The gender face of water crisis in South Africa

Cape Town

Cape Town is one of the world’s most unique tourist attractions, filled with warm skies, sea breeze and sandy picnics and of course the Table Mountain. Only a few years ago, its blue economy was affected by the harsh realities of climate change, altering how South African women gain access to water.

Women and girls are forced to walk several kilometres away from their homes and safety nets to get water.

SA’s current and past water dilemmas 

For South Africa, 2022 brought big concerns about this issue, such as the typhoid outbreak in Gauteng that occurred earlier this year and the recent floods in Kwa-Zulu Natal which the province is still recovering from all had to impact on water conservation. All these can be attributed to climate change which makes access to the water difficult.

Take Sandra Siakam for example, a 26-years-old woman who resides in Midrand, Gauteng. She was not aware of the water outages in her area when she moved in and now must store ten litres of water in case of random water outages, she says, “It makes my independent life a bit more difficult as I have to travel 25 minutes away to my parents’ house to use their water.”

Another woman from Midrand Mountains, Thuto Tshabalala, 25-years-old and mother of one little girl reminisces about her time in Bloemfontein, a Free State whereby water was scarce,  they had to store big black bins of water and keep about 10-15 litres of drinking water because of common and consistent water outages. As a mother, she says, “I am fortunate to now reside in Midrand, where this problem doesn’t often happen.”

Towns such as Makhanda, formerly known as Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape have water pipes burst and leak for hours on end, water would be scarce due to supposed dried up streams and rivers which were the town’s main supply and would not be restored for as close to a week from area to area. And Kwa-Zulu Natal Province just recently experienced floods. This affected several women living in already poor conditions with their families in the area, which in turn would now have trouble sustaining their livelihoods. Vegetable gardens that they depended on were completely submerged.

Climate change and its effect

Climate change compromises the sanitation of water, and such natural disasters, extended for days, can also damage the ecosystem and plants. Farms are flooded ruining the growth in which natural photosynthesis is required for plant processes, thus destroying the natural process and thus affecting women’s way of living.

They now face a bigger issue, as crops and farming are an essential part of their survival as food is also required for a healthy lifestyle. Women rely on natural resources for nutrients and economically this helps maintain and improve a sustainable livelihood for their families. Those in rural areas require walking long distances to find the nearest tap that provides water, regardless of its safety most women remain strong in their attempts to ignore the possibility of not making it back home. The rate of gender-based violence is high as they get attacked on their way to look for water. Lobbyists from time to time accuse the government of laxity on the water crisis in their respective districts and managing municipalities to maintain structure and consistency.

The UN’s scientific evidence of climate change’s effect on water and SA women

The 5th United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) which took place in March this year in Nairobi, Kenya emphasised local nature-based solutions, “…which safeguard the rights of communities and indigenous peoples”.

Young girls and women require proper sanitation due to their monthly menstrual cycle, lack of access to water makes it even worse. Young girls, unfortunately, prefer to remain at home when menstruating during the school term. Therefore, losing out in access to education, then prompts a double essential loss, someone like Tshabalala’s daughter might face these issues in the future if our leaders do not put the water crisis at the top of their agenda as countries prepare for COP 27.

SA’s government on the water crisis

The Green Drop Report 2022 was brought back by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa this year to improve the country’s water waste and usage. According to the report, “It is of great concern that there are many systems with scores below 31 per cent, indicating a dismal state of wastewater management posing a risk to both the environment and public health”.

It also mentions that the ecosystem is highly affected by bacteria infection and harmful chemicals, damaging the need for safe sanitation and use, as well as plants, thus killing the nation’s biodiversity and the livelihood of all beings inhabiting and relying on the environment.

LeAnne Coetzee, a female consultant for Waterlab, (a service company in South Africa that specializes in analytical chemistry in various disciplines of water says the precious commodity is becoming unsafe for human consumption.

She states, “South Africa’s municipalities do not maintain their accuracy when undergoing such analysis, so the percentage of bacteria in the water is high and becoming unsafe for human consumption”.

“How this system works is by removing E. coli (Escherichia coli) and faecal coliform bacteria from water processes, thus, warning municipalities against any bacteria intrusions and working on a treatment plan,” she says.

Green initiatives provide solutions

A global initiative, Gender CC – Women for Climate Change, looks at how climate change impacts the livelihoods of women all over the world, and in South Africa, they aim at helping and educating women in poverty who rely on natural resources and agriculture to provide for themselves and their loved ones.

They consider how climate change requires a discussion amongst women in communities such as the Western Cape and Gauteng, and how heavy rainfalls can affect agriculture, housing and infrastructure among other necessities required for living. They also look at national ways in which the government can implement policies and use climate change as a reason to alter how women in impoverished areas can use their natural resources.

Gift of the Givers is a South African startup initiative that became global. Locally they assist with the water crisis by drilling boreholes, installing rainwater harvesting operations for purification of water and distributing bottled water. They do all this with the sense of adapting to a community’s specific requirements, whilst providing solutions to South Africa’s water crisis and all over the world.

However, there are some limitations to these solutions for sanitation situations. Filtered water, which is done so with activated carbon can become an economic strain on poorer women in our society. Resorting to water bottles, in general, has already placed the planet in an environmental crisis of using an unrecyclable material such as plastic, so both solutions are temporary.

Hope for the future of South African women

The average women and young girls in South Africa still have a chance to turn this around and conserve water, at least providing some substantial living for themselves and others. Someone like Tshabalala and Siakam already know how to conserve water due to past and current experiences of waking up to dry taps.

Here are some self-help solutions that some women are also embracing: checking water drains and pipes every few months to maintain the maintenance, closing taps properly and tight to avoid water loss, decreasing times for showers, dishwashers and so forth, relying on rainfalls to water plants rather than hosepipes, unless highly necessary and reporting pipe bursts and water waste to the municipal district once spotted.

South African women face many challenges every day and in doing so develop the smart strength to keep on surviving. With the help of new female leaders involved in various initiatives, some aimed solely at benefiting women and girls, they are on a path of learning more and attempting to fix the issue of water conservation and sanitation thus tackling climate change. They are more than capable despite it all.

This article is part of African Women in Media (AWiM)/UNEP Africa Environment Journalism Programme 

Do you want to publish this article? Kindly contact janet@africanwomeninmedia.com