Meg Donevan, Member of the Board of Another Development Foundation, was invited to speak at the Swedish Women’s Lobby’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) Side event, ”Sex work is not work – fight demand and end sexual exploitation in the climate crisis era.”
Meg presented the latest research on the link between sexual exploitation and climate change, drawing on Dr. Melissa Farley and other’s work.
She described how those most at risk for prostitution are the same individuals and groups most affected by climate change — women and girls, the young, the poor and homeless, those who have experienced violence, and those who face systematic discrimination owing to their sex, race and/or ethnicity. Meg clarified the link between resource extraction, climate change, poverty and prostitution. ”Patriarchal systems of capitalism and colonialism commodify and exploit both nature and women’s bodies,” Meg explained. To conclude, Meg emphasized the need to focus on the demand for sexual exploitation, to include the voices of survivors in responses and solutions to climate change and sexual exploitation, and to identify multi-faceted, sustainable solutions that account for multiple forms of oppression.
Following her talk, Meg was part of a fruitful panel discussion together with Dalia Leinarte, Professor at VMU Lithuania and member of the CEDAW-committee, and Paromita Chowdhury, Chief Operating Officer, South Kolkata Hamari Muskan.