Climate justice lawyer affirms that climate change increases inequalities and multiplies poverty, women are more affected

SANTO DOMINGO. - “Climate change increases inequalities and multiplies poverty,” said Nora Esther Cabrera Velazco, a lawyer specialized in climate justice with a focus on constitutional law who addressed the issue of “climate injustice: forced displacement,” during the twelfth Dominican Conference. of Gender Studies organized by the Center for Gender Studies of the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (CEG'INTEC).

Cabrera Velazco explained that, according to research, climate change represents a 50% setback in progress worldwide. He said that, although mitigating the effects of climate change is in the hands of the richest population in the world, which represents 1% of the world's population, it is the responsibility of the most underdeveloped countries to adapt and ensure that there is no violation of rights in the case of the most vulnerable populations.

During his keynote address, he recommended that vulnerable countries adapt to new realities, have resilience and prevent danger through risk programs and urban territorial plans that benefit the poorest communities.

“All countries that live in unequal conditions could receive a great impact on the economy, generating unprecedented social inequality,” he said after explaining that the most developed countries are those that emit the most carbon dioxide (CO2) and, therefore, , are those who have the most obligations to take action to combat the phenomenon.

The most displaced are women

She indicated that 80% of the people displaced from their territories due to climate change are women and this figure rises to 95% in the cases that she has directly accompanied due to the effects caused by global warming in her country, Mexico.

Cabrera, who also serves as director of Nuestro Futuro AC, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and promoting actions for mitigation and adaptation to change, expressed that “climate justice requires policies of adaptation, resilience, changing these elements is the way “that communities like ours can survive climate change.” She also mentioned the impact of climate change on inequalities, since a world without global warming would have 25% less economic inequality between countries.

As part of his keynote talk he presented the case of El Bosque, a community in Tabasco, Mexico, considered a human settlement in a very high risk area due to coastal erosion and flooding. The community needed to be relocated due to the loss of their homes, which is why Cabrera expressed the treatment of this case from the perspective of the rights of vulnerable people.

The Dominican Conference on Gender Studies, which is held on November 28 and 29 in the INTEC Social Security Auditorium, aims to develop an academic debate on the reality of gender relations in the Dominican Republic, disseminating the research, studies and social interventions that make evident the expressions of gender-based discrimination in the country, revealing the disadvantageous consequences for women in the social, economic, political and cultural spheres to help uproot the causes that generate these inequalities.

In her participation, the vice-rector of Administration and Finance of INTEC, Alliet Ortega, emphasized the importance of addressing the problems of gender violence, which she considers a public health problem that is everyone's responsibility. “It is time to act firmly. It is time to redouble efforts at all levels of society, it is not just a problem of governments, if we work as a whole in society, to improve prevention, timely detection, reporting, attention and punishment. of these crimes, we can move towards a reduction of this scourge that corrodes us,” he said.

He argued that it is urgent to approve a comprehensive legal framework that recognizes the various forms of manifestation of violence, and their respective penalties, as well as the need for education on the subject. “Now we have instruments that previously did not allow us to exert this media pressure on gender violence,” he said.

Desirée Del Rosario, coordinator of CEG-INTEC, pointed out that the topics addressed at the Conference have the intention of transforming the Dominican reality in terms of the fundamental problems of women, and thanked the institutions that collaborate in the eradication of violence and construction of knowledge for equality.

“We are going to continue talking about violence until it is not necessary,” he said after stating that in the country there is still “a lot of structural violence (…) that we are sometimes ignoring or normalizing.”

The event, which has been held biannually since 2003, included in this edition the participation of Mariana Romero, executive director and senior researcher in the Health, Economy and Society area of ​​the Center for State and Society Studies (CEDES), Argentina, who will give a keynote lecture on reproductive justice.

During the XII version of the Dominican Conference on Gender Studies, artistic presentations were made, one of them by the Cuban singer-songwriter Luis Franco and the play “Woman wants to write a report”, by Ecolecua Teatro, in which the teachers of the degree program participated. Cinema and Audiovisual Communication from INTEC, Ingrid Luciano and Robelitza Pérez. They also presented the monologue "Mabel", as a reflection of the reality behind forced early unions.

The Conference was held with the support of Profamilia, Fos Feminista, Progeri, European Union; the National Council for Children and Adolescents (CONANI) and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.