How many women need to endure sexual violence, before men wake up to understand NO is NO? How many girls and boys need to die in conflicts, before humanity wakes up and say ENOUGH is ENOUGH? The answer, my friend, is to promote better natural resource management, and to improve data collection. For the latter, what gets measured gets done.
Heartiest congratulations to Ms. Nadia Murad of Iraq and Dr. Denis Mukwege of the Democratic Republic of Congo for being this year's Noble Peace Prize winners! Ms. Murad, aged 25 and a former Islamic State sex slave, is a powerful advocate for ending gender-based violence as a weapon of war; Dr. Mukwege, aged 63 and a gynecologist, has been dedicating his life treating rape victims in his home country. I admire their courage, persistence and humanity. The award to Murad is another great evidence that women too are key actors in peace building, while the recognition of Dr. Mukwege sends a message that men too can be a strong force for gender equality.
Over the last 60 years, the lake’s size has decreased by 90 per cent as a result of over use of the water, extended drought and the impacts of climate change. (Photo: WWF/Meg GAWLER)
One reason for conflicts, and thus a surge in cases of sexual violence, is related to degradation of natural resources. UN resolutions 2349 and 2408, adopted in 2017 and 2018 respectively, recognize climate and ecological changes as drivers of instability in the Lake Chad region and in Somalia. It is no surprise that UN Environment has recently stepped up efforts on environment security, click here to read more.
Both Ms. Murad and Dr. Mukwege would be delighted to learn that data at least partially exist for the SDG indicator 5.2.1 on intimate-partner violence. In D.R. Congo, Dr. Mukwege's home country, as many as 36.8% women and girls between the age of 15 and 49 were subjected to physical, sexual or psychological violence by a current or former intimate partner in the last 12 months, reported in the year 2014. Data for this indicator is not available in Iraq, Ms. Murad's country. In Kenya, where UN Environment's headquarters are based, the figure is 25.5%, reported in 2014.
Bouaké, Côte d'Ivoire, March, 2013: I supported these women and men to develop outcome-level indicators to measure women's decision making, it was a good lesson for me.
For many years, I had conducted field work in a number of countries to develop data collection tool and train up enumerators to assess the relations between women and men. In 2014, I supported a nation-wide gender and food security assessment in Chad; one of the results pointed to the possible linkage between climate change and girls' early marriage. Earlier this year (2018), during my gender analyses in South Sudan and Uganda, women reported higher incidences of violence committed by their husbands during dry seasons, prolonged by climate change.
Peace and security, climate change, natural resources and social dynamics are all intimately linked. Addressing one can sometimes help tackle the others. Guess this is exactly the very purpose of the Sustainable Development Goals. In UN Environment, we are challenged to think vertically about the needs of the people that we serve, and horizontally how to connect our work with peace, security and socio-economic issues. The two newly named Nobel laureates would certainly appreciate our such efforts.
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