Islamabad: Climate change has turned everyday life into a constant crisis for millions of women in Pakistan, compounding their struggles with poverty, social pressures, and lack of access to healthcare and protection, experts warned at the launch of a joint UNFPA-SDPI report “Drought and Deluge: The Silent Sufferings of Women and Girls in Climate Change” here Friday.
Speaking at the event, Dr. Shahzad Ali Khan, Vice-Chancellor of the Health Services Academy (HSA), said women in developing countries live in a perpetual state of survival.
“Even in normal conditions, life for a woman is nothing short of a crisis. Every day is a new disaster. They live to pass the day; surviving the day and night is the only goal,” he said. Citing alarming reproductive health statistics, he said Pakistan records 12.75 million pregnancies each year, including six million unintended ones, of which 3.8 million result in induced abortions, 1.5 million are carried to term, and nearly 700,000 end in miscarriage or stillbirth.
“We must stop demonizing men and start recognizing that women often face the harshest judgments from other women within their social environment,” he remarked.
Dr. Shahzad stressed that climate change has layered new vulnerabilities onto women’s already fragile existence. “We neither caused climate change nor can we defeat it alone. We must learn to survive within it,” he said, calling for community-based disaster risk reduction (DRR) and resilience initiatives that empower locals rather than depend solely on external aid.
He proposed training networks of community volunteers, distinct from Lady Health Workers to act as first responders and trainers in their areas. “HSA is ready to train youth nationwide in life skills and community service, in partnership with SDPI, UNFPA, NCSW, and NDMA,” he said. “The key is to strengthen communities from within; no outside help can reach in time.”
Dr. Shahzad urged policymakers to move beyond token awareness campaigns.
“Stop sensitizing them; enable them to create systems and processes that work. Public-private partnerships are essential to drive real resilience,” he added.