To mark International Women’s Day, ActionAid UK is shining a light on women’s leadership in responding to humanitarian crises across the world and showing why women and girls’ needs must be properly recognised and funded.
Leading in disasters: celebrating women’s leadership in humanitarian emergencies this International Women’s Day.
When disaster strikes, women and girls always fare worse. Humanitarian emergencies, such as the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, the conflict in Ukraine and the food crisis in East Africa, disproportionately impact women. But ActionAid’s work shows that when women lead the response in an emergency, they bring vital skills, experience and resources to the humanitarian response. As we mark International Women’s Day, international organisation ActionAid is shining a light on women’s leadership in responding to humanitarian crises across the world and showing why women and girls’ needs must be properly recognised and funded.
Sara Almer, Humanitarian Director, International Humanitarian and Resilience Team, ActionAid, said: “Humanitarian emergencies have profoundly impacted each of these three regions, leaving whole communities devastated. People have lost their homes, their livelihoods and their loved ones. And while everyone is affected by crises and disasters, we know that women are impacted the most. Violence against them increases and they are more at risk of being exploited. Provisions for periods, pregnancy or breastfeeding are all too easily forgotten. Women are best placed to understand what other women may want and need in emergencies and are able to link the emergency intervention to their longer-term work addressing gender injustice.”
Commenting on the situation facing women in Syria affected by the devastating earthquakes, Racha Nasreddine, Director for ActionAid Arab Region, said: "Periods, pregnancy, and childbirth do not stop in a crisis. Shelters in north-west Syria are overcrowded and there is very little privacy, especially for women – including the privacy to menstruate. This is resulting in increased violence; for example, one of our partners reported that a husband threw hot water at his wife when she accessed a toilet surrounded by men."
Caring responsibilities often fall to women, which can be strained when they and their loved ones have experienced injury or trauma. Ayat, a volunteer working at Violet, an ActionAid partner in north-west Syria, said: “Young women are most affected by earthquakes, displacement or other causes. We are trying to support the mental health of young women and provide them with services that reduce the impacts [on them].”
Reports from Syria since the earthquake show that the strain on households is also leading to an increase in gender-based violence. A 12-year war had already intensified structural inequalities and discrimination against women and girls, which was further exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and now the cost-of-living crisis. The full picture shows women and girls’ freedoms impinged upon time and time again. And yet funding for these critical areas remains woefully inadequate.
Whilst women and girls are most impacted, they continue to lead by setting up services, holding their authorities to account and ensuring that women and girls’ needs are met.
ActionAid also supports women-led organisations like Girls in Ukraine who are helping women and girls to deal with the trauma of war and live independently. Yuliya Sporysh, CEO of Girls, said: “Cases of domestic and sexual violence have risen in Ukraine, in part due to the stress of war. Many women won’t go to the police though, as they think it’s not important given the ongoing war – but we tell them that they are important, and offer legal and psychological support as well.”
East Africa is facing its worst hunger crisis for decades, following four years of failed harvests, erratic rainfall and rocketing global food prices. Jeniffer, a member of a women’s social movement in Tangulbei, Baringo County, Kenya, said: “Girls are no longer going to school because of climate change as they don’t have food. For the girls at the moment, the issue of forced child marriage is at its highest point because of hunger…girls are being married off because their community counts them as wealth.”
Susan Otieno, Director of ActionAid Kenya, said: “As Kenya experiences its worst drought in 40 years, mothers are telling us they are exchanging sex for as little as one jerry can of water to keep their children alive. Sex for fish, maize, grades at school. Where resources are scarce, it is always women and girls who bear the brunt.
“We support women to work with law enforcement agencies, hospitals and other institutions so that services including counselling are available. Women activists also work with governments to provide safe, accessible drinking water, and to set up programmes for women to help them earn their own income.”
ActionAid supports local women’s organisations on the frontline of humanitarian crises that are vital in helping communities to respond timely and effectively to disaster. In its recent Nexus report, ActionAid highlights the importance of “shifting power, decision making and funding to women-led organisations who are best placed to understand emergency needs”.
Almer said: “Women like Yuliya in Ukraine, Ayat in Syria and Jeniffer in Kenya are crucial in helping communities to respond and adapt to crisis and disaster, but they cannot do it alone. This International Women’s Day, we are asking the international community to adequately fund women-led responses that are helping hundreds of millions of people to respond to and adapt to crisis and disaster."
To donate to ActionAid’s emergency appeals and support women responders, visit https://www.actionaid.org.uk/our-work/emergency-responses
ENDS
To contact the ActionAid UK Press Office uk.media@actionaid.org or on 07753 973 486.
Notes to editor
Further information, stories of women impacted in Ukraine, Syria and East Africa, and quotes from responders Ayat, Yuliya and Jeniffer are available on request.
ActionAid’s Nexus report on Women in emergencies can be found here: Leading the Way: The Nexus through a Feminist Lens | ActionAid UK
Spokespeople available:
Racha Nasreddine - Director for ActionAid in the Arab Region covering Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Tunisia
Susan Otieno - Director of ActionAid Kenya
Sara Almer - Humanitarian Director, International Humanitarian and Resilience Team, ActionAid
Yuliya Sporysh, CEO of Girls NGO
About ActionAid UK
ActionAid is an international charity that works with women and girls living in poverty. Our dedicated local staff are changing the world with women and girls. We are ending violence and fighting poverty so that all women, everywhere, can create the future they want.