Guide on Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples

increase 6 and limit their chances of participationin social life and/or in pursuing other alternativesources of income. 7 Women also have to exertgreat efforts collecting, storing, protecting anddistributing drinking water. 8• Violation of Rights. In pastoralistcommunities, cases of fathers trading theirdaughters as young as eight or nine as dowriesto replace their income from lost livestock due toprolonged drought have been documented. 9 Death of livestocks for lackof water also makes them more dependent on international food aid.Women and girls trekking for a long distance to look for water, food andfirewood are at risk to various forms of violence. Girls also have to dropout from school to find water and wood resources in distant places orto care for ill relatives. The loss of opportunity for, aside from issues ofaccess to, education has a lifelong and multiple impact for indigenousgirls. This lessens indigenous girls’ chances of exercising, accessing andclaiming their rights especially the right to full development as humanbeings.• Migration and Displacement. Food insecurity due to drought or floodingwould likely drive migration that interrupts and limits opportunitiesfor education. Families headed by women due to migration of men seasonallyor for a number of years experience poverty while the workloadsof women, their children and elderly increase. Whole families migratingto overpopulated cities are at high risk of getting HIV/AIDS. 10 Migrationand displacement - as direct or indirect impact of climate change andadaptation/mitigation measures - reinforces the discrimination andviolence already experienced by indigenous women, exposing them tohigher risks of trafficking, exploitation and gender-based violence.• Less Mobility and Further Marginalization. As primary carers orcaregivers of the family, the women have to spend more time caring forsick family members, making them less mobile with no time to engagein social and political activitiesand their own personal development.• Loss of Identity. The totalimpact of climate change onindigenous women is the erosionof their world views, culture andidentity which are intricately wovenin their relationship to their land andresources.“Many aspects of Saami culture -language, songs, marriage, childrearingand the treatment of olderpersons - are intimately linkedwith reindeer herding. If reindeerherding disappears, it will have adevastating effect on the wholeculture of the Saami people..”- Olav Mathis-Eira, Sami Council.Source: MRG. State of Minorities Report2008.112 <strong>Guide</strong> on Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples