind
us and ahead
After many long years of awareness raising, lobbying and negotiations, water and sanitation was finally recognized by the United Nations as a fundamental human right in 2010. Thousands of civil society organizations took part in campaigns at national and international levels to work towards this recognition. Now we are working to make this right a reality.
The nearly universal responsibility of women for the provision of water for family use is now well documented. We now know that the task of collecting water can be very arduous, and that it becomes ever more difficult in conditions of drought, pollution or diversion of water for other uses. This was not always the case.
Slowly awakening to
reality
The knowledge of women’s water-related responsibilities and tasks only began to come onto the development agenda in the 1980s, and then only slowly. I remember very clearly the first gender analysis training programme at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in the late 1980s. I was one of the trainers. In order to overcome resistance and convince staff of the usefulness of gender analysis, we had to show that gender analysis would make development projects and programmes more efficient and increase their chances of success. Efficiency was the key word. And water projects were a prime example.
One of the cases used was that of a water project in
Leaving feminism and
rights at the door
Things have changed, but at that time there was no place in gender analysis training to talk about the right to water or the empowerment of women. We were told to leave our feminism and rights orientation at the door for fear of scaring off the participants. Some were aware of the huge burden women bear in collecting water but their suggested solutions were mostly to relieve women of this burden by training men in better technologies for water provision. There was no concept of empowering women through training them in these technologies or even to involve them in decision making about the provision of water.
This attitude has more or less prevailed as we move up the scale from village water projects to water providers associations, large-scale water projects and the controversial issues raised by the increasing privatization of the distribution of water and even of water itself. The connections still need to be made between the right to water, gender inequalities and empowerment of women.
Real-life women
and water stories
I would like to
share with you some real-life women and water stories that Isis International
has published in its magazine, Women in Action (WIA). These stories show the
connections of water, climate change and gender inequalities.
Rasheda Begum from
I used to have a
house, about half a kilometer away from the shore in Khudiar Tek in the island
Kutubdia. Unfortunately, this was washed away by the devastating cyclone in
1991. My neighbors and I had to move farther to a safer place. So I built a hut
beside an embankment that was three kilometers from the shore. Like my
neighbors, I have always felt this unexplained horror over the thought of
fleeing to an unknown destination. I guess this fear is based on the fact that,
unlike men, our movement as women has always been restricted. A man can easily
decide what to do and where to live. Society does not permit us to act like a
man.
In 2007, we left the
island and settled in an urban slum at the outskirts of the sea resort town of
Veronica Nzoki
has been a resident of Endui in the Mwingi District in eastern
“Crops have failed for
the last two seasons and livestock have been starving to death. For the first
time, Kiiya Dam, which was constructed by the colonial government more than 50
years ago, dried up completely in 2009. This has never happened before... We
(women) leave at six o'clock in the morning to the nearest spring. We find a
long queue. By the time we draw water and get back home, it is well past
mid-day. This leaves us with no energy for other activities. For those of us
with small businesses, we have to close them down or leave them unattended to
fetch water for our households and businesses.” (Waititu, A. (2009) “Water
and Women in
In
Among climatic disasters, the droughts of 2006, 2008 and
2009 left the deepest imprint among
Women will wait day and night for the rain. Some even start working at night, when the showers pour. While their husbands, children and relatives sleep, the women are awake, straining their ears to catch the first landfall of rain. As soon as they hear the rain drops, they venture out to work the land. While agricultural work is performed by both women and men, it has a gender division of labour. Whereas women's role consists of planting, transplanting, weeding, harvesting, milling as well as the collection of water, firewood and fodder, men plough the fields and market the extra crops for additional income. The men’s job has been made easier with new technologies, such as tractors.
Women barely have enough land to plant their crops.
Moreover, their produce is often inadequate to feed their own families…Once
this is threatened by droughts and other climatic disasters, their lives hang
in balance. (Regmi, S. (2009) “Dancing for Rain: Droughts for Women in
Ayibakuro Warder, a mother of five children, lives in the Niger Delta region. While she is employed in the local government, she remains engaged in fishing and farming to support her family. But much of her time is devoted to activities as a leader of women in her community as well as the whole clan. She says:
As a child near the
delta, I remember that my parents used to gather greater harvests from their
farming and fishing activities. The sizes of cassava and plantain were
incomparable to the present yields. Our fish ponds, lakes and creeks have
likewise suffered from incessant oil spills. The people are one in their
opinion that the smaller and fewer harvests could only be attributed to
pollution coming from the oil extraction activities near the delta...Whenever
oil spills happen, not only are the natural resources damaged sometimes beyond
repair, but our survival is also undermined. Worse, health problems, especially
among our children, arise. With our sources of income gone, we are left
confused as to where to seek medical help. Several women also died as a result
of oil spills.
In 2007, an oil spill
took place. The women of Ikarma lost all the cassava that they soaked in the
creek. This has been our tradition in hastening the fermentation process of the
cassava as we prepare cassava dough, our staple. The oil spill likewise
destroyed the traps that we set for fishing. I then led a women's protest in
front of Shell's office at the Kolocreek Logistic Base.
But regardless of the
cause of the oil spill, whether because of sabotage or equipment failure, Shell
has never found it fair to compensate its victims. Instead, it deploys its
military personnel to intimidate the community from airing their grievances.
Warder, A. (2009) “Delivering the Delta from the Spills of
Shell”. Women in Action: Women in a Weary World, pp. 31-32.
Women taking action
Women and community based organizations are taking action.
Veronica Nzoki, for instance, is chairperson of the Endui Water Users
Association in
Helping women make
their voices heard
These stories present two sides of women's reality. On the one hand, women are the most affected by water and climate change crises because of long-standing gender inequalities; yet on the other, they are active agents in addressing immediate and strategic solutions to water and climate change issues. The voices of women need to be heard if women are to claim the right to water, rather than be the unseen and unheard victims of the lack of water or even water resource wars.
Gender is often
overlooked in discussions about strategies to solve water issues. Even if women
are recognized as mainly responsible for the provision of water at the
household level, the dominant perspective is that women are victims or members
of vulnerable groups, instead of agents of change, leaders and decision-makers.
The increasing involvement of women’s organizations and gender specialists is
helping to change this.
Communication
strategies
Communication strategies are needed to help women to bring their experiences and views to the fore. Isis International believes that the access and participation of women in communication can contribute to social justice and the empowerment of women in the global south. We are a strong believer in communication as a key to building stronger people’s movements towards climate justice and gender justice, including the right to water.
Our communication strategies and training and capacity
building workshops make use of
both old and new forms of media and communication tools for information
sharing, education, social mobilization and advocacy. Sometimes radio, theatre,
video and face-to-face interactions are the most effective for women,
particularly in areas where new technologies are not readily available. In
other instances, computer, mobile technologies and internet are most effective,
especially in trying to reach a wider and broader audience and disseminating
information quickly. It is also possible to use both traditional and new
technologies, for instance by posting radio plugs and video on websites or
circulating them via email. Our experience shows that grassroots women find
creative ways to use communications tools to get their messages across.
Activist Schools
Isis International’s work in the field of communications
sees women not only as receivers of knowledge but producers as well. This
principle is carried out in Isis International’s Activist Schools for Feminist
Development Communications, launched in 2010. The Schools aim to strengthen
social movements and advocacies through the strategic use of media and information
and communication technologies (ICTs). Collaborating with other partners and
networks,
Isis International welcomes working in partnership and collaboration with other organizations in the developing and conducting of the activist schools. We would also like to continue to collect and publish the voices and experience of women on water issues, in cooperation with other organizations. Together, we can work towards making the right to water a reality for women.
Thank you!