Merry Crisis Girl

[Pang Murdock]

It is a sunny but windy morning in the Nepali village of Samzong, and several women have gathered around the only working water tap in the area, taking turns washing clothes and dishes in the stream of cold water. While most of Samzong lies deserted and the wind howls eerily around the small houses, peals of merry laughter spring from the small group. As midday approaches, more women approach carrying an assortment of empty buckets and containers which they line up neatly around the tap.

Nestled below arid cliffs near the Nepal-China border, Samzong is among a handful of remote villages in Upper Mustang that are facing an acute water crisis caused by erratic rainfall and snowmelt. Situated in the rain shadow of the Himalayas, the region receives less than 200mm of rain per year and the lack of rainfall has reduced the nearby river to a trickle and turned acres of farmlands into a barren wasteland.

This water crisis has been particularly devastating for women. Like in most rural areas of Nepal and around South Asia, it is them who are in charge of household activities. Most are involved in farming as a means to secure their livelihoods and, as a consequence, are heavily dependent on water. With water taps drying up, women are bearing the brunt of the consequences of climate change.

And, since most of these villages are remote, materials to repair irrigation canals or dried up water taps cannot be easily obtained. Making things worse, women lack the technical know-how to repair these taps and pipes, so that even small, easily fixable issues quickly morph into enormous problems for an entire village.

Unlike Samzong, Yara is accessible by road and is a favourite stopover for trekkers who visit Upper Mustang. Yet the water crisis has made it difficult for locals to support their small tourist businesses.

The water crisis in the northern regions of Nepal is taking an unprecedented toll on women. As the country recovers from decades of civil war and a devastating earthquake, it is imperative that women be included as stakeholders in any and all decisions on how to tackle the biggest challenge the small country may yet face: the existential threat of climate change.

I know from my own experience in public life that women have distinctive leadership characteristics that can yield positive results. From the mothers and daughters in Northern Ireland who built links across divided communities, to the inspirational young climate activists today who are demanding urgent and radical action to save our planet.

Sadly, there are far too many parts of the world today where this is not the case. Afghanistan is perhaps the most extreme and obscene example, with women and girls persecuted and denied their fundamental human rights by a cruel and dangerous regime.

In responding to global crises, climate finance measures and the new pandemic fund must adapt the way they operate to ensure many more women and feminist organisations have access to and control over resources responding to these global threats.

This is why The Elders we are calling for reform of international financial institutions to ensure more resources are available to address the existential threats of pandemics and the climate crisis, and to ensure that these additional resources are accessible for women and feminist organisations.

Women are powerful agents for peace, and governments, the UN and other international organisations need to provide more resourcing directly to women peacebuilders and their networks, so that they can fulfil their vital mandate.

I feel the same for all women displaced from their homes due to violent conflict, or climate change, or poverty, or any other of the myriad factors driving the mass movement of people across the globe.

This is what I call truly ethical leadership. It is a quality that lies at the heart of the work of The Elders, and for me is embodied above all in the figure of our founder, Nelson Mandela.

As long as women are bound by poverty and as long as they are looked down upon, human rights will lack substance. As long as outmoded ways of thinking prevent women from making a meaningful contribution to society, progress will be slow. As long as the nation refuses to acknowledge the equal role of more than half of itself, it is doomed to failure."

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Demographers have for many years warned of a future population crisis in China, as the population is expected to decline due to decreased birth rates in the coming decades, while the aging population is growing and the work force is shrinking. This forecast is probably the reason why the one-child policy, introduced in 1979 to reduce the population growth rate, was relaxed in 2016. The one-child policy caused a severe gender imbalance, as the traditional preference for having sons made couples abort female fetuses and abandon baby girls, to make sure that their only child would be male. As a result, there are about 30 million more men than women in China today, which is particularly noticeable in rural areas. Rapid urbanization has further spurred the gender imbalance in rural regions, as many women move to cities to find work.

As a group, adolescents today typically enter puberty earlier, lead a more pampered life, and are exposed to more overt violence and sex in the media than any generation before them. Yet, most adolescent girls are not as mature as one would think. Their emotional development does not always keep pace with their physical growth and the quickly changing world around them. In addition, they remain in school longer (more than two-thirds go on to college), so have less experience with adult responsibilities than the girls who came before.

Not everything has changed, however. Adolescent girls still tend to challenge authority, dress like clones, and compare themselves incessantly with their peers. They also are lively, creative, caring, and intensely secretive. And they still need guidance and support from their parents. Grandparents, extended families, and mentors are also important to an adolescent girl, serving as a support system and sometimes substituting for a missing parent. As always, love and understanding remain essential.

Although adolescence is an exuberant time of life for the most part, puberty itself can be an awkward and confusing time for girls as they adjust to their changing bodies and new social roles. Body mass increases, and fat shifts to breasts and hips even as girls spurt in height. With legs and arms invariably the first to start growing rapidly, many girls look ungainly for a while. Typically, menstruation, as it has for many generations, ensues on average at 12 1/2 years or when weight hits approximately 105 pounds, bringing hormonal adjustments that can affect emotions.

But by far the greatest change in adolescence occurs in the growth of the brain, especially in the front of the brain, the seat of reasoning, judgment, self-control, and social behavior. As they mature, girls also learn gender roles and stereotypes, basically what society considers the roles and responsibilities of women to be.

As adolescents pull away from their parents, their friendships become a safe haven. Before long, girls tend to join others with whom they think they have much in common. They not only dress alike; they also behave alike and form clubs, or cliques, some with secret codes or rituals.

Although some teens use the computer to stay in constant contact with friends, overuse of the computer poses an obstacle to developing peer relationships. Just as with TV, children who prefer to stay at home in front of a monitor rather than spend time with friends can become isolated from the mainstream, with a concomitant slowdown in developing socialization and communication skills.

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