Climate breakdown fuels violence against women

I didn’t think there could be a correlation between climate cbreakdown and the unequal treatment of women until I swiped on social media to see the article in question. As environmental degradation and stress on ecosystems increases, that in turn creates scarcity and stress for people, and the evidence shows that, where environmental pressures increase, gender-based violence increases”, said Cate Owren, a lead author of the report, according to The Guardian.

Take south Africa as an example, the problems caused by climate breakdown are often piled upon those caused by poverty. “In most mining affected communities, men leave home to seek a living in the cities, women, and children are left to fend for themselves, which makes them vulnerable to violence and sexual exploitation”, Nkosi said. “Poor harvests, livestock loss, lower earnings, and food insecurity put pressure on men’s traditional role as providers. They often turn to alcohol to bear with the pressure and become more violent, towards their partners. The impacts of gender-based violence are severe and affect all members of the community. “

This reinforces the fact that most of the world’s problems are interconnected, and that for vulnerable groups they are the first to suffer when society is unstable.