Environmental rights groups have urged the government to put in place policies that cushion women against climate-induced natural disasters.
They made the call at an event hosted by the Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN) to unpack the supplementary budget.
NewsDay Zimbabwe cites Reyna Trust Executive Director and human rights activist, Sydney Chisi as saying:
If you look at it from a demographic point of view to say who now dominates the population in those rural areas, and you can actually see that it’s usually the elderly and mostly elderly women which means that in terms of adaptation and resilience in putting up climate and environmental resilience infrastructure in systems within those communities would also require a stronger budget focus from the Minister himself.
Zimbabwe Environmental Lawyers Association programmes officer Tafara Chiremba echoed Chisi’s remarks adding that there is a need to ensure that the projects that are implemented through devolution funds prioritise women’s rights.
The United Nations reported previously that climate change destroyed most African women’s sources of income leaving them more vulnerable than men to natural disasters such as flooding and soil erosion.
Farming and herding have been some of the main sources of income and studies show that some women turn to sex work because their sources of income were destroyed by climate change.