More than half of the global population of internally displaced people are women and girls. Not only are women and girls vulnerable to displacement, they are also vulnerable in displacement.

Numerous studies indicate that displacement puts women and girls at increased risk of domestic violence, likely due to higher levels of stress and trauma. 

This rings true regardless of whether they are displaced internally or across borders. 

I’m reminded of a group interview with Nigerian refugees in Sayam refugee camp in Diffa, Niger. I was in the camp on a mission to better understand the effects of climate change in the Lake Chad Basin and its impacts in the displacement crisis and regional conflict.

With Boko Haram having just attacked a nearby camp, sending refugees fleeing yet again, we were deep into discussions on several somber topics and serious protection problems faced by refugees.

Quite suddenly one woman asked me if I could ensure the food aid distributed in the camp could include condiments. 

Puzzled by the question and its timing, I asked her to clarify.

She explained that dried okra is a Nigerian condiment that would be highly appreciated. Seeing my continued confusion, she honed in on my need to understand the connection between protection and condiments.

Suddenly, in a calm and clear voice, and in stilted English, she said, access to condiments could help the women “keep the peace” in the family because “the men are stressed and the children are crying.”

I realized with a start, noting the almost resigned recognition of the other men and women, that this woman was speaking about something as serious as the prevalence of domestic violence through the guise of food aid.

Humbled, I leaned in to better understand.  

Less Access = Increased Risk

Thanks to two years' work and over 1,000 sources of research, we now know of linkages in environmental stress and gender-based violence (GBV), including amongst environmental migrants and refugees. 

Through conflicts and the aftermaths of natural disasters we know that displacement leads to increased human trafficking. The UN Environment Programme has noted as much as a 20-30% increase in trafficking after natural disasters and INTERPOL also warns of women’s increased exposure to trafficking following disasters. 

In the wake of 2009 cyclone Aila in the highly climate vulnerable Indian Sundarbans, more than half of the impacted men were forced to migrate to other parts of the country due to livelihood loss.

When they did, gender discrimination and socially constructed roles denied the women left behind alternate sources of livelihood. 

With no income and male breadwinners away, women, identifying as ‘bhasha’ (environmental refugees), were forced to migrate to the red-light district of Kolkata where a 20-25% uptick of migratory sex workers following the cyclone was noted. 

The key here is with less access to opportunities and mobility, women and girls have fewer options to offset the negative effects of climate change. So policymaking needs to ensure work that both reduces global warming and pursues rights-based approaches that address these gaps. 

GBV in Displacement

These are only some forms of gender-based violence. What we also see among resource scarce populations are increased incidents of domestic abuse, rape, sexual assault, forced prostitution, early marriage and forced marriage. 

Regardless of the form it takes, forcibly displaced women and girls are at heightened risk to all of this. 

I recall one of my first camp refugee interviews with a family of five women and girls. They were classified as a ‘female-headed household’ after the husband/father had gone missing. 

During the course of the family interview, I detected some unusual tension from the eldest daughter, even for these circumstances. 

Needing to interview each adult-aged member of the family separately anyway, I carefully engaged her in conversation, eventually learning that she was pregnant and petrified that her mother and family would find out. 

As she grew more comfortable with me, she trusted me to tell me the truth. She had been raped. 

As the oldest child, it was her responsibility to fetch essential resources like water and firewood for the family. In the course of her daily journeys, she had been assaulted and was now being repeatedly targeted. 

She felt ashamed and responsible, as if her actions had somehow caused her assault. She feared for the repercussions should anyone ever find out. 

When Oppression Meets Vulnerability 

“Tell them to give us land,” she said, “and then we would be happy to stay here.”

She was referring to her lifelong wish to own her own land. Something long denied in her home country that she now hoped would be granted in exile where she could not only feed her family but also build the basis for a future livelihood. 

She was yet another refugee from Nigeria who had fled to Niger after years of internal displacement, evading Boko Haram and the ravages of climate change that had contributed to shrinking Lake Chad and destroying livelihoods for millions in the region.

In repeated studies, the World Bank has found women are disenfranchised from economic opportunities through laws that limit their abilities to own assets. As a result, women tend to depend more on natural resources for their livelihoods. 

In the developing world, access to land is essential for survival from subsistence farming to a meagre source of livelihood income. Thus, land rights become a crucial issue that cuts across poverty reduction, food security and development, overall.

In this context enters climate change, which not only threatens to impact all these sectors but also adversely affects women because of discrimination and inequality that limit their access to land and natural resources.   

Successive climate change-fueled disasters reveal that women and children are 14 times more likely to die in a disaster than men and 80 percent more likely to be displaced by climate change. 

The women I interviewed in the Lake Chad Basin all cited climate change as a factor that drove them from their homes. 

There is no question they also cited the repeated violence, attacks from Boko Haram and deteriorating security situation as reasons to eventually flee their countries, but long before conflict and long before the situation was too untenable to stay, they had been internally displaced within the Lake Chad Basin due to the impacts of climate change.

But What About the Men? Broader Definitions of Gender?

No discussion on gender is complete without examining climate displacement impacts on men and other groups as well.

Unfortunately, there is a tendency in humanitarian affairs - actually the entire international affairs field - to approach gender issues primarily as issues impacting women and girls, even if gender is not strictly defined as women and girls.

This might largely be a consequence of women and girls comprising such a large group, under the category of ‘gender.’ It might be because women and girls tend to be the most impacted by the multitude of issues examined in these fields. It might be a result of primary focus. Or it might be a result of habit.

Whatever the reason, it needs to be said that a greater conversation about widening the scope of who we examine under the ‘gender’ spectrum is warranted.

With respect to climate migration, where we lack information in so many facets, we also lack a deeper understanding of the ramifications of climate change on men and boys but that does not mean there aren’t unique ways in which they are affected. 

The key here is to view gendered impacts through the lens of both oppression and vulnerability. 

It is the social and cultural norms and the discrimination women face for being women that oppresses them, thus making them vulnerable to the gendered-impacts of climate change. 

In many societies, men do have more rights and mobility than women, but most social and cultural norms do place the primary role of breadwinner on male-headed households. 

This likely disadvantages migrant men faced with climate change-driven livelihood loss, who in desperation are forced into exploitive labor situations and abysmal living standards. 

My conversations with Dr. Lewis Turner, whose areas of research includes refugee men, informal labor markets and sexual violence prevention, reinforces this thought. He tells me that when men migrate in search of alternate sources of income, the issues are often framed as women ‘left behind.’

This is understandable, he says, and important, but with it comes an assumption that men will find a way to support their families, and in the process overlooks the very real difficult and exploitative labor migration situations men encounter. 

He adds that the psychological impacts of losing livelihoods, combined with the continued communal pressure on men to be the sources of financial support are immense and are often overlooked. 

He says the mental health needs of both men and women, and their families and communities, are usually sidelined by the more prescient economic realities. 

It bears noting that since cultural norms do grant more rights and mobility to men, anyone non-binary, or who society identifies as gender non-conforming, could be subject to the same oppression or limitations and vulnerability faced by women.

Looking Back

Over the years, I have interviewed countless Somali refugee women who told me about repeated years of drought and ensuing livelihood loss, coupled with violence at the hands of al-Shabab that finally forced them to flee Somalia. 

It’s been my experience that after years of exile, refugees like to tell their stories. Years later, two things stand out from those interviews: gender-based violence and livelihood loss. 

Although Somalia has teetered on the edges of a failed State since 1991 with years of repeated intra-clan violence and extremist armed groups, asked about their reasons for flight, the majority of refugees I’ve interviewed initially spoke of years of environmental distress and livelihood loss and then spoke of violence perpetrated by clans and al-Shabab. 

I recall my frustration at the length of time it took for refugees to communicate a valid refugee claim since livelihood loss from drought is not a protected refugee ground. 

Now, looking back, I realize I should have been leaning in all along.

Want to know more about the impacts of climate displacement in the Lake Chad Basin? Here’s our report.