Why Water Access is a Women’s Issue
When water becomes scarce, the burden often falls on women. Here’s how water scarcity exacerbates gender inequality — and how safe water access can empower women in struggling communities around the world.
When a resource as basically necessary as safe water is lacking, life becomes worse for the whole community in myriad small and large ways. People’s health may suffer as they are exposed to waterborne diseases. Effective sanitation becomes impossible without safe water, exacerbating the spread of disease. Children’s education may suffer because waterborne diseases or malnutrition affect their health, or because they lose hours of every day collecting water for their family. The whole community suffers without safe water.
In situations like these, the most vulnerable members of any community tend to suffer the most, and women and girls are especially affected in water-stressed communities. Women and girls are frequently tasked with providing water for their families, a task that can consume most of their time in dire situations. The lack of sanitation that comes with water scarcity also harms women. Millions of mothers have risked their lives giving birth without proper sanitation, and raised children who were at extremely high risk of waterborne diseases.
Water scarcity can have a profound effect on women’s lives, endangering women and robbing them of time and energy. On the flip side, providing water-stressed communities with the means to get safe water can be a huge step in improving the lives and the rights of women and girls. Without the constant worry of finding water, women in water-stressed communities can focus their energies toward work, school, and making life better for themselves and their children.
The Daily Water Walk
In our last article, we heard the stories of two women in water-stressed Meru County, Kenya. Rose Makena and Fridah Gaki Kimathi shared their experience of trying to care for a family when the nearest water source was several kilometres away from home; both were in agreement that “(their) biggest trouble was water challenges.” With the neverending task of finding water and the uncertainty of water access in the area, both women admitted to being constantly worried about how they would find water for their families. More than once, Ms. Kimathi said, they were unable to find any water at all within a day’s walk from home, and their children spent the night hungry.
Many women in Meru County share Rose and Fridah’s predicament. As water access in Meru County is unreliable and there are no protected sources in the community, finding water is a daily struggle. This is a vital task for a family living in a water-stressed area — and eight out of ten times, the burden of collecting water falls on women and girls.
However, the trip for water often means spending a tremendous amount of time and energy to find something that many people take for granted. For women like Fridah, Rose, and their neighbors, this can mean losing several hours out of each day, leaving little time for work or for looking after children.
In addition, when young girls are responsible for finding water for their families, they often see their education suffer for it. Hours that could be spent studying are instead spent walking to find water. In some cases, girls may not be able to attend school at all because finding water for their family’s needs takes too much time out of the day. In others, girls may leave to get water after school and spend much of the evening away from home, often returning after dark.
For families in communities like Nairiri, the water walk can be a major source of worry, especially when their daughters are the ones responsible for collecting water. A long trip for water, especially one that lasts until after dark, can leave girls vulnerable to harassment and assault.
In water-stressed communities, water collection is a vital task that keeps families alive — one that can consume hours out of every day for the woman who is responsible for it, robbing her of valuable time, energy, and opportunities, and putting her at risk for harassment and assault. No one should have to be constantly worried about how they will get enough water to stay alive. And no woman or girl should have to risk her safety or take hours out of every day to provide her family with a basic necessity that some people can get from their kitchen sink.
An estimate by UNICEF suggests that women around the world will spend 200 million hours collecting water every day. Without the daily need to collect water, women and girls in water-stressed communities could use all that time for other pursuits — from taking care of children, to schoolwork and studying, to starting small businesses and supporting their families. They have more control over their own lives, and more ability to make things better for themselves and their communities. However, many of these opportunities will remain out of reach if the community lacks a safe water source.
Water and Education
Water access also plays an important role in education, and girls’ education is particularly vulnerable in communities that lack safe water access. One major problem is the task of collecting water and the time it consumes. In many cases, hours that could be spent studying or preparing for school are instead spent walking to find water, and girls’ education may suffer for it. Some girls may have to give up on going to school entirely because the trip for water takes too much time out of the day.
Another major problem is water access and sanitation in schools. A 2016 study by UNICEF reveals that only two-thirds of schools across the globe had sanitation facilities that could qualify as a basic sanitation service, and it was estimated that over 620 million children were attending schools without basic sanitation facilities.
Sanitation plays a huge role in keeping children in school. The lack of proper hygiene contributes massively to the spread of disease throughout schools. In addition, the use of unsafe water in schools leaves children vulnerable to waterborne diseases, endangering children’s health and impeding their ability to go to school. A 2006 report from the United Nations Development Program states that about 443 million school days are lost each year because of water-related illnesses. Research suggests that providing schools with adequate sanitation could reduce that number by more than half.
However, for girls entering puberty, the lack of sanitation access in schools poses different problems. As girls begin menstruation, many will find that their school offers no sanitation and nowhere to be private. This often causes girls to miss out on school for several days every month, greatly hindering their education. The shame and fear surrounding puberty and the lack of privacy and sanitation in schools may even cause some girls to drop out of school altogether when they hit puberty, and research suggests that menstruation may be the reason why many girls drop out of school in early adolescence.
When a young girl drops out of school, she can miss out on their greatest chance to empower herself, improve the conditions of her life, and break the cycle of poverty in her family. Many girls who drop out in adolescence end up married or pregnant not long after their education ends. These girls are more likely to live in poverty, more likely to die in childbirth, more likely to have children and see them die before they reach the age of five.
On the other hand, women who complete their secondary education tend to be more informed about nutrition and health. They are more likely to start businesses and have their own income. They wait longer to get married and have children later, and their children tend to be healthier. Not only that, but their children — and especially their daughters — are more likely to attend school for longer, which means that the children of educated women also have a better shot at building bright futures.
Giving girls access to education not only allows girls to broaden their own opportunities in life, it is often a vital step in helping communities break the cycle of poverty. As it stands now, however, more than 129 million girls are out of school according to UNICEF estimates.
Many of these girls live in water-stressed communities. They may be unable to keep up with their classes because of the time-consuming task of collecting water, or they may be unable to go to school at all because the water walk takes too long. They may be afraid to go to school after reaching puberty because of the lack of privacy and sanitation at their school. Improving safe water access in water-stressed communities is a huge step forward in preventing all of these problems.
Improving Conditions for Women and Girls
When a community lacks a resource as vital as water, every aspect of life is affected. However, improving access to basic necessities can have a domino effect on a struggling community. When a community gains access to safe water, the quality of life massively improves for the whole community. The risk of waterborne diseases is decreased; children grow up healthier and better equipped for an education. New opportunities open up for women and girls.
One example of this effect is the community of Mulika, a beneficiary of H2O4ALL’s safe water initiatives since 2017. H2O4ALL USA’s work in Mulika began with the drilling of a borehole; in the following years, we added several waterway extensions to the community’s water system. As of this year, the community’s waterway goes directly to the local primary school, the health center, and the police station, as well as the marketplace and a set of community faucets. The introduction of safe water into Mulika drastically improved the quality of life for people living in the area. The community’s women and young girls, in particular, had just seen the end of a daily struggle for water.
Locals in Mulika describe what life was like for the women and girls of the community before the safe water initiative was implemented. As in many water-stressed communities, collecting water was women’s work. Since most older women could not spare hours of each day to collect water, many families relied on their young daughters to provide water for them. Many girls would go to collect water from the Thanantu river after school; this would take hours, and girls were often still traveling after it became dark. Being out after dark put girls in danger of being stalked or harassed, which was a constant source of worry for many families.
In addition, water struggles kept many girls from receiving a full education; the task of collecting water took away hours out of each day that could be dedicated to studying or schoolwork. Before the implementation of the project, most of Mulika’s young girls were dropping out of school before they reached adolescence.
H2O4ALL’s safe water initiatives in Mulika, however, ensured not only that the community would have access to safe water but that the community would have direct access points where they were needed most. Community faucets allowed community members to get safe water within the bounds of their own community, instead of relying on unsafe water from the Thanantu river. Water at the medical center allowed medical staff to maintain hygiene and provide patients with drinkable water, improving public health in Mulika. Water at the primary school gave children water to drink at school and also allowed them to maintain hygiene; this slowed the spread of disease, leaving Mulika’s children healthier and better equipped to learn.
Not only that, but water at the primary school allowed children to collect water that was both safe to use and within a short distance of their homes. Since girls are no longer spending most of their days after school collecting water for their families, they have more time for studying and preparing for the future. Since the project was implemented, the school completion rate for girls in Mulika has gone up by 80%.
In just a few years, safe water access has changed the futures of hundreds of young girls in Mulika, allowing the community’s next generation of women to grow up healthier, safer, and better prepared for the future. With a complete education, girls in Mulika are less likely to marry young or have children too young. They are more likely to join the formal workforce and support their own families. When and if they marry and have children, those children are more likely to grow up healthy, safe from poverty, and prepared to build bright futures of their own.
Improving access to safe water can change the future of a community almost immediately. Much of that change falls on the shoulders of women and girls. When safe water access is introduced into a community, women find new opportunities to empower themselves and make life better for their families. And when women have this freedom, the whole community benefits.
Thanks to Peter Churchill and Francis Ngatunyi for providing images, and thank you to Francis Mutua for providing information on the Mulika and Nairiri projects.
