Claudette Fran­cis

Con­sul­tant Psy­chol­o­gist, Be­hav­iour­al Sci­en­tist

Gen­der-based vi­o­lence (GBV) refers to vi­o­lence di­rect­ed against a per­son be­cause of his or her gen­der and/or gen­der ex­pres­sion, and the ex­pec­ta­tions at­tached to their so­ci­etal or cul­tur­al role. The term is of­ten used in­ter­change­ably with “vi­o­lence against women and girls,” al­though this is not al­ways ac­cu­rate. As the term sug­gests, in­di­vid­u­als are tar­get­ed be­cause of gen­der; there­fore, men and boys can al­so be vic­tims of GBV, par­tic­u­lar­ly sex­u­al vi­o­lence. LGBTQ+ in­di­vid­u­als are like­wise vul­ner­a­ble be­cause of their non-con­for­mi­ty to ex­pect­ed sex­u­al­i­ty-re­lat­ed so­cial and cul­tur­al norms. How­ev­er, women and girls re­main dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fect­ed.

Vi­o­lence doesn’t on­ly mean phys­i­cal or sex­u­al harm. GBV al­so in­cludes psy­cho­log­i­cal abuse. It takes all these forms and oc­curs both pub­licly and pri­vate­ly—with­in homes, com­mu­ni­ties, and work­places.

HIV-pos­i­tive women and girls, mi­grant work­ers, in­sti­tu­tion­alised in­di­vid­u­als, per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, and women and girls liv­ing in emer­gency set­tings or re­cov­er­ing from dis­as­ters face even greater risk of mul­ti­ple forms of vi­o­lence, dis­crim­i­na­tion, and so­cio-eco­nom­ic ex­clu­sion.

Cli­mate change refers to long-term shifts in the Earth’s weath­er pat­terns. It is pri­mar­i­ly dri­ven by the burn­ing of fos­sil fu­els such as oil and gas, which re­lease heat-trap­ping gas­es in­to the at­mos­phere and raise glob­al tem­per­a­tures. As a re­sult, we ex­pe­ri­ence more fre­quent and in­tense heat waves, wild­fires, droughts, hur­ri­canes, and heavy rain­fall. Melt­ing ice caps and glac­i­ers con­tribute to ris­ing sea lev­els, threat­en­ing coastal com­mu­ni­ties, es­pe­cial­ly in small is­land de­vel­op­ing states.

So, how does GBV re­late to cli­mate change? Warmer tem­per­a­tures fu­el more pow­er­ful storms and hur­ri­canes, in­ten­si­fy rainy sea­sons, and cause heav­ier rain­fall over short­er pe­ri­ods—lead­ing to flash floods and land­slides. The Caribbean, be­ing hur­ri­cane-prone, re­cent­ly ex­pe­ri­enced Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa, a Cat­e­go­ry 5 storm that se­vere­ly dam­aged Ja­maica, Cu­ba, and Haiti’s so­cial fab­ric and in­fra­struc­ture.

When cli­mate dis­as­ters strike, fam­i­lies of­ten strug­gle to meet ba­sic needs such as food, shel­ter, and se­cu­ri­ty. Ten­sions with­in house­holds rise, some­times re­sult­ing in do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and in­cest. Women and girls who must leave the home to find food or wa­ter are at greater risk of sex­u­al as­sault, ex­ploita­tion, or even death, and may be forced in­to trans­ac­tion­al sex in ex­change for mon­ey or sup­plies.

Cli­mate dis­as­ters al­so dis­rupt ed­u­ca­tion and health ser­vices. Dam­aged schools leave chil­dren with­out ac­cess to learn­ing, and dam­aged health fa­cil­i­ties make med­ical care dif­fi­cult to ob­tain. Girls pulled out of school to care for sib­lings or el­der­ly rel­a­tives are less like­ly to re­turn. Ex­treme weath­er events can af­fect men­stru­al jus­tice, mean­ing women and girls lose ac­cess to safe and dig­ni­fied men­stru­al hy­giene prod­ucts, mak­ing it ex­treme­ly chal­leng­ing to be in pub­lic dur­ing their men­stru­al cy­cles. They may al­so lose ac­cess to re­pro­duc­tive health ser­vices and con­tra­cep­tion, re­sult­ing in in­creased preg­nan­cies, par­tic­u­lar­ly among teenagers.

While ma­jor cli­mate dis­as­ters clear­ly ex­ac­er­bate GBV, the dai­ly stress­es linked to cli­mate change can al­so build grad­u­al­ly and pro­duce the same out­comes. Around the world, the im­pacts of cli­mate change are wide-rang­ing and pro­found. The fi­nan­cial bur­den of re­build­ing and re­cov­ery can over­whelm com­mu­ni­ties al­ready strug­gling for re­sources.

Imag­ine a farmer who los­es his crops to flood­ing dur­ing the rainy sea­son. Over­whelmed by fear and frus­tra­tion, he may lash out phys­i­cal­ly at his wife, while she, ter­ri­fied for their sur­vival, may re­spond ag­gres­sive­ly. With es­ca­lat­ing tem­per­a­tures, re­peat­ed rain­fall de­stroy­ing what lit­tle re­mains, and no clear path to re­cov­ery, it is easy to see how cli­mate change can wors­en GBV.

Trin­bag­o­ni­ans of­ten hold tra­di­tion­al be­liefs that po­si­tion men as lead­ers and women as fol­low­ers, with a woman’s role cen­tred on her hus­band, chil­dren, and home. Yet Caribbean women are high­ly en­gaged in gov­er­nance and lead­er­ship. Bar­ba­dos has a fe­male Prime Min­is­ter. Trinidad and To­ba­go has had a fe­male Prime Min­is­ter, Pres­i­dent, and Op­po­si­tion Leader. Caribbean women and girls are not barred from ed­u­ca­tion, busi­ness, or pro­fes­sion­al pur­suits; they have re­pro­duc­tive health rights, ac­cess to op­por­tu­ni­ties, and in­creas­ing eco­nom­ic se­cu­ri­ty and em­pow­er­ment. We can be proud of this progress, but more work re­mains.

Dur­ing No­vem­ber and De­cem­ber, the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty fo­cus­es on cli­mate change and GBV—two ur­gent is­sues re­quir­ing im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion. Un­der­stand­ing their im­pact is on­ly the first step. In­di­vid­u­als, com­mu­ni­ties, and pol­i­cy­mak­ers must recog­nise their con­nec­tion and take ac­tion to mit­i­gate both. Thought­ful in­ter­ven­tions can re­duce GBV and help re­verse cli­mate change, work­ing to­geth­er to build a sus­tain­able fu­ture.

We must re­duce green­house gas emis­sions by tran­si­tion­ing from fos­sil fu­els to re­new­able en­er­gy sources such as so­lar and wind, con­serv­ing rain­forests and wa­ter re­sources, and re­cy­cling. Schools, uni­ver­si­ties, com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions, and busi­ness­es play a crit­i­cal role in rais­ing aware­ness. Cam­paigns, sem­i­nars, and work­shops can dri­ve pol­i­cy changes that strength­en na­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture to bet­ter with­stand cli­mate im­pacts and pre­vent es­ca­lat­ing GBV. By ed­u­cat­ing our­selves about GBV and cli­mate change, we can build a health­i­er so­ci­ety and pro­tect our plan­et.

This ar­ti­cle is part of a week­ly col­umn by Earth­Medic and Earth­Nurse NGO to help read­ers un­der­stand and ad­dress the cli­mate and health cri­sis.