Fight for survival Climate change-fuelled heat pushes poor women to limits of endurance
New Delhi: “It’s all about survival,” says Majida Begum, her face wreathed in sweat as she sifts through waste in Delhi’s Seemapuri area, echoing as it were the everyday struggles of millions of women in India facing the brunt of the twin crises of heat and humidity.
As climate change tightens its grip over the globe, a study by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation shows that female-headed households in rural areas on average lose 8 per cent more of their income due to heat stress compared to male-headed households.
While men have moved on to secondary and tertiary sectors due to improved skills, women remain in unorganised sectors characterised by repetitive and labour-intensive tasks, explained Seema Bhaskaran, gender lead at the NGO Transform Rural India,
And Majida is living testament of it all.
Spending hours beneath a makeshift shelter of four slender sticks and a torn bedsheet, the asphalt radiating heat from the sharp sun and high humidity, as she does her day’s job, the 65-year-old ragpicker is weather-beaten and old beyond her years.
With beads of sweat tracing paths down her lined face, she walks to a community water tank located around a hundred metres away. She ducks her head beneath the tap, letting the water cascade over her. Refreshed, for the moment, she returns to her sorting in the oppressive heat.
“It’s about survival,” she explained between tasks. “We drench ourselves with water every hour just to keep going.”
This ritual is a necessity for Majida and others like her amid the unbearable conditions of their work – the absence of sufficient drinking water, toilets, sunshades and prolonged exposure to the elements.
Majida’s husband, aged 70 and immobile, relies entirely on her earnings. Their estranged son offers no support. On good days, she earns Rs 250 for separating recyclables from the waste stream, but when illness strikes and she cannot work, they are left with virtually nothing.
“Whether we eat at night depends on whether I work during the day,” Majida said.
“This is the hottest summer I have experienced in many years. The heat made me unwell, and I could not work for 15 days. I am a heart patient, but I cannot afford to stay at home,” she said.
In urban agglomerations and in rural India, climate change-fuelled extreme heat is making women from marginalised communities and poor households more vulnerable to economic and health loses.
Women already earn 20 per cent less than men on average, according to the International Labour Organisation, and this gap is further widened due to heat waves.
In an unprecedented summer, where the heat index has crossed 50 degrees Celsius in many places, the stories are many.
Basanti Nag, 28, from Kokawada village in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district, said the summer this year caused nausea and lethargy never experienced before, and the problem was amplified for women who had to travel longer distances to fetch water.
