Women and girls suffer in silence from food insecurity

Women in Ethiopia prefer to go to the sources for water at night traveling from 15 to 25 kilometerswith the danger that this implies, to avoid competition, according to one of the participants in the last report of Plan International. “Traveling long distances at night is very risky for us, the younger girls and women They are exposed to risks of sexual violence, including rape, and are endangered by dangerous wild animals such as a hyena,” he explained.

A total of 7,158 citizens of Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, South Sudan, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Haiti They have spoken with the NGO and she has analyzed the results, conclusions that prove that the food insecurity Nor does he understand gender equality. Women eat less and later than men and girls sacrifice their education before boys. Moreover, the situation has reached such a point that the early and forced child marriage it is, along with child labor, a widespread strategy for coping with food insecurity.

In Ethiopia, a country that along with Kenya and Somalia is currently experiencing the worst drought experienced in the Horn of Africa in 40 years, data collected by the NGO suggest that child marriage has increased by 51% within a year, as desperate families resort to marrying off their daughters to ease the strain on household finances or obtain dowry payments.

Hence, Plan International has echoed the needs of these areas, urging the authorities to provide more means to combat this food insecurity, but also to curb the increase in sexual exploitation and rape. “Hunger is a solvable problem, but urgent action is needed to prevent this food crisis from becoming a full-blown famine that will hit children, especially girls, hardest. Donors should increase funding“, insists Dr. Unni Krishnan, global humanitarian director of Plan International.