Women and children increasingly bear the brunt of climate change, which deepens the inequalities and vulnerabilities they already face, such as poverty, violence, lack of opportunities and basic human rights. Yet women are not victims; they are survivors, innovators and solution-multipliers who deserve a real seat at the table. Two Colombian activists tell us why this is true.
Climate change is not gender neutral, and for activist Fatima Muriel, this fact is all too real for thousands of women in her home country, Colombia.
In 2017, disaster struck her hometown, the city of Mocoa in the department of Putumayo. Just before dawn on Saturday, April 1st, unusually heavy rains triggered flash flooding and landslides, which buried several neighborhoods along the banks of the rivers Mocoa, Sangoyaco and Mulato.
Although the region, situated in the south end of the Andes in Colombia, is notorious for frequent rains, that year, Mocoa was hit with 33 per cent of its monthly total of rainfall in one night. The ones who paid for this change in weather patterns were mainly women and children.
“Ninety per cent of all those who died were women. Since it was a Friday night, men were out drinking and partying while women were taking care of their children and parents. Among the rubble we even found some mothers holding on to two children, all drowned. It was heartbreaking,” Ms. Muriel tells UN News.
‘This is why we fight!’
Mocoa was without electricity or any type of communication for weeks. Fatima witnessed the worst of the tragedy before travelling to the capital to find help. The UN and other nonprofit organizations responded quickly in the disaster’s aftermath.
“It was extremely painful having to dig out mass graves to bury children, seeing children that were only 3-5 years old being thrown in a ditch. Some children didn’t die in the avalanche but got lost and couldn’t find their home again. Why are they the ones paying for all this?”.
Although initially deemed by authorities as a climate change-driven ‘natural disaster’, investigations are still ongoing to determine other factors that might have contributed to the tragedy that killed over 300 people and affected 45,000.
“This is why we fight. We don’t want this to happen again. Putumayo is in the middle of two great mountains. When the oil and mining companies excavate these mountains, what they do is destabilize them and that causes more landslides and the rivers to overflow”, she denounces, citing studies that indicate that deforestation in the mountains might have also played a role in the disaster.
Ms. Muriel is the President of the women’s network Tejedoras de Vida (Weavers of Life), which comprises 120 women-only organizations in the territory that seek to protect and support each other. They also openly declare their human right to a healthy environment, even as they put their lives at risk.