The Violence Behind Dirty Fuels

A report written by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research highlights the gender-differentiated impacts of Hurricane Katrina in Southern states. The findings included statistics that illustrate not only the immediate impacts of the climate-induced storm, but also impacts in the recovery years to follow. The report detailed that “the rate of gender-based violence in Mississippi rose from 4.6 per 100,000 [women] per day when Hurricane Katrina hit the state, to 16.3 per 100,000 per day a year later while many women remained displaced from their homes and were living in temporary shelters and trailers.” The inclusion of extended displacement is a disconcerting impact. According to the United Nations, both stress and trauma, which reduce normal coping capacities, are drastically heightened following natural disasters.This means that during climate catastrophes, there is an increased risk of violent responses to pressure or strain—and at the same time, an increased vulnerability to organized human traffickers.

Within the demographics of women, there are even further impacts felt by those in the LGBT community. Lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women face disproportionate levels of violence at the hands of both strangers and intimate partners. This is only exacerbated by climate disasters and the resource extraction projects such as fossil fuels that help cause them.

According to a blog post published by the World Bank, “Deprived of family support, social recognition, education, and employment opportunities, many LGBT individuals often end up socially marginalized. This persistent exclusion has heavy costs for lesbian, bisexual and transgender women. A 2013 study revealed that 7.6 percent of lesbian couples in the United States live in poverty compared to 5.7 percent of married different-sex couples... Because of social marginalization, transgender women become susceptible to violence [and] are likely to end up in poverty.” More generally in the United States, trans women (especially trans women of color) are among the most targeted and subjected to gender-based violence—and the number of incidences keeps growing and is increasingly fatal.

Displacement isn’t only caused by the after-effects of climate disruption and neither are the increasing risks for gender-based violence. At the source of climate disruption are the increasingly contentious fossil fuel industries such as hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and oil pipelines. Everywhere they are present, these energy projects create what many call “man camps.” As a result, these areas see a sharp increase in human trafficking and gender-based violence. We also know that many energy projects are on or around indigenous land, making indigenous women some of the most vulnerable. The strongest domestic case of this is in North Dakota where there are over 35 companies extracting oil and have associated man camps. Here, according to a report by the Department of Justice, since extraction began, the incidences of sexual violence that indigenous women have faced has tripled—meaning that 1 in 3 native women are raped, stalked, or beaten each year. And this isn’t all. In Alberta, just next to the development of tar sands, there are hundreds of missing and murdered indigenous women.

Photo Credit: CALCASA 

Knowing how climate disruption can act as a catalyst for violence and further entrench existing inequalities, it is especially important that we work to stop gender-based violence. Just as we work to protect air and water from poisoning families, we must work to stop gender-based violence both around fossil fuel extraction sites and in the aftermath of climate disasters.   

Doing our part to mitigate and adapt to climate disruption is not only a challenge of environmental protection, but includes risk reduction for the most impacted communities of both displacement and violence. In order to prevent further impacts, we need a fossil-free future that takes into accounts the human rights of people who are both attempting to halt fossil fuel extraction and those facing the immediate and long-term impacts of this extraction. We stand with all those subjected to gender-based violence from extraction sites to communities facing slow-onset climate impacts. We call on you to join us in supporting the courageous people, and stand in unity with the water protectors at Standing Rock, who are refusing to concede to militarized police and threats from corporate polluters. Join us --- Tell President Obama to reject the Dakota Access Pipeline.