#3Women Still Carry Most of the World's Water: The Case of Ethiopia
Why the need for a gendered and child-centred approach?
Hi guys, and welcome back! Last week I highlighted the inequities women face in accessing and using water due to cultural norms which prevail across many African countries and societies. Today, I want to keep the focus on inequity, specifically on the gendered nature of water collection.
So, why should we adopt a gendered and child-centred approach to understand water collection? Well, first and foremost, the task of collecting water falls disproportionately on young girls and women (YGAW) in the household. This is especially true for rural regions across Africa where inadequate water infrastructures leaves YGAW no choice but to travel long distances and queue long hours for water. The non-governmental organisation WaterAid estimates that globally, women spend around 200 million hours fetching water. Second, in Sub-Saharan Africa women’s lives are heavily influenced by water collection. The amount of time spent fetching water could be time given to studying, helping communities, or simply spending time with family.
Why Ethiopia?
The case of Ethiopia is quite special because despite the high functionality of its water sources, communities distant from them face threats to their health and livelihood. For communities living in the rural regions of Ethiopia, accessing clean water is a near impossible task in which climate related droughts are to partly to blame. Having limited alternative water sources, Ethiopian communities are therefore forced to draw from shallow surface and groundwater sources such as unprotected ponds, lakes, and wells. This can mean walking up to 6 hours every single day for water and for those communities living in rural areas, sometimes even longer. Unsurprisingly, this laborious work is heavily, if not entirely, reliant on women.
Time poverty
Since three-quarters of the people tasked for collecting water in Ethiopia are YGAW, they are inevitably most at risk of experiencing time poverty. Time poverty is concerned with the way an individual chooses to spend their time and often time involves trading off one activity for another.
Source: Graph showing times spent by women collecting
water in Sub-Saharan Africa
Missed opportunities
In Ethiopia, a lack of access to clean water is one of the greatest barriers to women’s productivity. The demanding process of water collection forces YGAW to take time away from other important elements of their everyday lives. For young girls, this means missing out on school and eventually becoming unable to pursue an education. For women, this same principle follows as they are unable to participate in income-generating activities such as creating and selling handicrafts or cultivating land for crops.
Gendered violence
While access to closer water collection points would increase YGAW’s time and energy for activities that better their lives, it could also save women from the potential threat of violence. In patriarchal societies like Ethiopia where men are given precedence over women, YGAW become unfortunate targets of sexual attack, violence, and abduction. This is because to fetch water, they must walk alone, along long and unsecured paths. Sadly, even in the home, these YGAW are subject to violence; when they are unable to provide water at the household level or perform water-related chores, they may experience domestic abuse from their partners.
Poor-quality health
Access to clean and safe water is also fundamental to human health. For the average person, 20-50 litres of water are required to meet daily water demands and in weighing terms, this translates to carrying between 44-110 pounds of water. Over long distances, these heavy loads can cause fatigue, soft tissue damage and early arthritis and for pregnant women, these health conditions can result in premature labour and even, miscarriage. Waterborne diseases are also another health condition associated with the limited availability of clean water for which children are the biggest sufferers. While describing the effects of diseases like cholera and Escherichia coli are necessary, it does not create enough of an uproar, especially when considering that within every 90 seconds, a child dies of waterborne disease.
Therefore, without access to safe water, it is disproportionately more difficult for YGAW to lead productive, safe and healthy lives. Imposing water infrastructures closer to those distant communities will significantly reduce the time taken by YGAW to fetch water. This will then allow YGAW to fulfil their fundamental human right to an education, help them to utilise their time towards more productive activities, and somewhat minimise the risk of violence. For these reasons, a gendered and child-centred approach must be adopted when thinking about water.
I really enjoyed reading this! You've made it very clear what the problems are for women, including the physical health impacts which I don't think people stress enough. Have you looked at how water collection could affect their mental health as well? I recently read this which I thought is relevant, as it explores psychological distress for women in Ethiopia: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.03.022. Also in terms of children, are there specific impacts of water collection upon their growth and development?
ReplyDeleteHi Ellie, thanks so much for your feedback! Yes, I have read a little about the impacts of water collection on women’s mental health and I found that that many Ethiopian women felt a great responsibility was put on them to collect water. During times where women were unable to fetch sufficient levels of water, they experienced psychosocial distress because they could not carry out daily activities including feeding their families or carrying out common hygiene practices such as washing one’s hands. It was here, that they felt they could not carry out their cultural responsibilities as mothers. Women also feared the domestic violence they would experience from their spouses when they were unable to find water sources. As for children, the impacts of water collection are also severe. Water collection robs children of time which could otherwise be spent pursuing an education. In a lot of cases, children eventually drop out of school altogether in order to help share the burden of water collection with their mothers. In the long term, this limits one’s ability to pursue their full potential and acquire the skills necessary to participate in paid activities. Therefore these children, once older, will have little to no opportunity for personal development and so will remain in a state of poverty.
DeleteHi Donita! I really enjoyed this post and found it extremely informative on the realities of rural water collection and responsibility! Time poverty is a very interesting topic and one that can depend pre-existing inequalities and poverty. How would you say that time poverty affects women and young girls and men or boys, and how can this difference be rendered visible?
ReplyDeleteHi Wiktoria! I hope you enjoyed your read. Time poverty affects both men and women differently because women bear the responsibility for collecting water. Since this responsibility is not shared, young girls and women are unable to attend school classes or complete after school exercises such as homework (missed opportunities); they are continuously threatened by and vulnerable to the risks of sexual assault on their journeys to collect water (gender-based violence); and they are also forced to carry heavy water containers for long distances, causing related health concerns (poor-quality health).
DeleteYoung boys are said to be affected in similar ways to these young girls as they are also called on for additional help by their mothers during water collection. Children are especially affected by ill-health, suffering from several water-borne diseases once the water collected comes to be consumed. Young boys may also experience the impacts of missed opportunities.
The case for men, however, is very different. Since they are not tasked with the fetching of water, they are not challenged by the same adversities as young girls and women. Although there is the odd occasion where men will help to collect water, this is indeed rare and only happens when females of the household are physically unwell, travelling outside the village or when the water situation is particularly desperate. Men are therefore more concerned with the logistical side of things, for example, water governance. It is clear then that men do not experience even just half of the physical and mental tolls which women do during water collection.