Gap between climate change policies and gender issues needs to be addressed: Zartaj Gul

July 2, 2021: Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul has said that there is still a gap between climate change policies and gender issues that needs to be properly addressed.

She was speaking at the launch of a study titled “Stories of Muzaffargarh and Tharparkar Districts, Pakistan”, organized by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), on Thursday. The Minister said, “We need to recognize that the problems that women face during the climate process are different from the problems that men face, so we have to deal with climate issues between the sexes. The level of struggle is different. “

Commenting on the results of the study, she said that empowering women was impossible without equipping them with education and financial autonomy, so there was an urgent need to include women in the workforce as well as access to school and agricultural training. Is.

“Climate-induced migration with a gender lens must be included in Pakistan’s climate change policy,” she said, adding that the climate ministry was working to achieve this objective. She added that the implementation of laws to protect women from gender-based violence should be ensured while working with law enforcement agencies at the provincial and district level.

Sanjay Vashist, director of the Climate Action Network (CANSA) in South Asia, stressed that we must look at climate-affected migration from a regional and international perspective. “Climate change will severely affect agriculture, water resources, ecosystems, food security, health and energy production in the South Asian region, while women and children are particularly vulnerable to this trend,” she said.

Dr. Abid Qayyum Salari, Executive Director, SDPI, highlighted the importance of studying climate-influenced migration through the lens of gender in the policy framework. He said women-led households in climate-affected areas should be reached on a priority basis. “In addition, we need to expand the scope of study on this issue from the national to the international level,” he added.

Raus Marija, a representative of the International Center for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), maintained that we need to consider the long-term effects of migration and climate change, as well as possible strategies for climate migration and There is also a need to focus on designing tools.

“Pakistan is one of the most vulnerable and catastrophic regions of climate change, so collecting data on climate migration should be a priority in the future,” he said. Rana Rahim, head of the ICMPD Pakistan office, said that since the study showed how the negative effects of climate change affect the poor and less educated sections of society, especially women. Therefore, in view of these needs, the response should also be gender related. Earlier, Danish Hassan Ansari, a researcher at SDPI, presented his findings. Hhe highlighted the need for economic empowerment to promote women’s decision-making power.

He said that we need to launch awareness campaigns on climate change impact for communities at the grassroots level and focus on the health and hygiene needs of women and girls, especially during such crises.

SDPI Project Assistant Khansa Naeem and environmentalist Maryam Shabbir also shared various aspects of the issue, including a high risk of sexual violence for women who were internally displaced due to climate change.

The study further comprised stories from local women on their experiences with climate migration, the challenges they faced, its impact on their health and well-being, financial constraints and lack of access to clean drinking water and food and impact on children’s education due to migration, especially for girls.

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