As Mothers, Wives and Farmers, Women Feel the Strain of Climate Change

This article originally appeared on the Women & Girls Hub of News Deeply, and you can find the original here. For important news about issues that affect women and girls in the developing world, you can sign up to the Women & Girls Hub email list. By Sally Nyakanyanga

With Uganda suffering through climate change-related drought, flooding and unpredictable weather, women take on most of the work to keep their families fed. But lack of land rights means they reap few benefits.

LAGAJI VILLAGE, Uganda – In Nwoya district, families face a daily struggle to grow the crops they rely on for food and income. Extreme weather leaves the ground either too wet or too dry to grow anything. Drought and deforestation mean villagers – usually women – have to spend most of the day traveling long distances for water and firewood. And then there are the elephants.

“We have to grapple with elephants ravaging our crops, resulting in us being unable to fend for our families,” says Stella Ojara, a peasant farmer and mother of 10 who needs her crops to feed her family and the surplus to sell for school fees. A government conservation scheme in nearby Murchison Falls National Park has had success in increasing the area’s elephant population. But when the massive animals go in search of something to eat, they can devastate local crops, sinking Lagaji’s farmers deeper into poverty and hunger.

Even without rampaging wildlife, the effects of climate change – unseasonably high temperatures, perennial droughts, extreme and unpredictable weather – put enormous strain on farmers across Uganda. Making up more than half of the country’s farmers, women bear the brunt of the fight to survive from one planting season to the next. “When the rains come and we plant our crops, the rains vanish, leaving our crops to wilt and die due to inadequate rainfall,” says Jane Ochira, a farmer in the village of Lagaji.

But with limited land rights, few can reap the benefits of their work.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, the agricultural sector remains the backbone of Uganda’s economy, contributing over 70 percent of the country’s export earnings. Women constitute 56 percent of Ugandan farmers and make up more than 70 percent of agricultural production, nutrition and food security, at the household level, according to the Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET). But while women do most of the farm work, they only own 16 percent of the arable land in the country.

Edidah Ampaire, coordinator for Uganda’s Policy Action for Climate Change Adaptation project, says that women’s rights and roles are severely restricted, particularly in rural areas, and that government policies don’t do enough to address the imbalance. “Gender inequality in agricultural practices demonstrates how men have an advantage over women,” he says. “Women from rural areas are highly dependent on land, yet they are less likely to own land.”

WOUGNET says making land available to women gives them the chance to sustain themselves and their households as climate change forces them to spend most of their time cultivating fields and collecting firewood and water, leaving little time to make an income.

But even women who own land can find themselves unable to grow enough to feed their families, let alone surplus to sell on. “The poor and rural communities, mainly women, are greatly affected by climate change as they depend on extracting resources from the land for their daily survival,” said Paul Mukwaya from Makerere University, speaking to the press last year. As farmers and family caregivers, women have to deal with a slew of consequences resulting from drought and flooding, not just food and water shortages, but also high incidences of malaria and other water-borne diseases. “Food has been rotting in the garden due to floods, and diseases like malaria have caused deaths in families,” says Lagaji farmer Jane Ochira.

Struggling to provide for their families, constantly on the search for food and water, and often battling illness or caring for sick family members, women also suffer from the impact that climate change has on their husbands. According to George Onen, the parish chief for Patira and Pabit in Nwoya district, many women in rural Uganda are subjected to domestic violence due to tensions at home over food shortages and mainly during harvest time. “Poverty and food shortages create fertile ground for conflicts and domestic violence in the home,” he says. “It’s saddening that some men during harvest time, instead of saving the money and preparing for the next farming season, will decide to waste the money on drinking and marrying more women.”

And when the situation becomes too dire to bear, women can find themselves completely alone in the struggle to keep their families fed. When a crop fails due to extreme weather conditions, men will often become “migrants,” leaving for the city to find work and sometimes not returning, according to Maria Mutagamba, minister of water and environment. “They abandon the family when the land is no longer productive to search for work in the city, leaving behind the women suffering with the children.”

This story was reported with the support of an African Great Lakes Fellowship from the International Women’s Media Foundation.

How the death of two Ugandan mothers is helping entrench the right to health care

Every day, an average of 16 women in Uganda die avoidable deaths during childbirth. And while neighboring Rwanda has decreased similar incidents, Uganda continues to struggle even as it promises free health services to citizens. Resources, salaries and staff training are in short supply, and even without user fees for health services patients are expected to pay out-of-pocket for some services--and are denied or delayed when they can't. It's a recipe that has led to many of the preventable deaths--deaths of infants and mothers that could have been avoided with prompt maternal care. The tragic deaths of two expectant mothers, Sylvia Nalubowa and Jennifer Anguko, are spurring calls for the Ugandan government to take responsibility--and to change the system to ensure meaningful rights to health care for all.

Respecting women's rights as well as the country's constitution and international agreements, the Centre for health, Human Rights and Development argues, includes the right to necessary maternal care.

Click through to follow the progress of this case through Ugandan courts.

venturesafrica.com - When Sylvia Nalubowa went into labour in Uganda’s Mityana district in August 2009, she was taken to a local health centre where she expected to have a normal birth, supervised by a midwife.

After she had delivered her first baby the midwife realised there was a twin on the way. The midwife recommended that Nalubowa be taken to the district hospital where a doctor could handle the second delivery.

But when she arrived at the Mityana District Hospital in Central Uganda, the nurses asked for her maternity kit. This is commonly known as a “mama kit” and contains a plastic sheet, razor blades, cotton wool or gauze pad, soap, gloves, cord ties, and a child health card. All mothers delivering babies in Ugandan hospitals and clinics are expected to bring their own “mama kits” when they go into labour.

But Nalubowa had used her “mama kit” at the first health facility when delivering her first child. The nurses would hear none of her excuses and demanded money to purchase the kit before they could attend to her.

Read more here.

Uganda's anti-child trafficking campaign goes to schools

This story from The Christian Science Monitor, via the Thomson Reuters Foundation, follows a group of volunteers who hope to use reading and raising awareness to help provide opportunities to children and fight the demand for child trafficking. Child prostitution, which can affect girls as well as boys, is often best fought by educating the children--and their communities. Read more below and click through for the full story. csmonitor.com - KAMPALA, Uganda — In a remote corner of Uganda a team of American volunteers are distributing books to children. But this is no ordinary literacy drive; their aim is to protect children at risk of being trafficked into prostitution, forced labor, and even for use in sacrifices.

Their work is part of a project by the Interior Ministry's anti-human-trafficking task force to reach out to poor communities vulnerable to child trafficking by promoting literacy.

Children in Uganda are trafficked and forced to work in cattle herding, stone quarrying, and brick making. Girls and boys are lured from poor families in rural areas to the city and exploited in prostitution, or abducted to fight in rebel ranks, said Agnes Igoye, deputy national coordinator of the task force.

Another abuse plaguing Uganda is the trafficking of children for sacrifice in rituals some Ugandans think bring wealth and power. Children are also trafficked abroad for adoption, domestic work, or sexual exploitation.

The distribution of books, supported by the U.S.-based charity Books for Africa, is a strategy of "prevention is better than cure," she said.

Read the rest here.