Across the Middle East, Sudan, and Ukraine, the impacts of conflict on girls and women are disproportionately severe. We’re seeing extraordinary destruction and displacement; a lack of safe and reliable shelter, water, nutrition, and health care; skyrocketing gender-based violence; and the loss or interruption of an education or livelihood.
Widespread killings, sexual assault, and other atrocities are enough to traumatize girls and boys alike — victims, survivors, witnesses — for the rest of their lives. In Gaza alone, the scale of the deaths of women and children is unprecedented in two decades of conflict, according to Oxfam; across Israel, the horror of last October 7 has shaken not only those present, but the nation as a whole.
The hardships inflicted on all these vulnerable girls and young women should serve to remind us that simply surviving conflict, while miraculous, is but the start of a long journey back to health, well-being, and the ability to thrive once peace has been secured.
The impacts of extreme storms, floods, wildfires, and other weather events exacerbated by climate change are no less dire for girls. Whether in India, Pakistan, Central Europe, or the southeastern United States, the record-breaking flooding and sea level rise that have accompanied recent storms have put girls and women at risk. In lower-income countries in particular, when their families’ crops, livestock, or fisheries are destroyed, girls may find themselves forced to move with their younger siblings into nearby under-resourced cities where, deprived of income, shelter, security, and public services, they must start from scratch to rebuild their and their families’ lives.
Amid the physical and emotional upheaval of either a conflict- or climate-related disaster, a displaced girl or young woman will need to familiarize herself somehow with her new surroundings, pursue new opportunities, and build new social networks, all without any of her former emotional or social support. In such a strange and vulnerable context, her personal safety in particular is at risk: she may need to venture out at night, for instance, exposing herself to sexual violence, simply to secure food, water, or health care for a sibling, or to find an internet connection so she can get weather updates and learn the fate of her community.
Intergenerational knowledge-sharing between women and girls in a Kampala urban garden. (Girl Up Initiative Uganda)
Of course, if the local infrastructure has been disrupted by fighting or storms, there may not be any internet access, streetlights, clean water, medical clinics, or food pantries, as we’ve recently seen in Ukraine, Sudan, and Gaza. Not knowing where to turn, but concerned about making rent and feeding their siblings, young women may feel compelled to engage in sex work — resulting, perhaps, in early or unwanted pregnancies that will wreak havoc on their lives. In conflict settings, rape and forced marriage run rampant, as the world has so tragically witnessed in Sudan, Ukraine, Tigray (Ethiopia), among the Yazidi and Rohingya girls and women, and beyond.
Across the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, conflict- and climate-related crises are both at play, compounding the risks girls and women face. They are likely to drop out of school; wrestle with food, housing, and bodily insecurity; and become child wives and mothers, compromising their lifelong educational and career goals.
My own organization, WomenStrong International, partners with women-led organizations dealing with both climate- and conflict-related crises in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Mali, Guatemala, and El Salvador, where drought and flooding have only exacerbated the displacement and other harms visited on vulnerable girls and women by war, terrorism, and civil conflict. Partners of WomenStrong in peaceful countries, whose daily work focuses on adolescent girls’ health and education, were deputized as frontline first responders in recent major storms, given their deep knowledge of the affected communities and of strategies for reaching the most vulnerable with lifesaving aid.
Our partner Girls Empowerment Network (GENET) Malawi, for example, sprang into action when Cyclone Freddy struck Blantyre last year, monitoring the well-being of low-income girls in the communities it serves and ensuring families had access to essentials such as shelter, food, and medicine. GENET took pains to guarantee that girls could come together in dedicated Girls’ Clubs, even as their schooling was disrupted by the severe storm.
Working to get essential resources to the women hit hardest by climate tragedy. (Roots of Health, Philippines)
When Super Typhoon Rai/Odette assaulted the island of Palawan, Philippines in 2021, WomenStrong partner Roots of Health was delegated by The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and other partners to help government health workers carry out a household survey to understand where the most vulnerable lived, including pregnant or lactating women. With this vital information, Roots of Health was able to assist the local government in distributing much-needed supplies, hosting outreach sessions for youth, and, several weeks on, ascertaining when to switch from food aid to cash assistance (with an eye toward jump-starting the local economy).
And in public schools across Kampala, WomenStrong partner Girl Up Initiative Uganda has moved proactively to educate girls (and their teachers!) on fun, climate-smart practices, including urban gardening and the making of phosphate-free liquid soap.
The international community has come to realize not only that girls and women are the hardest-hit by climate emergencies, but also that they are instrumental in implementing lifesaving solutions, that their views and voices are critical to how resources are allocated and decisions are made, and that, when fully engaged as local experts, they are among the most effective in providing relief and sticking with the longer-term work of recovery.
And yet, we must guard against putting unreasonable pressure on our capable girls and young women. With the recent torrents of horror, tragedy, and trauma, we’re in danger of forgetting that girlhood is, first and foremost, the time to fortify each girl child with solid health and nutrition, the embrace of a loving family, and an education that will free her to be independent, make decisions for herself, and have the confidence to lead a fulfilling life of her own design.
As we move forward from this year’s International Day of the Girl Child, let us remember that the girls trapped in tumultuous climate- and conflict-ravaged venues all over the world are the heart of our nations’ and planet’s future. With neither conflict nor climate change ending anytime soon, it is on us to mobilize the resources and expertise needed to deliver robust humanitarian responses — safe shelter, affordable nutrition, clean water, decent health care and education, opportunities to play and to dream — worthy of our girls.
Banner image by Syrian photographer Ahmed Akacha.
