Exploring the Nexus of Indigenous Women’s SRHR and Climate Change

To mark the International Day of Action for Women’s Health, we, in LILAK, officially launch our research study, Exploring the Nexus of Indigenous Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) and Climate Change. This scoping study was conducted in 2023 in partnership with the Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW) and indigenous women organizations, Katutubong Kababaihan sa Maporac (KASAMA), Samahan ng Katutubong Hanunuo Mangyan (SAKAHAMA), and the Kesalabukan Tupusumi Organization.

Accessing health and reproductive services has been an area of struggle for Indigenous women. They experience discrimination in the form of exclusion from adequate and culturally appropriate basic social services (e.g. no clean water in the community, health clinics located far away, or health clinics with no nurses, doctors, or midwives, and/or insufficient equipment). This is made worse in times of disaster with no accurate and timely information dissemination during disasters, no safe spaces for women and breastfeeding mothers in evacuation centers, and the needs of indigenous women not considered in relief and recovery.

Indigenous women and children’s needs remain invisible in many climate response programs and initiatives. There remains a disconnect in initiatives to directly link sexual and reproductive health and rights with climate change. Gender mainstreaming in climate action, disaster risk reduction, and disaster or emergency management in the country is still amiss and lacks sound plans and implementation that consider the multiple and intersecting identities of women.

Healthy and empowered women are key to shaping environmental stability, sustainable economic development, and climate resiliency. This underscores the need to integrate gender equality and women’s empowerment, including sexual and reproductive health and rights in climate change discussions and actions, and to further, contextualize this to Indigenous community experiences.

Originally published on the ARROW Website in 2023.