Pakistan

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27 03, 2025

Pakistan’s Climate Crisis Of Child Marriage

2025-12-11T13:14:45-05:00Tags: |

Climate change is a force pushing women and young girls into marriage, early motherhood, and lifelong reproductive issues. In Pakistan, child marriage disproportionately affects women and girls in the aftermath of extreme weather events. Research from 2010 found that the marriage rate of girls aged 15–19 rose from 10.7% to 16% after the floods. Similar patterns emerged after the 2022 monsoon rains, which left a third of the country underwater. Selling girls into marriage often becomes a response to displacement, financial crisis, and deepening economic hardship. Patriarchal structures further devalue women’s agency, subjecting them to male control. Societal expectations pressure girls to have children immediately after marriage, leading many to bear multiple children before the age of 20. Carrying pregnancies can be life-threatening, and access to health care is often limited. Displacement into camps also increases the risk of sexual assault. Rural women face additional challenges, as they perform informal and underpaid labor with little to no labor protection. Harsh climate conditions that result in water scarcity expose them to risks of physical assault, while the growing pressure on agricultural livelihoods strains their bodies and overall health. Girls as young as nine are sent to urban areas to do domestic work to earn an income. Floods, in turn, deepen these existing inequalities. Policies and disaster responses frequently fail to address these realities, as relief workers may impose their own beliefs on communities without understanding the full context. Addressing the issue requires holistic solutions that recognize the intersecting challenges women and girls face, and meaningful partnerships with local communities to co-create inclusive, relevant, and sustainable responses.

28 06, 2023

Climate crisis linked to rising domestic violence in South Asia, study finds

2025-03-27T13:39:26-04:00Tags: , , , |

Heat waves are on the rise and, according to a new study, so is domestic violence against women and girls. The research shows that for every 1°C increase in average annual temperature, there was a rise of more than 6.3% in physical and sexual domestic violence incidents in India, Pakistan, and Nepal. The study tracked almost 200,000 girls and women aged 15-49 for eight years, reporting on their experiences with emotional, physical, and sexual violence. The data overlaid temperature fluctuations over the same period. Excessive heat may lead to failing crops, collapsing infrastructure, crashing economies, and may render individuals unable to work, keeping them at home. The study also showed that while all income groups experienced an increase in heat-related violence, lower-income rural households faced the largest increase.

16 05, 2023

Ecofeminism in Architecture: Empowerment and Environmental Concern

2025-05-24T18:39:56-04:00Tags: , , |

Camilla Ghisleni explores the concept of ecofeminism in architecture, highlighting female architects who are creating inclusive change within the field. The article begins by presenting the concept of how ‘othered’ both women and nature are when perceived through a male, patriarchal lens. Landscape architect Elizabeth Meyer has noted how in these male-centered societies, women and other marginalized communities are excluded. As a retaliation to this dichotomy, ecofeminism, a term created by Françoise d’Eaubonne around 1974, combines the ideologies of feminism and seeks to present holistic structures and worldviews that include regard for natural systems and connections. A key principle of ecofeminism is its emphasis on the disproportionate impacts women face concerning climate change. A UN report found that women are more often reliant upon natural resources due to their lack of financial wealth in comparison to men. Furthermore, they bear the brunt of the workload when it comes to child rearing and care for the elderly. This being said, architect Yasmeen Lari is making change for women as her work in improving the Pakistani chulah, an outdoor stove, by creating a cheaper and healthier alternative for women. These stoves are smokeless and are built on raised platforms which shield them from flood damage and create more sanitary and ventilated environments. Another project incorporating ecofeminsim is the Anandaloy Center for People with Disabilities in Bangladesh, which draws largely on women’s labor with earth and bamboo. Sustainability must go beyond technical dynamics and necessitates the inclusion of cultural, gendered, and economic dynamics.

10 04, 2023

Architecture as Activism: Yasmeen Lari’s Eco-Feminist Work

2023-10-17T15:42:57-04:00Tags: |

Yasmeen Lari, a Pakistani woman, has dedicated her life to intersecting architecture and Ecofeminism. She developed the Barefoot Architecture Project to address social, economic, and gender inequities that exist in rural Pakistan through conscious architecture. Due to overarching gender roles, many women play a large role in cooking, cleaning, and caregiving for their families and community. Lari developed the Pakistan Chula, an elevated, cost-effective and smokeless stove made with local mud and plaster. The Pakistan Chula has lowered risk for burns or lung conditions, minimized potential for flood damage, and has brought women dignity while preparing traditional food. In addition to co-constructing the chulahs, Lari also trained the women to create bricks, tiles, and flood-resistant houses using local materials. This has empowered local women to not only socialize and participate more in the community, but also increase their economic stability. Photo Credit: Copyright Yasmeen Lari/Heritage Foundation of Pakistan

15 03, 2023

Meet the 24-year-old climate activist on Time’s list of Women of the Year

2025-03-06T17:35:27-05:00Tags: |

Time’s Woman of the Year, Ayisha Siddiqa, discusses her activism for people and the planet. The 24-year-old comes from a rural community in northern Pakistan and is a climate and human rights defender seeking to change the dialogue around climate change through poetry. Siddiqa is the founder of the Global Youth Activist coalition and co-founder of Polluters Out and Fossil Free University. One of the key factors that motivated her activism were the multiple pollution-related deaths and illnesses in her family, including blood cancer, polio, appendicitis, and tetanus. Siddiqa attributes the rise in such cases to biohazards from upriver coal and hydrogen dams built along northern Pakistan’s ancestral fresh waterways. She describes poetry as “a way to keep going,” a vehicle for her activism and a way to find endurance and inspiration during the anthropocene. Siddiqa explains that “If Climate anxiety is anything, it’s a signifier of sanity. And for me turning to poetry was a way to find hope.”

6 10, 2022

Deep-Rooted Gender Inequities Make Women More Vulnerable During Climate Disasters

2023-12-04T16:22:25-05:00Tags: |

Nabila Feroz critically examines the social and economic conditions that impact women and historically underserved groups during disasters. She informs policy makers and communities in understanding the necessity for disaster response and prevention. Feroz found that in the event of disaster, the likelihood of fatal casualties occuring is 14 times higher for women and children than for men. Taking the floods in Pakistan as an example, she lists the social determinants of health and wellbeing that place women at increased risk in disaster situations. These factors include limited access to resources such as education, healthcare, economic circumstances, and cultural barriers. Women in Pakistan were not fully equipped with skills such as navigation, self-defense, or swimming which made it much harder for them to successfully evacuate. Many women in Pakistan are also not able to leave their homes without a male companion or permission from elders, so they have limited experience navigating dilemmas outside of the home. In camps, they are subjected to violence and lack health care that meets their needs, such as menstrual resources and infrastructure for birth. These are only some of the compounding and intersectional challenges that women and children face. Policy makers must take special care to include womens’ concerns in their solutions. Photo Credit: Asianet-Pakistan/Shutterstock

23 09, 2021

Caste and Climate Change

2025-03-27T16:37:46-04:00Tags: , , , , |

Caste-oppressed women in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nepal suffer from the silent violence of segregation and discrimination, putting them at extreme risk from the climate crisis. Dalits, members of the most oppressed caste, are more vulnerable to climate-related impacts because of their marginalized social position, the locations of their home in the periphery of communities, being historically limited to hazardous occupations, and lack of land rights. Dalit women are even more vulnerable. They are systematically excluded and oppressed, lagging in many human development markers, and lacking equal resources putting them at a higher chance of being subjected to multiple forms of violence. More than 15 Dalit women and girls are raped and sexually assaulted every day, as of what is reported. A woman’s caste position increases her risk of mortality due to a lack of sanitation and water. Dalit women die, on average, 14.6 years before dominant caste women. Climate change is exacerbating these existing vulnerabilities as resources, such as water, become scarce. In rural areas, the dominant castes are not allowing Dalit women to use government-provided hand pumps to access water, assaulting those who do amid a water crisis. Dalit women furthermore lack legal and community protection, making them extremely vulnerable to climate stressors.

24 03, 2017

Pink Power: Women Drive Rickshaws In Pakistan

2017-09-24T16:35:56-04:00Tags: |

Zar Aslam serves as President of the Environmental Protection Fund (EPF) in Lahore, and also founded of EPFs all-women Rink Rickshaw Initiative transportation service. Providing services to only female clients, the Rink Rickshaw Initiative has become a household name in providing safe, empowering transportation to local women who otherwise face street harassment in public in Lahore. This outcome is a women-led local economy that provides low-carbon transportation and financial independence for female drivers in addition to accessibility, safety, and confidence for commuting women. Photo credit: Pink Rickshaw Scheme

18 03, 2015

Tahira Ali Shalah: A Martyr For Water Rights And Women’s Rights

2017-08-26T12:34:19-04:00Tags: |

In 2004, para-military forces known as Rangers illegally occupied numerous fresh water bodies in the Indus Delta, Pakistan, depriving local communities of their fishing livelihoods. In need, the fishermen sought the help of Tahira Ali Shah, the the senior vice-chairperson of the Pakistan Fisher-Folk Forum (PFF). Shah helped to break the longstanding gender bias that women should not be on the front lines of political struggle, so that when the day came to stand up to the Rangers, women and men succeeded in reclaiming their waters - shoulder to shoulder. On the eve of International Rivers Day on March 14, 2012, Shah led a historic people’s caravan under the banner “Keep Rivers Free” as part of a year-long campaign to restore the Indus River. Since her death in 2015, Tahira has been remembered for her tireless work.

1 09, 2012

Experts Emphasize Women’s Role in Domestic Water Conservation

2025-01-25T11:39:23-05:00Tags: |

Simi Kamal, chairperson of the Hisaar Foundation and Karachi Water Partnership, is an expert on water conservation and its intersections with women’s rights. Under her leadership, a series of workshops and events have been arranged so that housewives in Karachi can better understand the need for conservation as well as learn appropriate conservation techniques. Another water leader, Farzana Saleem, also highlights how water management has traditionally been considered “women’s work” and so women are still the main, albeit informal, water managers in Pakistan. But their voice in these matters has also traditionally been neglected. Thus, the importance of organizations like South Asia Women and Water Network cannot be stressed enough. This organization provides a platform for women across South Asia so that their inputs concerning water management and conservation can be heard by the larger community. 

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