14 million women could lose access to contraception due to climate change in next decade

Ms Sonko and her team of women and girls have adapted their work, and are now using their local mangroves to process cockle and oyster shells - a change she says is vital for their autonomy and livelihood. 

But their achievements and opportunities are under threat, with forecasts by MSI Reproductive Choices warning that more than 14 million women could lose access to contraception in the next decade as climate change worsens living conditions around the world. 

51-year-old Binetou Sonko is the president of Mbogo Yaye, an organisation focused on rebuilding local mangroves in Joal, Senegal. Source: Supplied/Randa Osman

“Choosing if or when to become pregnant makes life easier. If women can’t choose their lives, then those of their children become more difficult, they become very difficult. Life becomes very expensive,” Ms Sonko said. 

“Most people in Joal work with the environment which is why all the problems connected with the environment affect our community so much.

"This is why we use contraception, to reclaim our lives."

MSI Reproductive Choices has provided healthcare to millions of women, and according to its data, around 11.5 million women since 2011 have had their access to contraception disrupted due to climate-forced displacement. 

But its projections show access to contraception and safe abortion practices will decline even further as the climate crisis worsens.

Women in Joal, Senegal, assist with carrying a bucket of cockle shells from mangroves to financially support themselves. Source: Supplied/Randa Osman

Without global intervention, the abortion and contraception provider has predicted this number to surge over the next 10 years.

“In Senegal where I am from, coastal erosion has forced many families to leave their homes and move into makeshift camps,” the organisation’s regional director Sanou Gning said.

“What my teams are hearing loud and clear from a lot of women living in these vulnerable areas, is that getting pregnant during a crisis is the last thing they want. It’s vital that we listen to what they are telling us.” 

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Griffith University academic Susan Harris Rimmer will attend COP26 as a virtual delegate, where she will discuss the issue of gender issues linked to climate change. 

But she told SBS News that discussions around access to healthcare at COP26, particularly for women, are not prioritised as much as they should be. 

"That kind of climate justice conversation is very narrow at COP, and we have to do a bit better. It's so focused on emissions, it's not focused on just adaptation and that's where the conversation needs to be now ... where do women's rights come in that conversation?" Professor Harris Rimmer said. 

It is time to consider how a climate transition could become a transformative gender moment in understanding the links between gender, climate impacts, and human security. @federalfuture https://t.co/EZXhvWz0Jm

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"This is a human rights conversation as it is an economics conversation or A science conversation. It's about preserving human dignity in some of the choices we make to face climate change."

People find it "hard to make the leap" when grasping that climate change decreases access to contraception, but natural disasters systemically affect women the most, Professor Rimmer said. 

"Any type of displacement that threatens an economic impact of a group has adverse impacts for women because they have less income and power in a particular situation.

"What you get with climate change is an exacerbation of the current problems ... [this issue] is not new, this is what always happens to women in times of emergencies and we're going to have a more severe crisis in the past."

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