Lack of Water Leaves Women & Girls Vulnerable to “Sextortion.”
Author: Administrator
Date: March 31, 2023
Lack of Water Leaves Women & Girls Vulnerable to “Sextortion.”
By Jenny Lei Ravelo // 27 March 2023
It’s a staggering statistic: Women and girls worldwide spend 200 million hours each day collecting water. But it’s just one part of the challenges they go through because of the lack of access to water, sanitation, and hygiene in many parts of the world.
Anita Soina, global youth champion on WASH at Sanitation and Water for All in Kenya, said it’s tough having to listen to stories of girls having sex in exchange for menstrual pads, and their mothers having sex for water.
“They’re not feeling okay doing it, but then sextortion is a thing,” Soina said on Thursday during a Devex event held on the sidelines of the U.N. Water Conference.
Without pads, girls often miss school. Having pads without water, meanwhile, means they aren’t able to wash their hands and practice proper hygiene. In some places, women and girls have turned to reusable pads. Women cooperatives sell them to make a profit while debunking taboos on menstruation in their communities.
But climate change is adding a layer of complication.
In Liberia, which the World Bank expects will see increased risks and severity of natural disasters due to climate change, women and girls using reusable pads struggle to find a private place to hang them to dry.
Naomi Tulay-Solanke, founder and executive director of Community Healthcare Initiative, said women and girls are failing to wash and dry their reusable pads on time because of the heavy rainfall and floods that the country has been experiencing. In these cases, they work with communities and families on the issue of privacy.
“[They] need to hang it in a space that everybody’s using, maybe for cooking or warming to allow it to dry. So we are seeing that climate change … [has] affected some of the way that we work,” she said.
In Kenya — which is hit by drought — Soina said the families of the girls they are helping to get to school are facing food insecurity.
There appears to be increased political will to tackle WASH. But will that translate to actual change — or actual money?
“Last week, I visited one of the families that we support and it was very devastating. Because the previous time we visited, about a year ago, they had about 200 cows. And when we got there, there were no cows at all,” she said.
So when they talk about education, no one wants to listen, saying, “How do I go to school on an empty stomach?” she said. Some families with food meanwhile can’t cook because there’s no water.
“So you then realize that there are so many challenges, but all brought about by water shortage,” she said.
Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America, said what’s happening to women and girls is not just “heartbreaking” but also “immoral.”
“We need to bring our outrage to places of power where we’re sitting right now, and make the situation be heard,” she said.
She also dismissed narratives that there’s not enough money to address the issues women and girls face on the ground.
“There’s plenty of money. We have billionaires, self-financing their own projects to send themselves into space. There is plenty of money. What we have is extreme inequality, and systems that are not working for the majority of people,” she said.
Lack of water services leave women and girls vulnerable to ‘sextortion’ | Devex
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