The Weight of Water On Women and Girls
Throughout many of the regions currently involved in conflict or the process of rebuilding after, a profound lack of access to safe, clean water compounds many of the issues facing women and girls, and their communities as a whole. In too many places, it is common to walk two or more hours each way to a creek or well to collect water daily. Women lose time which might be spent generating income. Girls are twice as likely as boys to collect water, often arriving late to school. As well, they often miss school during menstruation as they lack the water necessary to attend to their personal hygiene needs. They fall behind in their studies and many drop out. Once they leave school, many girls often fall victim to male predators, become pregnant, and/or marry early.
Because it takes so long to reach and return with water, many must leave their homes before dawn but traveling in the dark leaves them susceptible to rape, a deeply traumatic experience that can result in unwanted pregnancy, HIV, or both. Yet returning late can trigger domestic violence as husbands await their morning tea or bath. Most women can only carry a 5-gal/20-lt can, yet this must serve their family’s needs for drinking, cooking, washing clothes and dishes, bathing, and housecleaning. Pregnant women carrying heavy water jugs are more likely to miscarry. Blind, elderly, and disabled women or those too sick to carry water may be forced to trade sex in order for men to deliver it if they can’t pay. And poor hygiene caused by water scarcity, including during menstruation, causes men to reject their wives – a driver of infidelity and divorce.
The water source itself can be harmful, contaminated from latrines, farm run-off and livestock. Lack of safe drinking water, hygiene, and sanitation are the main causes of diarrhea, the second leading cause of death in children under the age of five. Safe water is essential to reduce maternal and infant mortality rates in the developing world.
Women-operated water enterprises significantly reduce water-related violence against women and girls. In addition, improved water access eliminates barriers to education, ensuring children have clean water to take to school and can wash their uniforms as assigned to avoid being sent home, and it reduces the amount of time girls miss school.
Water access points act as a gathering place for women and girls and it is here, along with village seminars, workshops, and other training mechanisms, that information is often disseminated and discussed. They may learn about women’s rights, domestic and sexual violence and exploitation, reproductive health, child nutrition, personal and water hygiene and sanitation, and alcoholism, among other issues. Interventions involving health and decision-making in the home and community are also possible. Further, using the profits from the sale of water enables women-led teams to establish revolving loan funds, provide health insurance to their families, cover school fees for orphans and children from the poorest families, and initiate additional social change programs that address other issues such as literacy, HIV/AIDS, women’s land rights, and girls’ education. Water ventures can also drive new business opportunities for women.
But it is the personal transformation that has the greatest impact on the lives of women and girls. By creating and implementing their own solutions for social change, they discover that not only do their ideas have value, they can actually be implemented. They uncover and nurture the leader within. They heal from trauma. They gain confidence and self-awareness. They deepen their compassion. They lead ethically and responsibly. They become recognised within their communities as leaders, despite having been previously marginalized by these same communities. As such, these same under-educated, vulnerable, stigmatized women living in the deepest poverty demonstrate to this and following generations that women and girls, regardless of their circumstances, are capable and equal.
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