Climate justice and gender equality cannot be achieved separately, a Pacific women’s conference heard this week.
Marshall Islands President Dr Hilda Heine said the climate crisis faced in the region and the world would make gender equality more difficult to attain.
“For example, we know that we cannot have gender equality without climate justice, and vice versa,” Dr Heine told delegates at the the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women gathered in the Northern Pacific for the first time in 40 years.
“Our aspirations are shared,” Dr Heine said.
“We have convened on Majuro because of one of those aspirations is the empowerment of Pacific women and girls in all their diversities and ultimately to reach gender parity in our region.”
President Heine said that for gender parity to be achieved, every Pacific woman’s ability, talent dreams would need to be harnessed.
“We must draw on the resourcefulness of Pacific women, rich in our diverse cultures and traditions, to map a way forward for us, tapping into our region’s diversity and creativity to find solutions that are embedded in our Pacific philosophies and world views,” she said.
“We know that the climate crisis will make achieving gender equality even harder — and that we cannot solve the climate crisis without gender equality.”
Women hit fastest, hardest
Heine said women were often hit fastest and hardest by climate impacts.
“They are the first responders of the family, responsible for ensuring that the family is taken care of and healthy,” she said.
“As climate change brings droughts, they are charged with securing water; when children or the elderly are affected by extreme heat, it is women who are the primary caregivers.
“In the Marshalls, where women often participate in the informal economy through the production of handicrafts, for example, we know that the material used for those handicrafts are at risk as sea levels rise and salt water inundates our arable land.
“Women are also central to the solutions to the climate crisis.”
Dr Heine said Pacific women had been some of the strongest voices for climate ambition at the international level while at home they were caretakers for solar panels, providing communities with clean energy.
She described them as being at the heart of securing climate justice.
‘Gains are far from consistent’
Two regional meetings took place on Majuro Atoll this week — the 8th Ministers for Women meeting and the 3rd PIF Women Leaders Meeting.
Political commentators said this showed that regional leaders recognised the importance of gender equality and the meetings provided opportunities to collectively discuss how to advance their commitments to the issue at national, regional and international levels.
President Heine acknowledged that the Pacific had made what she described as remarkable progress on women’s rights on many fronts in recent decades.
“But these gains are far from consistent and much more remains to be done,” she warned.
Women’s health, gender-based violence, and climate justice were the themes for discussion during the conferences and highlight some of the key challenges Pacific women continue to face.
Dr Heine said all these issues aggravated the impacts of inequalities faced by women and girls as a result of existing social norms and structures.
She said the triennial conference and the Pacific Ministers for Women meeting were important platforms at which to unpack these and other barriers to gender equality.
Netani Rika e is communications manager of the Pacific Conference of Churches and is in Majuro, Marshall Islands, covering the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women.