
“Water crisis on women’s shoulders / Goddess of Safety”
For women, the water crisis is a personal issue. This is because girls and women are primarily responsible for obtaining clean drinking water, preparing food, and maintaining the hygiene and cleanliness of their families on a global level. Women and girls face numerous risks in obtaining water; they must travel long distances, are at risk of sexual assault, and may even lose their lives due to consuming contaminated water or the physical strain of transporting water, especially during pregnancy.
According to United Nations estimates, women around the world spend 200 million hours per day collecting water. In addition to these hours, millions of women have to spend time every day finding a place to clean themselves due to lack of facilities at home. This adds up to a total of 266 million hours worldwide.
In total, 785 million people do not have access to clean water, which includes one out of every 10 people in the current society. On average, an African woman in rural areas consumes 40 pounds of water daily, walking 6 kilometers for transportation. (April 16, 2021) Girls aged 6 to 14 in “Benin” spend an average of one hour per day collecting water, while boys in the same age group only spend 25 minutes.
In a survey in Tanzania, it was shown that if the source of water for female students is within 15 minutes or less, their attendance in schools increases by 12%. The attendance rate of male students is significantly affected by the distance to obtain water.
In Malawi, women spend 4 to 5 times more time than men to fetch water.
In families, girls under the age of 15 are responsible for twice the amount of water supply compared to boys under the age of 15. Water supply is one of the symbols of gender inequality. This gender inequality and power relations, along with the privatization of natural resources such as water, have deepened and had major environmental impacts on human society.
Over the past two decades, the fact that the issue of water is a women’s issue has become globally accepted; despite warnings from the United Nations, governments have not taken effective steps in this regard.
In 2005, the United Nations and the United Nations Women’s Commission paid special attention to the issue of women, water, and gender. The United Nations warned in its reports that in the next 20 years, by 2025, controlling access to clean and fresh water (both surface and underground) will become one of the most important and strategic natural resources in the world, not only for sustaining life but also as a key factor in development.
Controlling water resources will be a symbol of power and one of the reasons for social and political tensions in the world.
In the first decade of the current century, the United Nations repeatedly emphasized that policies and strategies of governments regarding water must take into account gender sensitivities, and water management should consider the health of women and girls. The vast majority, 40% of the world’s population, who do not have access to adequate healthcare systems, are women and children.
But at a global level, less than 50 countries have laws and policies that specifically address women’s participation in areas such as health and sanitation in rural areas and water resource management.
Women and girls, if they have access to their necessary water at home and do not have to be forced to find a safe place for their hygiene and toilet needs during hours when there is less congestion in public spaces, this will reduce their burden of environmental hazards and significantly improve their quality of life.
Every year, there are close to one million deaths during childbirth due to environmental pollution and infections, and nearly 44 million pregnant women face health challenges that can cause significant health problems. Women and girls experience various forms of harm at every stage of life, which are rooted in unequal power dynamics and gender and sexual biases, particularly in regards to their access to clean water.
In childhood, the lack of access to clean drinking water puts their health at risk; during puberty, menstruation and restrictions on hygiene and regular attendance at school due to the responsibility of fetching water for girls, in youth, fetching water gives less opportunities for young women to participate in the job market and puts their safety at risk, and can expose them to sexual assault, violence, and psychological pressure.
In my experience, mothers have been responsible for providing water for the family. The transportation of water can put physical pressure on their bodies, especially during pregnancy. The lack of clean water can also increase the risk of death during childbirth due to unsanitary conditions. In old age, with a decrease in physical strength, the lack of access to clean water does not meet the needs of many women in this age group.
Women’s struggles in various countries show that the current global water crisis is one of the important issues in promoting women’s rights in the field of health and well-being. By challenging patriarchal demands, women have elevated their participation in water management to one of their serious demands. Feminist women, with their eco-feminist perspectives, have confronted neoliberalism and the anti-people policies and strategies of the powerful and wealthy in monopolizing water resources at the global level, exacerbating the water crisis. The burden of the current global water crisis, like other crises, is intertwined with various forms of national, gender, sexual, and physical discrimination and must be addressed.
Women and girls who are refugees, migrants, sexual minorities, economically marginalized, and struggling with poverty, as well as women from ethnic minorities and other groups, undoubtedly suffer from more pronounced discrimination in terms of their human rights, particularly their right to access clean drinking water and other basic necessities for themselves and their families. Women in various countries are increasingly recognizing their role in managing and controlling natural resources, including water, and are actively participating in finding solutions to address the current crisis and restore the unstable conditions. In many cases, they are at the forefront of social movements for environmental issues.
Iran
Water crisis in Iran is one of the various layers of crises that has become a prominent symbol today and is witnessing popular demands, especially in provinces where this crisis is more severe. The lack of urban and rural infrastructure, shortage of surface water and underground aquifers, unsustainable and profit-driven exploitation of limited water resources, economic corruption, economic sanctions, and climatic conditions all play a role in shaping the current water crisis.
Repeated droughts, excessive harvesting of surface and underground water, neglect of water transfer networks, and water loss in the transfer process have all contributed to desertification, degradation of water quality, dust storms, drying up of rivers and lakes, and other damages that have been somewhat controlled and managed in other countries through forward-thinking strategies and goals of sustainable development and utilization of 21st century technologies.
Profit-driven goals and unsustainable policies have caused the rate of using underground water resources in Iran to be three times higher than global standards. This has resulted in 297 out of 600 plains in Iran, meaning half of them, to become dry. The New York Times report on the tragedy of losing underground water in 12 out of 31 provinces in Iran within the next 50 years.
Iranian publications have also reflected these shortcomings here and there. The Parliament’s Research Center has estimated a 26 to 36 percent loss of the country’s water and 35 billion cubic meters of water wasted due to lack of attention to the water transfer network. Isa Kalantari, the head of the Environmental Protection Organization, has announced that if water shortage is not managed, 50 million people in Iran will be forced to leave the country.
Conditions
The shortage of water resources in some provinces is very severe and critical. Two-thirds of the population of Sistan and Baluchestan province do not have access to safe drinking water. Women and girls in Chabahar, like women in the cities of poor African countries, have to walk 5 to 6 times a day for about 30 minutes to fetch water from a spring and return home with large pots and buckets of water. It is a shame that Iran, which has abundant natural resources, has people, especially women, living with fewer facilities than the poorest countries in the world.
The governor of Sistan and Baluchestan province reports a 50% decrease in the water level of wells, which will make the city of Zabol uninhabitable due to their drying up.
The reality is that the efforts of women and girls to access water result in lost opportunities for education, economic participation, and a decrease in their quality of life and that of their families. In addition to Sistan and Baluchestan, Hormozgan and Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad are also in a precarious situation regarding access to water, which also affects their access to food.
In the past few months, on 20 Khordad 1400, the women of Naghdi Aliya village closed the road from Ardabil to Meshkinshahr as a protest movement in response to the lack of drinking water and the failure of officials to fulfill their promises of providing water.
Women’s protests in the context of social movements in Iran should be supported and backed; because the burden of all these issues, including climate, economy, politics and culture, falls heavily on women and, in other words, the burden of underdeveloped societies is on women’s shoulders, who are half downtrodden but highly potential and powerful. The examination and analysis of the water crisis in Iran should also be carried out with a gender-sensitive approach. Poverty, along with unequal power relations and gender discrimination, makes the water crisis even more severe. For 89,000 female heads of households, which is 17% of the population of Sistan and Baluchestan province, the water crisis is much more critical and damaging.
The empowerment of women is the empowerment of society. We must break the ceiling and create a new plan.
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