Kenya: Women Bearing the Brunt of Climate Change

Francis Odee

Contributor

Wednesday, 8 March, 2023

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Driving across the glimmering sand of the North Horr region in Kenya’s Eastern Province, the sun feels impossibly hot and the air is filled with dust. The reek of decay grows stronger the closer we get to Kabinyoka village. A group of vultures are hovering and descending to the ground to pick at what is left of a trail of livestock carcasses.  

Half-a-dozen women, the ravages of the ongoing famine visible on their faces, are trying to lift up a cow whose limbs can no longer support its wizened frame.

 “This is the last one, and we don’t know what to do, all our herds are gone and maybe we will follow soon too,” one of them, Hanifa, said. “This place has changed, we have not had any rains for almost eight years now and all we had is lost.”

Drought and famine have hit most regions of Kenya in recent years, affecting over four million people according to a 2022 survey. As most Kenyans rely on agriculture as their primary source of income, this has had a devastating impact.

And the crisis has served to amplify historic gender inequalities, with woman and girls left especially vulnerable due to their diminished status and power.

They may be pregnant or have childcare responsibilities, and the burden on them as primary family caregivers increases. For instance, fetching water is traditionally a female task which the famine has made near insurmountable. 

“The realities of climate change, just like any other calamity, will continue to amplify the challenges and vulnerabilities of women.”

“We spend the entire day looking for water and roots to feed our animals,” said Shared Tarazzo, a young mother. “These journeys are long and we run the risks of being raped, harmed or killed.  Our husbands are also away looking for pasture. We leave our children at home. They are also at risk of sexual violence.” 

 “Things have become very hard here, all our children are now malnourished and our women have become very weak following the famine, they are not even able to do their chores including getting water for the family,” said Galgalo, an elderly local man. “Donkeys were our main mode of transport, they are all dead, now we get a 20-litre jerry-can for 1,000 shillings (eight US dollars). We have given up on our livestock, our focus is our survival.”

“In these conditions it is commonplace for vulnerable women and girls to be forced into early marriage or sex work for survival,” said Golo Wario, a former chief of Busiba village in North Horr. “The pressure of famine also increases reported cases of gender-based violence and domestic violence, which majorly affect women and children.” 

According to a 2022 UNICEF report, Garrisa County referral hospital in the neighbouring geographical unit treated over 70 cases of sexual and gender-based violence, including the attempted rape of girls and boys, within the first few months of 2022. Most of the victims never reported the assault to the police

“This is just the tip of the iceberg, there are many more cases but victims will not come forward as gender-based violence is a taboo topic,” said Nadhifa Ibrahim, coordinator of the referral hospital clinic.  

North Horr is one of the 22 out of 23 arid and semi-arid (ASAL) counties in Kenya where the situation is critical due to due to the late onset and poor performance of the rains, which follows four previous consecutive failed rainfall seasons

A remote region largely disconnected from essential services, medical services including family planning and maternity care are also limited or unavailable in North Horr. This puts women at heightened risk of pregnancy-associated complications, while malnutrition and poor sanitation also puts new mothers and children at risk of contracting other diseases such as cholera.

Charity Wangui, a gender equality activist, said that climate change was “a harsh and redefining reality that is changing our lives as we knew them.

“It is evident that climate change-associated problems amplify existing gender inequalities in our societies,” Wangui continued. “It is therefore necessary to address gender inequality even as we work on reversing the adverse effects caused by climate change. If there is a way to celebrate women for their heroic contributions to our existence, we begin by making them feel safe, seen, heard and respected.”

But local people say that the situation is so grave that all they can do is focus on survival.

“We occasionally get government food aid, but it is not sufficient and most times unfit for human consumption, for example, we often feed the beans to our livestock,” said Judith Juya Sake, a Bubisa village resident. “We are forced to watch our herds diminish by the days. We are also worried for our health with all the carcasses piling around us, the stench is unbearable, we will get sick.”

Wario Guyo, the member of parliament for North Horr, said that urgent government action was needed to deal with the crisis. He called for speedy allocation of Constituency Development Funds (CDF) – a resource set up in 2003 that allocates money directly to needy communities.

 “We may not have any children going to school in this region soon,” he said. “Children and especially girls will drop out of school… because their parents cannot afford the fees seeing as their livelihoods are no more being pre-dominantly pastoralists and the government is yet to disburse CDF funds and secondly because of the raging hunger and looming deaths. All focus will be devoted to finding food and surviving. We urgently need CDF funds and school feeding programmes.”  

Wangui emphasised that tackling gender inequality needed to be a key part of any measures to address the climate emergency.

“The realities of climate change, just like any other calamity, will continue to amplify the challenges and vulnerabilities of women,” she said, adding, “We cannot achieve equality and or equity for women, while some women are left behind. We must eliminate all challenges that disproportionately affect women.”

Francis Ode Omari is an award-winning investigative reporter focusing on health and social issues in Kenya.