The fifth pillar of eliminating poverty through women’s rights includes Gender in Emergencies to prioritize women’s needs during a time of crisis. In emergency situations, such as natural disasters, women are hit the hardest and displaced from their homes putting millions in urgent need of clean water, soap, food and shelter which would otherwise threaten women's safety and health in unique ways. Furthermore, women are often left out of critical decisions that affect them, such as the distribution of food, water, hygiene kits, medicine, and even where to build the toilets.
Did You Know?
From 2018 to 2019, Oxfam provided 19.5 million people with life-saving assistance
Refugee women are 2x more vulnerable to sexual violence
Women make up only 3% of UN military peacekeepers
Featured Project
One of the featured projects Oxfam is working on is guiding the most vulnerable communities through Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) by adapting to the predicted impacts of climate change, influencing decision makers to promote DRR through their policies, and managing risk and uncertainty. However, Disaster Risk Reduction can only be effective if local communities include women who often brunt the worst effects of a crisis. Through this project, Oxfam is advocating for women’s involvement in Disaster Risk Reduction by:
Addressing root causes of risk, vulnerability and disadvantage because the causes of inequality (such as poverty, gender discrimination and unequal power) make poor and marginalized people disproportionately vulnerable to shocks and stresses.
Empowering women, men, girls and boys to reduce their vulnerability and risk before the disaster strikes and have access to the necessary skills, knowledge and information to continually adapt to ongoing change, stress and disruption.
Ensuring the agency of people in all aspects of our work – in other words, ensure that people are in charge of their own lives, and participating in decisions that affect their lives.
Check out more information about Gender in Emergencies and their work on clearing the path to bring more women to leadership positions at https://www.oxfam.ca/what-we-do/issues-we-work-on/gender-in-emergencies/.
This post marks the end of the Women’s Rights blog series! Stay tuned for the next blog topic on March 28th!