CLIMATE CHANGE, INDIGENOUS WOMEN'S HEALTH, AND ENVIRONMENTAL SOVEREIGNTY: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS FROM PAKISTAN'S PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Although contributing a very low fraction of greenhouse gas emissions to the global inventory (not more than 1 percent), Pakistan is among the most climate-vulnerable countries of the world. It is an intersectional crisis that mainly affects Indigenous women in the areas of Pakistan that lie in the North, such as the Kalash, Koochi, and other disadvantaged communities that are further affected by environmental infringements, patriarchal hierarchy, and state apathy. This literature review explores the uniqueness of the challenges posed by climate change to physical, reproductive, mental, and spiritual health of Indigenous women in addition to compromising the traditional ecological knowledge systems that enable adaptation to climate change. Based on the feminist political ecology, indigenous studies and public health literature, the current paper evaluates the unequal climate vulnerability among Indigenous women in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan, Balochistan and Sindh provinces. This is clearly shown by key findings which show that the indigenous women face increased health risks due to gendered divisions of labor, loss of ancestral territories, food and water insecurity, crises of reproductive health, and aggravated gender-based violence because of climatic disasters. The 2022 floods alone impacted 650,000 pregnant women, over 1,000 healthcare facilities, and 8 million people, which showed that it was a systemic failure to safeguard the health of Indigenous women. Nevertheless, Indigenous women turn out to be the pivotal actors of the climate resiliency, using the traditional knowledge such as the "Suri Jagek" (sun observation) of the Kalash as a method of weather forecasting and earthquake-resistant building practices. This paper embarks on the argument that Indigenous epistemologies, environmental sovereignty, and disturbing colonial development paradigms need to become central to the approach to the health of Indigenous women in the climate crisis in Pakistan.