Clean Water and Sanitation - What about women and girls in war zones?

For more than three decades Africa has been in serious war challenges due to various political, social and economic reasons. Many people have died in the whole war and cheap military drama. Have we ever thought as a continent about the plight of women and girls in war zones? Women due to the nature of their creation require a maximum of two times bath a day. I don't imagine a war situation giving such a chance to our women running away with their lives from war zones. They will be no time and even that dirty water to bath what more of toilets and sanitary pads in war bases and bushes.

It had been a tough time for Chibok girls in Nigeria, those kidnapped by the BokO haram, Sudan and DRC are other examples of such challenges. Women are human species that require maximum hygiene and care.

In Sudan they travel miles and miles through stretching deserts to Algeria and other countries to seek refugees and peaceful lives. Some do not reach the intended destinations due to the challenges mentioned above. Most of them will use bush leaves as sanitary pads during their menstrual cycle and wash their with long-time stagnant water resulting into serious diseases like cervical cancer, bilharzia and other. Some of these water bodies contain poisonous gases emitted by industry during peaceful times. The health of women is at stake and some die because of thirstiness, dehydration and heat waves because of changes in climatic patterns that have been caused by various negative effects in the atmosphere that also include deforestation and the use of fossil fuels and impact on the ozone layer hence climatic and weather problems. Other war refugees are flooded by raging floods due cyclones, especially when they flee from war during the rainy season. Climate might also be one most affecting challenge or major factor in the situations of war, because most people will be always travelling and mostly outdoors because their shelters would have been destroyed by war.

Several young girls and women in Chad and Central died because of various water borne diseases, dehydration and other ailments. Diseases like dysentery, cholera, diarrhoea, tuberculosis and cervical cancer are endemic in these war zones due to air pollution, poor water and the absence decent sanitation facilities.

In Beitbridge, the border capital of Zimbabwe. Young women and girls running away from the sweating economy also suffer the same fate as their counterparts in warzones of west, east and central Africa. The women in gold panning communities of Zimbabwe like kadoma, shurugwi, kwekwe and bindura suffer the same brunt as well as others. The water they use in severely polluted by chemicals used in sifting gold. Thus the water they bath and drink. Sanitation pads are rare in such areas for those areas do not have proper infrastructure for health of well being. Zimbabwe is in an economic war that even vendors in cities and mothers /girls in villages do not afford sanitary pads. So imagine if this happens in such at least better areas what about areas in critical war conditions. Unicef and International Migration Organization are always at a difficult spot because they cannot catch up with everyone especially deserters who run away from both political, religious and economic wars. So the victims will die without any help and unknown and we loose precious lives.

Its time to think how we need to stop and eradicate war zones forever and mostly these wars are perpetrated by fossil fuel barons, mostly oil barons who cash with oil and invoke wars that are endless. The United Nations Assembly should move a step forward in taking these concerns seriously. We have a Women body in the United Nations which should be able to find measures to protect women and girls in political, military, religious and economic warzones.