Women and girls make up about 50% of the world population. It is, therefore, crucial for sustainable development to empower women and girls. Improving sanitation and hygiene for women would result in a more empowered female population that can engage in important discussions such as sustainability and climate action.
Here we summarize some of the benefits of ensuring women’s empowerment through access to sanitation.
Many women and girls face the risk of poor menstrual and reproductive health due to poor or no access to sanitation and hygiene products. Women living with such risks include refugees and those living in impoverished regions of the world with no clean water or any proper sanitation crucial for their healthy development. One of the roles of the Force aux Femmes project is to empower women by ensuring the efficient supply of hygiene products to refugee women here in Bremen.
Climate Action and Sustainability
Menstruation is a process that women and girls go through and when one is a refugee or impoverished, menstruation can negatively affect daily life activities. Proper hygiene and sanitation provision to women and girls ensures good health and healthy reproduction, which in turn, means they can take part in day-to-day decision making. Lack of sanitary products could result in young girls missing school or even dropping out altogether. Additionally, it could result in them not being able to play or engage in creative and meaningful discussions with others. Ensuring access to hygiene products for women and girls means they can play, be happy, converse with others, go to school, take part in discussions, feel confident, and advocate for important issues like climate action. Moreover, empowered women will in turn empower fellow women thus creating a positive cycle of empowerment and sustainability.
The complete realization of sustainability and climate action will require the complete inclusion of women in important decision-making processes and discussions. The improvement of sanitation and hygiene for women is, therefore, crucial to ensure that women and girls are healthy and that they can comfortably attain education.
References
Fecht, S. (2022). Shannon Márquez: Empowering Women and Girls Through Access to Water and Sanitation. State of the Planet. Retrieved 13 May 2022, from https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2022/02/11/shannon-marquez-empowering-women-and-girls-through-access-to-water-and-sanitation/.
Sara, J., Grown, C., Keener, S., Hatzfeldt, G., & Kuoh, G. (2022). Menstrual health and hygiene empowers women and girls: How to ensure we get it right. World Bank Blogs. Retrieved 13 May 2022, from https://blogs.worldbank.org/water/menstrual-health-and-hygiene-empowers-women-and-girls-how-ensure-we-get-it-right.
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