This article is written by Dr Anik Gevers, associate at the Sexual Violence Research Initiative and technical consultant for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Tina Musuya, executive director at the Center for Domestic Violence Prevention (CEDOVIP) and Dr Paul Bukuluki at the Applied Research Bureau (ARB) Uganda, and Makerere University.

The fight against climate change is not only a struggle to keep our planet liveable. For many women, it can be a direct cause of violence in their lives.

In Uganda, the effects and stresses of climate change are already being felt. In 2019, we spent time in two rural wetlands communities where most people rely on agricultural livelihoods. Both men and women described changing weather patterns, heavier rainfalls, prolonged droughts, higher temperatures, increased crop failure, loss of livestock and increasing food insecurity.

But, perhaps surprisingly, our research found that the impact of climate change also exacerbates risks for various types of gender-based violence (GBV).

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Violence and climate change

For example, in periods of prolonged drought, women and girls make more frequent and longer journeys to obtain food or water, which makes them vulnerable to sexual assault.

Some food vendors, farmers or landowners at times insist on trading sex with women in exchange for food or rent; even attempts by women to negotiate providing labour in exchange for food are sometimes rejected, and these men with power insist on sex.

“In periods of prolonged drought, women and girls make more frequent and longer journeys to obtain food or water, which makes them vulnerable to sexual assault”

We found that girls who have to spend more time fetching water spend fewer days in school and may even drop out. Women reported that having to spend more time and energy finding food and water meant that they might not have time to complete their other household and family responsibilities. Or this extra work meant that they became too tired for sex and some men respond to this with violence.

Research participants described that some families resorted to marrying off their daughters to better cope with food scarcity, because the burden of feeding the child is then shifted to the new husband’s family, and the family of the daughter receives bride wealth.

In families where men left home to seek a living elsewhere, women and children were left to fend for themselves, which made them vulnerable to various forms of GBV, especially sexual exploitation.

Climate change also presented challenges to hegemonic masculinities of men in these communities. Poor harvest, livestock loss, decrease in earnings and food insecurity put pressure on men’s role as providers and thus, participants reported, men often turned to alcohol to cope with this stress and increased their use of violence, especially in arguments or disagreements with their wives.

Furthermore, some participants described that men’s self-confidence was affected by these struggles and thus they may choose to assert their masculinity through violence.

Our qualitative research in two communities in Uganda clearly illustrate the important intersections between climate change, livelihoods, and GBV.

Further, this research found that existing climate change mitigation and livelihoods strengthening efforts may have inadvertently exacerbated risk and casual factors of GBV. Thus, a project to integrate a GBV prevention intervention in pilot sites within the broader Green Climate Fund (GCF) Building Resilient Communities, Wetland Ecosystems and Associated Catchments is going forward.

Ending violence safely, ethically and effectively

To counteract the negative consequences of climate change and the increased risk of violence, a new pilot project seeks to find new solutions to prevent violence.

The pilot project in Uganda is built on a partnership with local civil society organisation CEDOVIP and the ARB. CEDOVIP has championed women’s rights and GBV prevention for over a decade by combining grassroots activism and evidence-based programming.

This project, intended to run from 2018 to 2020, will integrate GBV prevention in two communities within the GCF-funded resilient communities and wetland ecosystems activities by:

  • Strengthening capacities among national partners to understand the intersections of GBV with their mandates and how to safely, ethically and effectively address GBV within their scope of work;
  • Mentoring a cadre of district- and community-level people (e.g. Ministry of Water and Environment or Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries extension workers, community development officers, community leaders, etc) to develop their capacities to address GBV and GBV risk factors through various community engagement and leadership efforts; and,
  • Engaging men and women in the communities in a series of participatory activities that will include critical reflection, power analysis, understanding GBV and alternatives to GBV in relationships, building gender-equitable attitudes, practices and norms, providing referral linkages to care for GBV survivors and dismantling harmful masculinities and gender norms.

The project aims to facilitate transformation not only within the communities vulnerable to climate change stresses, but also among decision-makers and leaders at district, national and organisational levels.

These efforts will be continuously and rigorously monitored and evaluated, so that the learning generated from this pilot project can inform both scale-up of this specific model and also ensure that district and national decision-makers are able to integrate a GBV focus throughout their work for broader and sustainable integration.

Development goals in the balance

This pilot project is part of a global UNDP initiative, funded by the government of the Republic of Korea, to pilot innovative solutions to end GBV and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Four pilot projects around the world, including this one in Uganda, are piloting integration models where evidence-based GBV prevention approaches are adapted for incorporation into larger sectoral programmes that are focusing on various SDGs.

This often means working within sectors not typically involved in directly addressing GBV. However, our research has shown that GBV is an important intersection across multiple areas of development and thus GBV-sensitive approaches are necessary, not only to achieve the elimination of violence against women (under SDG 5), but also to accelerate the achievement of other SDGs, and ensure projects Do No Harm.

Without women’s full participation and freedom from violence, oppression and discrimination, our efforts to achieve various development goals will be fundamentally hampered.

— Dr Anik Gevers, Tina Musuya and Dr Paul Bukuluki

Picture credit: redcharlie on Unsplash