Girls most at risk from climate change

Plan Cameroon is fighting against climate change in Garoua Program Unit by helping children and community members plant trees in schools.

• Girls suffer increased sexual abuse and early marriage during disasters
• Children can play a vital role in fighting and adapting to climate change

Girls bear the brunt of the effects of climate change and more should be done to help them cope.

New research from Plan shows that children are among the hardest hit by climate-related events - and girls are worse affected than boys.

Some of the effects include:

• Girls are taken out of school during extreme weather events so they can contribute to household income and help with domestic responsibilities.Many do not return to school.
• Girls have to spend more time fetching water or firewood during drought.
• Girls face an increase in early or forced marriages after floods and droughts as families struggle to support them financially.
• Girls suffer more sexual violence and harassment during and after disasters, often because they are separated from their families.

Children’s involvement in tackling climate change is vital. Today in Cancun, we are jointly organising the “Bearers of Future Responsibility” event that will bring together children and young people from Latin America with international experts, including Mary Robinson, Yvo de Boer and Margareta Wahlstrom.

The event will include a film about children and climate change in El Salvador, produced by a 17-year-old girl, and a discussion about climate change and children that will include the findings of Plan’s research.

“The findings of this report are extremely worrying,” says Plan Disaster Risk Reduction expert Nick Hall. “When extreme weather events happen girls are the primary family members taken out of school to work either in the home or outside to bring in income. Girls are also prone to suffering sexual violence and harassment if they become separated from their family in the aftermath of a disaster.”

As part of the research, Plan staff spoke to girls in Ethiopia, including 14-year-old Melkam.

“During drought periods, we sell firewood. It takes an hour to collect the firewood and then another two hours to walk to Lalibela,” says Melkam.

“And we go at 4am, even 3am. And if we don’t manage to sell the firewood in the morning, we will have to stay in the market all day and it stops me from going to school.”

Plan International is now calling on governments to do the following:
1.    Invest in teaching children to adapt to climate change  

• Help girls understand the hazards and risks they face, and ways to manage them. Education for both boys and girls on adaptation to climate change will insure a new generation of aware adults.
• Focus on equal access to education for girls and boys

2.    Support girls to take an active role in the climate change debate

• Girls, as well as boys, should be encouraged to take part in planning programmes and policies designed to reduce the impacts of climate change. Alongside boys, they should feel confident in offering astute, unbiased observations to their peers both about the situation they are in and how it could be improved.
• They should feel equally confident with boys that their views should reach a wide audience and should be supported in planning, monitoring and implementation activities with adults, and potentially at national level.

We are holding the ‘Bearers of Future Responsibility’ event as a member of the Children in a Changing Climate coalition (Plan, UNICEF, Save the Children).

For more information on the work of the coalition go to www.childreninachangingclimate.org

Ends

For more information, you can download the 'Weathering the Storm – Girls and Climate Change' pdf (1.82MB)

Contact
David Cook (Media Officer)
Plan International in Australia
Mobile:  0448 816 900
Work: 03 9672 3652
Email: david.cook@plan.org.au