About Yonge Nawe

Programmes

Resources

Press Information

Membership

Links

Search

Contact Us
 

This series of articles has been prepared to highlight the relationships between gender, environment and sustainable development in the run up to the worldwide celebrations of International Women’s Day (IWD) on 8th March.  IWD marks a commemoration of the economic, social, cultural and political achievements of women and serves as a reminder of the importance of considering gender in policy development and grassroots action.

Gender Inequalities
Physiological differences between men and women do not lead to inequality.  It is only when a social group assigns a value to these differences - to gender - that the situation changes, producing inequality in the development and well being of women and men.  The inequality resulting from this social valuation keeps both genders from having the same access to opportunities for personal and collective development.

Gender and Environment
Gender inequalities are noticeable across all areas of environment and development in Swaziland.  The differential treatment of men and women not only leads to increased degradation of the environment; it causes socio-economic and health impacts amongst the whole population, and consequently upon our ability to achieve sustainable development.

Women in Swaziland stand on the front line in the battle with environmental degradation.  Their health depends on the health of the land, forests, air and water around them.  And as those in closest contact with the land and the natural world they are usually the first to suffer from its degradation.  Here are some of the ways in which gender inequalities affect our path to sustainable development:

Deforestation increases the amount of time women must spend in seeking both fuel and water: when the trees are felled water sources also dry up.  Often women have to devote four or five hours a day to collecting fuelwood, whereas not long ago they only had to go out to get it every four or five days.  Every day in South Africa alone, the country’s women walk the equivalent of going to the moon and back 16 times over to fetch water for their families.  By having to increase time dedicated to these duties, opportunities for employment or education are lost, which leads to further marginalisation.

Collecting fuel and water can cripple the health of the women who have to carry the heavy loads, often in excess of 25 kilograms.  And pollution from the fuelwood disproportionately harms and kills women and children, who spend most time in the home.

Women, who tend to carry more fat, are also more vulnerable to the toxic chemicals that build up in it, and so are their unborn babies.  Increased neonatal deaths have been found among the children of women farmers exposed to pesticides, whilst high levels of dioxins and other hazardous chemicals have been found in breast milk in a wide variety of countries.

Gender equality does not only concern prejudice against women.  Gender-sensitive education on sanitation and hygiene practices must be made available to men as well as women.  Education can have a tremendous impact on some common water-borne diseases, such as malaria and cholera. However, most hygiene education programmes are currently aimed at women, and miss valuable opportunities to influence male behaviour.

Over the next two weeks we shall explore opportunities for integrating gender into resource management by looking at issues of desertification, biodiversity and protected areas.

Back to Newspaper Columns

Back to Press Information