• Experts say the searing heat exposes women who have to travel to get water and fuel sources to health problems like dehydration, heat stroke, and sexual violence.
• Counties with the poorest maternal outcomes are mostly in northern Kenya, which is most affected by the constant droughts.
Image: FILE
At least 18,000 babies will be born in the drought-hit counties in the next three months.
UNFPA has warned that the expectant women require urgent care as many are weak, lack key nutrients and may be unable to travel in the searing heat for care or delivery.
John Wafula, the UNFPA Humanitarian Specialist, told the Devolution Conference in Makueni that pregnant women must not be overlooked in the ongoing drought response.
“We have 2.5 million people affected by drought in 23 counties, 650,000 of them are women of reproductive age and 500,000 are sexually active men,” he said.
He said mapping by UNFPA shows 13,000 women in those counties are at risk of sexual violence.
Wafula spoke at a session organised by UNFPA and Council of Governors on Thursday, titled 'Mapping and Amplifying Women’s Voices In Climate Action'.
“In the next three months we will have 18,000 deliveries in this group,” he said. “Children are still being born during drought.”
Of the 23 counties, those in northern Kenya have not had adequate rains for three years and are dealing with increased temperatures.
Experts say the searing heat exposes women who have to travel to get water and fuel sources to health problems like dehydration, heat stroke and sexual violence.
The pressure on family budgets also makes it harder for pregnant women and those with small children to seek medical treatment.
Wafula said effects of climate change, which is partly blamed for the increased droughts in the horn of Africa, are not gender neutral.
“We should have the programming audacity to confront these issues,” he said. “For in stance, extreme salinity of water will lead to poor maternal outcomes.”
Counties with the poorest maternal outcomes are mostly in northern Kenya, which is most affected by the constant droughts.
The Maternal Mortality Ratio in 2014 was calculated at 362 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births nationally, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey.
However, it was highest in northern Kenya with counties such as Garissa reporting 646 deaths per 100,000 live births.
Compared to many other parts of Kenya, North Eastern Kenya is far less endowed with social amenities including health facilities and faces high levels of poverty.
Generally, girls are often married younger and some undergo female genital mutilation.
The KDHS showed that in Garissa, only 32.4 per cent of deliveries are attended to by skilled health personnel.
Wafula said as such, climate adaptation and mitigation programmes must be gender responsive.
“We should deliberately empower women and girls so that in climate vagaries they can make choices that uphold their dignity and entitlement as human beings,” he said.
Marsabit deputy governor Solomon Gubo, who participated in the panel, said women are most affected, because when men move around with livestock for several months, they’re the ones left behind.
On Thursday, women in Lamu raised alarm that in some areas men fled the drought and have not been seen for months.
“He woke up one day and said someone had offered him a job in Lamu but he didn’t say the exact place. It’s been four months now. We have no food and I feel it's unfair that he would abandon us at such a time,” Tindi Kale, a 24-year-old mother of four from Boni, told the Star.
The same has been reported in drought-hit areas of Mangai, Kiangwe, Mararani and Witu.
In Western Kenya, unreliable weather has pushed villagers into artisanal gold mining. A report shows women are having troubled pregnancies caused by exposure to mercury, the main ingredient in extraction.
The report by International Pollutants Elimination Network, dubbed 'Mercury in Women of Child-bearing Age in 25 countries', found that women and girls in artisanal mines in Kenya are among a group highly exposed to the chemical.
The researchers picked hair samples of women in Mikei, Masara and Osiri gold mining centres in Migori which formed part of 1,044 women of reproductive age in 37 locations across 25 countries.
They measured the burden of mercury that can cause neurological and organ damage not only to mothers but also to foetus and infants.
“Mercury in a mother’s body can be transferred to her foetus during pregnancy, exposing the developing foetus to the potent neurotoxin,” IPEN said.
At the Devolution Conference, Wairimu Kanyiri, who farms cabbages on her 15 acres in Nakuru, says the flow of information is too slow.
“The weather is changing, but many women still do not know how to respond to that,” she said.
In Kenya, women make up between 42 per cent and 65 per cent of the agricultural labour force, in addition to their traditional domestic responsibilities, World Bank reports.
Kanyiri said she recently lost cabbages on her 15-acre farm after a hailstorm.
Weather experts say hailstorms will become more severe in some places due to an expected increase in atmospheric instability in the warming world.
“I urge counties to ensure extension services reach farmers by giving these officers motorbikes,” she said.
Kanyiri said radios and TVs, which are often used to broadcast such information, are reserved for men who use them to follow politics or football.
UNFPA says gender and climate change has been a significant area of work under the formulation and implementation of the Paris Agreement.
However, much of the focus of the UNFCCC Gender Action Plan has been on increasing women’s participation, while substantive and sectoral issues that are central to ensuring gender-responsive adaptation have been missed.
The UN agency says a review of gender in Nationally Determined Contributions (the primary national instrument for implementing the Paris Agreement) shows significant gaps in many critical sectors such as disaster risk reduction, agriculture and climate finance.
Fridah Githuku, the executive director of Groots Kenya, a movement of grassroots women-led groups said Kenya must walk the talk and prioritise women in climate change mitigation and adaptation.
“When it comes to sharing money, women are not involved. In the minds of many Kenyans when you say you’re involving communities, what comes to mind is male elders,” she said.
(Edited by Bilha Makokha)