KARACHI: Senator Sherry Rehman has said that women are more affected by climate disasters, and their risk of death is 14 times greater than that of men. She mentioned that 80 per cent of the total number of people displaced by climate change are women. Senator Rehman, who is Chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Climate Change, shared these views while delivering a keynote address at the ‘Provincial Dialogue on Gender-Responsive Disaster Management’ here on Wednesday. The dialogue, organised by the Baithak organisation, DASTAK Foundation and United States Institute of Peace (USIP), is part of the Capacity Building and Rights-Based Climate Action (CRCA) programme for Sindh. Calls for practical steps to address challenges Speaking about the harsh realities faced by women during climate disasters, she said: “The UN estimates suggest that 80pc of the people displaced by climate change are women. In the devastating 2022 floods in Pakistan, 650,000 pregnant women were displaced and deprived of healthcare, and forced to give birth under the open sky. Eight million women and girls lost access to basic hygiene products and safe sanitation facilities.” “Women are also 14 times more likely to die in climate-related disasters compared to men. This stark disparity underscores the urgent need for gender-sensitive disaster management. Women often face second-class treatment in access to food, shelter, and healthcare during crises. It’s time to reverse this trend and prioritise women’s needs in all disaster response strategies” the senator shared, quoting Unicef data. Senator Rehman also emphasised the challenges women face during disasters, which are often overlooked in mainstream narratives. “In disaster relief camps, women struggle to access even basic toilet facilities. The taboo around discussing hygiene and sanitation issues further exacerbates their plight. This silence must end,” she said. She said women were the primary caregivers and resource managers in their households, particularly during crises. “While men often go to authorities to demand services, it is women who manage resources at home. These decisions trickle down to the family level, making women the last-mile managers of disaster resilience. In rural Pakistan, women walk miles every day to fetch water—whether in Sindh, Balochistan, or the north—and bear the burden of managing scarce resources in a changing climate.” Calling for practical steps to address such challenges facing women, Senator Rehman said, “We need to ensure that climate change gender action plans such as the one developed by us after the 2022 floods, moves beyond paper to actionable agenda items. Plans that exist only on paper do little for those on the ground. We must involve men in gender protection initiatives and establish a clear hierarchy of care in disaster response—first women, then children, and then men. This is what true inclusion means.” She urged the need for concrete solutions, including mobile health clinics tailored to women’s needs and gender-sensitive resource allocation in early warning and disaster response systems. Senator Rehman also stressed the need to scale up successful pilot projects that empower women as agents of change and emphasised the importance of grassroots action and community involvement in disaster resilience. “In Sindh, community-based organisations are gathering invaluable knowledge and offering localised solutions that respect cultural and regional sensibilities. Policymakers must recognise the importance of integrating women’s voices and grassroots insights into provincial and national disaster management plans.” She also pointed out the glaring gaps in climate vulnerability data, saying that it was often incomplete and unreliable. “We depend on patchy, outdated data to inform climate policies. This must change. Local organisations provide real-time, verifiable knowledge that can inform policies at the provincial and federal levels, ensuring that climate action is rooted in ground realities.”