El Niño has begun – here's why it matters for women and girls in Asia and the Pacific

Author: Trisha Albay

El Niño is now under way, with rising ocean temperatures expected to influence weather patterns across Asia and the Pacific in the months ahead. While attention often focuses on shrinking water supplies, crop losses and rising food prices, another story is unfolding: one that is less visible but equally urgent.

For millions of women and girls, the consequences of heat waves and drought are felt in their homes, livelihoods and daily lives.

The effects of drought are not felt equally. As food prices rise and water becomes harder to access, women are often expected to absorb the shock. They spend more time finding food and water, take on additional care responsibilities and frequently sacrifice their own nutrition to help their families cope. In some households, women and girls already eat last and least. This is particularly concerning in a region where nearly one in three women, or 32.9 per cent, was already living with anaemia before recent climate shocks.

The economic impacts are equally significant. Women are heavily represented in agriculture, informal work and other climate-sensitive sectors. Extreme heat can reduce productivity, damage crops and goods, and make outdoor work dangerous. For women farmers, vendors, factory workers and home-based workers, hotter days often translate into lower incomes and fewer opportunities to earn a living. Research from South Asia found that heat stress can reduce the incomes of women home-based workers by as much as 30 per cent.

At the same time, the burden of unpaid care work increases. When water sources dry up, someone must spend additional time collecting water. When food is scarce, someone must find ways to feed the family. More often than not, that someone is a woman or a girl. As households contend with the impacts of El Niño, ongoing tensions in the Middle East have also contributed to higher fuel and fertilizer costs, adding to the burdens many women already face in keeping households fed and cared for. Women already perform 80 per cent of all unpaid care work in Asia and the Pacific. As hours spent on care work rise, opportunities for paid employment, education and leadership can slip further out of reach.

The risks do not end there.

Evidence from across the region shows that heat waves and droughts can also increase the risk of gender-based violence. Economic stress, displacement, longer journeys to collect water and fuel, and harmful coping mechanisms can expose women and girls to greater danger, including child marriage, trafficking, sexual violence and intimate partner violence. Rising temperatures have been linked to higher rates of child marriage, as some families turn to marriage as a way of coping with economic and environmental stress.

As countries prepare for El Niño-related impacts, climate action must go beyond weather forecasts and emergency response. It must recognize that climate risks are experienced differently by women, men, girls and boys.

 

Investing in gender-responsive early warning systems, supporting women farmers with climate-resilient technologies, partnering with women-led organizations, addressing unpaid care burdens and integrating gender-based violence prevention into disaster preparedness can help communities withstand the next heat wave or drought before it becomes a crisis.

El Niño may be a recurring climate phenomenon. The inequalities it exposes do not have to be.