Global Rice News

Struggles of Women in Pakistan Amplified by Climate Change

Forty-year-old beautician, Sonia Arif, a mother of four, is struggling to make ends meet after her husband Arif had to shut his tailoring shop when they were unable to pay the monthly rent of 40,000 Pakistani rupees (USD 139). “I am sick of the yelling that has become a norm in my house for the past two years. The unbearable heat has added to my plight. In my next life, I want to be born as a man,” she says.

A resident of one of the most neglected areas in Karachi, Kausar Niazi Colony, along the Gujjar Nala stormwater drain, Sonia lost her home in 2021 in a huge demolition drive to remove encroaching structures that were throttling the natural waterway. She and her family had no option but to live in rented accommodation.

The clogged waterway was blamed for urban flooding in 2020, when large parts of Karachi were submerged after bouts of intense monsoon rainfall which Dr Sardar Sarfaraz, chief meteorologist at the Pakistan Meteorological Department, said was a “climate-related catastrophe” due to rise in global temperature. South Asia is particularly susceptible to the impacts of climate change, according to the Sixth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), with the region set to experience more extreme weather conditions in the coming decades, including heatwaves and flash floods, with serious consequences for vulnerable and marginalised populations.

Struggles of Women in Pakistan

The restricted role and freedom of women in Pakistan has added to their challenges in coping with climate-related extreme events. “Climate change impacts every element of their [women’s] lives: their economic security, marital relationships, and physical well-being,” finds research conducted by the Urban Institute in the slums of Delhi, Dhaka, Islamabad and Lahore.

Devastating floods, inflation and political instability have pushed hundreds of thousands like Sonia Arif deeper into poverty.

Regressive rules add to women’s suffering in Pakistan

The anti-encroachment drive in Karachi could not have come at a worse time for many of the working class living in informal settlements. Reeling from a devastating flood last year, backbreaking inflation which stood at 27.4% in August, a depreciating currency (in July the Pakistani rupee fell 6.2%) and low foreign reserves – compounded by political instability – food, gas and fuel prices have shot up, pushing hundreds of thousands of people like Sonia and Arif deeper into the vortex of poverty.

Women Coping with Extreme Weather Events

Rakhi Matan, 35, lives in Karachi’s Shirin Jinnah Colony, and works as a domestic help in the adjoining neighbourhood of Clifton. “A woman’s work is never done,” she rues, saying the only time she got to herself was when she went to bed. During power cuts, men in her neighbourhood go out of their homes, but women must stay indoors. “We don’t have the luxury to go out; instead, we sit and cook in the dim light of the mobile phone, even if it gets stuffy and hot,” she says.

Few think about clothing and climate change, but it’s a lived reality for women here. “Men can be in their vests and shorts, even take off the vests; while we are forbidden to leave our homes; if we do, we have to drape ourselves in yards of cloth,” grumbles Rahat Shah, 37, a mother of 10 living in a three-room rented house in Gulshan-e-Sikandarabad, another informal settlement in Karachi. “Women observe purdah,” says Shah, who belongs to a Pashtun community which expects strict segregation of men and women.

“There is no need for them to go out, we do all the outside chores for them,” says her 22-year-old son, sitting next to Rahat. “It’s not even safe, and men look lewdly,” he adds. Out of work, the drug addict son believes that compared to his mother and four sisters, their father, a driver in the port, works the hardest.

“They just do the usual cleaning, cooking, washing,” he says dismissively, admitting that no male family members helps with the housework. “It’s women’s work,” he shrugs. Once he is out of earshot, his 16-year-old-sister, Shumaila, who is studying to become an Islamic teacher, whispers that she does not like wearing the burqa. “It’s cumbersome and stifling to walk around in it, I’d prefer covering my head with a dupatta, as it is airier, but I will never be allowed to go out like that,” she says.

“Climate change does not differentiate between genders; both women and men are just as likely to be affected by it. But due to economic, social, political and cultural inequalities, these unevenly felt challenges are getting harder during climate-induced catastrophes,” says Nizami, who is part of the organisation’s global climate change team.

Coping with extreme weather events

Recent research by the Karachi Urban Lab (KUL) found that over the past 60 years, Karachi’s average daytime temperature has risen by 1.6 degrees Celsius, and nighttime temperatures by 2.4 degrees Celsius. Dr Anwar connects the city’s expansion, compaction, and densification to this rise in temperature, intersecting with global warming.

Rahat says this year was hotter than ever, and with a long power outage and huge water shortage, the situation did not get better. “We need five canisters of 20 litres [each costing 35 rupees] a day for my family of 12,” she says, which they use for washing clothes and utensils, and bathing. For work, she cooks for a doctor, earning barely PKR 12,000 (USD 42) a month.

In the congested informal settlements where all these women live, houses are so close to each other that “you can literally hear each and every conversation of your neighbour,” according to Sonia, while too many live in poorly ventilated homes. “Our homes turn into infernos in summer,” says Sonia.

The lack of a proper sewerage system spreads water-borne diseases, especially among children. The IPCC’s Climate Change 2023 Synthesis Report says that human mortality and morbidity as well as climate-related food-borne, water-borne and vector-borne diseases have increased due to increased heat.

“It’s either the fever, or stomach infection,” says 29-year-old Aasia Kamran, a mother of children aged 6 and 4 years and a 9-month-old baby, living in a one-room quarter in Nayabad, in Lyari. Working as a part-time house help but now on a break to take care of the baby, she says: “When they [the children] get sick, it means taking off from work for days causing additional stress as our employers get annoyed; fathers never take off from work or care for the children.”

Maria Yaqoob, a 23-year-old student living in the same neighbourhood as Sonia, insists the role of a woman in a village is easier than in the shanty towns of Karachi. Not only do village women have open spaces, points out Maria, they are self-sufficient. “They know how to make fuel from dung, carry firewood and water and are adept at running their homes. On the other hand, our lives come to a standstill if we don’t have conveniences like water, gas and electricity,” she says.

For the past two years, both Rakhi and Rahat have been cutting wood from the nearby creek for cooking “like the village women” when “we run out of gas in the cylinder”. This new task has added to their workload, says Rakhi. “It takes me an hour to collect the wood and it will last us just two or three days.” Although it burns her eyes and she uses plastic bags to ignite the fire, knowing well these give out toxic fumes, “with gas prices getting steeper by the day, I have little choice,” she says.

“Coping with climate-induced heatwaves and long power outages and water shortages (both manmade) get amplified,” says Nizami, adding: “These things are a big reason for stress among women, who are not only working at home but also employed outside.”

Maria recalls how protests against demolitions in Kausar Niazi and Tayyababad colonies united the women, who experienced the immense difficulties of being homeless at a time when the city faced extreme weather events. “For the first time, we realised there is strength in numbers and we voiced our protest more vociferously,” she says. And “a few hours spent in a lockup” for being part of a peaceful march gave a huge boost to her confidence, she says. “We don’t want men to speak on our behalf – we have a voice and want to be heard.”

For a country grappling with extreme weather patterns, it is important to focus on the most vulnerable populations, and to make women’s voices heard.

Source: https://www.thethirdpole.net