Impacts of Climate Change on Women’sHuman Rights: Bangladesh perspective1. IntroductionAt present, the consequences of climatechange including increased temperature, increased sea level, excessprecipitation, droughts, biodiversity loss, natural disasters and reduced food productionthreaten human rights and social justice. These consequences have brought moreadversely impacts on low-income countries, which have produced less greenhousegases. In particular, some vulnerable groups such as women are more vulnerableto climate change because they have weaker ability to address the challenge of climatechange. As one of the least-developed countries in the world, Bangladesh facesthe enormous challenges of the global climate change.Women in Bangladesh have been seriously affected by the climate change, with their human rights under great threat. This essay will analyze how climate change affects the human rights of Bangladeshi women and find potential pathways to tackle these problems. It will achieve this by firstly giving definitions and basic analyses about climate change and human rights. Following this it will look at how Bangladeshi women’s rights to life, health and education were affected by climate change. Finally, it will seek to give effective advice for better response to these impacts.2. Climate Change and Human Rights2.1 Climate ChangeThere are two major definitions of climate change that are widely used. The two different definitions are presented by Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). According to FCCC(1992) as cited by Pielke (2004), FCCC that focused on international policy, described climate change as “a change of climate that is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity, that alters the composition of the global atmosphere, and that is in addition to natural climate variability over comparable time periods”. On the other hand, IPCC that focused on scientific assessments defined climate change as “a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer”(Qin, Stocker & IPCC, 2013 : p123-125). It is clear that IPCC give climate change a broader definition than FCCC. On the ground of FCCC definition,the reduction of vulnerability cannot be realized except though greenhouse gasemissions. But according to IPCC definition, there are some measures includingadaption policies effective to address ecological or societal vulnerabilitybrought by climate change. In this paper, both of this will be taken intoconsider.2.2 Human RightsFacts and studies have shown thatclimate change poses a great challenge to human rights issues. Human rights arethe inherent rights of every individual, regardless of our nationality, placeof residence, sex, ethnicity, religion, language or any other status (AriellaAzoulay,2015). As United Nations (n.d.) have noted, “human rights included theright to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinionand expression, the right to work and education, and many more”. It is worthmentioning that the concept of human rights does not remain at the theoreticallevel, but is described and protected by International human rights law (IHRL)and some national laws. For example, in Britain the Human Rights Act 1998 wasintroduced to protect human rights.As women’s human rights aregaining increasing attention in the context of advocating gender equality, someresearch and related institutions begin to focus on the impact of climatechange on women’s human rights and do some work to help local women in theclimatic vulnerable areas.3. Climate Change’s Effects on Women’s Human Rights in BangladeshBangladesh is one of the countries mostlikely to suffer adverse impacts from climate change. This is mainly influencedby two factors, one of which is its special geographical location and the otheris its social and economic underdevelopment. The total land area in Bangladesh is147,570 square kilometers, including 80% of the floodplains. As a result,during the rainy season, most parts of the country (except the NorthwestHighlands) are prone to flooding. Saleemul Huq?2001?comparedBangladesh with the Netherlands, indicating that geographical location is notthe only reason why Bangladesh is affected by severe climate change. Bangladeshand the Netherlands are both low-lying deltaic countries, but the Netherlands possessesenough financial and scientific capacity to build higher seawalls for protectingits citizens against natural disasters, but Bangladesh cannot.3.1 Effect of Climate Change on the Right to Life Climate change has caused frequent naturaldisasters in Bangladesh. Gender issues have always been a marginalized topic inthe context of climate change, but we can still find some gender-related datain related climate change studies. Women are less able to escape from naturaldisasters. For example, during the 1991 Bangladesh Cyclone, the mortality rate ofwomen was five times higher than that of men among the 20-44 age group(UNEP,2005).The reasons why there was a such difference are as follows. First, there is animbalance of information between men and women in Bangladesh. Men cancommunicate with each other in public places for access to information, whilewomen are mostly at home, unable to obtain timely and useful warning messages. Secondly,most Bangladeshi women lack the skills to swim or climb trees, and theirdresses are not conducive to their escape from the disaster. In addition, it ismore difficult for women to get rescuing resources to deal with damage and lossfrom extreme weather events because of the long-standing social bias. In otherwords, the gender inequality in Bangladesh society contributes to thevulnerability of local women.3.2 Effect of Climate Change on the Right to healthAs a result of climate change, women’s workhas become even more dangerous and difficult in the society of Bangladesh. Inmost poor communities, getting drinking water for their families is theresponsibility for women, just as Bangladesh. Climate change causes problems ofdrought and salinization of water in Bangladesh (Aguilar Revelo, 2009). Womenin families have to walk a long distance to obtain water resources, whichconsumes a large amount of their time and leads to high risks of injury and evendeath in the process.Climate change have driven child marriagerisks in Bangladesh, with women’s right to health damaged. Natural disasters suchas floods and droughts aroused by climate change have made thousands of people becomedisplaced and lose their financial sources (e.g. crops). In this “hopeless” situation, many parents have to marry their young daughtersoff. Girls Not Brides (2017) noted that Bangladesh already had one of highestrates of child marriage in the world at 52%. Around 30% of girls in Bangladeshare married before their 15th birthday. Early marriages make these girls morevulnerable to domestic violence, and pregnancy at a young age is harmful forwomen’s health.3.3 Effect of Climate Change on the Right to EducationHigh temperatures, droughts and floods havemade farmers in rural areas lose their land, crops and livestock, then thesepeople have to migrate from villages to the so-called “climate change refuges”inDhaka. Education is free in rural Bangladesh, while it is not free in Dhaka  (Jabeen,2014).  In the face of high tuition fees and livingcosts, parents choose to let the girls give up education. Gender bias inBangladesh society also contributes to the choice. Families often prefer togive boys the limited educational opportunities and the girls should make an effortfor boys. Also, gathering water and producing cropsbecome increasingly difficult due to extreme weather in Bangladesh so that girlshave to stay at home to share the housework. It becomes more and more difficultfor local women to participate in decision-making process of climate changepolicy and measures due to lack of education. As a result, many policies andmeasures for dealing with climate change are formulated almost entirely by menand can not accurately satisfy the demands of women.4. Possible SolutionsProtectingwomen’s human rights from climate change needs transboundary cooperationincluding international institutions, local government, NGOs. There are somesuggestions to address the issue and to improve women’s human rights in thecontext of the climate change in Bangladesh.First, women’sempowerment in the decision-making process is of vital importance. Actually, thisconcept has been clearly stated in some policies or agreements, but it stillfaces many challenges in its practical application. For example,“The Paris Agreement”explicitly requires that gender equality and women’s empowermentshould be taken into account in addressing climate change, and genderdifferences should be considered in actions and capacity building to addressclimate change(Guiot,2016). However, inpoor countries, women’s empowerment is not easy to realize in practice becauseof social prejudices and the low educational level of women. For betterempowerment, local governments should provide education subsidies or freeeducation for these climate refugees. Relevant policies should be introduced todemand that all children including girls receive basic education. Compulsoryeducation gives girls more employment opportunities and enables them to participatein the stages of social decision-making, making their voices heard in the areaof addressing climate change issue. Moreover, women’s education optimizes thedemographic structure andthus has a positive impact on climate change. Thiscreates a virtuous circle.Secondly, theinfrastructure should be improved. As mentioned earlier, water is greatlyaffected by climate change, and women’s access to water becomes more difficultand vulnerable. It seems impossible to change this culture in Bangladesh thatwomen should get water for their families, but infrastructure projects can beimplemented in local area to help them get watereasier.For example, localgovernments, corporations or international organizations can invest money andtechnology to establish water factories to enable local residents to use cleantap water directly. In addition, construction of the roads and schools in localvillages can also reduce the time and distance to go to school. As a result,the way of getting water becomes safe and women can have more time foreducation.Finally, women’s access to early warning informationand the basic skills to deal with disasters should be improved. For example, thelocal government and other non-governmental organizations can provide localwomen with free disaster-resistant training. Considering the low-leveleducation of local women, training materials should be designed easy tounderstand. And a special information transmission team including female shouldbe set up to timely transmit important information to women groups and reflectthe demands of women.5. Conclusion Women in Bangladesh is one of the mostvulnerable groups when it comes to the impact of climate change. With theimpact of climate change, women not only need to spend more time in domesticwork, but also becomes more vulnerable in the process. Climate change hasaggravated the problem of poverty, leading to the emergence of dropouts andchild marriages. In fact, women’s rights to life, health and education havebeen adversely affected by climate change.Fortunately, more and more agencies andresearchers have been aware of this issue and done some related research. Theseresearch outcomes have been gradually affecting the government’s policies aboutclimate change. However, increasing the human rights of women in Bangladeshwill require more efforts from multiple agencies. The essay also provides somepossible ways in practice to deal with the problem, including women’sempowerment in decision-making process, constructing tap water factories,improving local roads, disaster prevention training for women. 6. References[1] Qin D, Stocker T.& Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Working Group I. (2013) Climate change 2013: the physical sciencebasis, p123-125.[2] Pielke, R.A.(2004) What is Climate Change? Energy & Environment. 15 (3), 515-520.[3] Ariella Azoulay. (2015) What Are Human Rights? Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. 35(1), 8-20. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/1089201X-2876056[Accessed Nov.3th 2017].[4] United nations. (n.d.) Human Rights. Available: http://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/human-rights[Accessed Nov.4th 2017].[5] Saleemul, Huq. (2001) Climate Change and Bangladesh. Science (NewYork, N.Y.), 294(5547), p.1617.[6] United Nations Environment Programme. (2005) Mainstreaming Genderin Environmental Assessment and Early Warning. Available: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11822/8559[AccessedNov.4th 2017].[7] Aguilar Revelo, L.(2009) Training Manual On Gender andClimate Change. Gland, Switzerland, IUCN, pp.120-122. [8] Girls Not Brides.(2016) How Is Climate Change Driving ChildMarriage? Available: https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/hidden-connections-climate-change-child-marriage-bangladesh/[AccessedNov.5th 2017][9] Jabeen, H. (2014) Adapting the built environment: the role ofgender in shaping vulnerability and resilience to climate extremes in Dhaka.Environment & Urbanization. 26 (1), 147-165.[10] Guiot, J. & Cramer, W. (2016) Climate change: The 2015 ParisAgreement thresholds and Mediterranean basin ecosystems. Science. 354 (6311),465-468.Get Help With Your EssayIf you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help!Find out more