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In South Sudan, climate change is exacerbating violence against women and girls.
Extreme weather events like droughts and floods leading to increased child marriage and sexual exploitation.
As families struggle to survive, girls are often married off for resources, while women face heightened risks of violence and exploitation in overcrowded shelters.
In a dusty village on the outskirts of Bor, 14-year-old Nyandeng (name changed) sat under a withered acacia tree, clutching a doll stitched from a rice sack. The land around her was dry and cracked, the air heavy with the smell of dead cattle left to rot in the sun. The last harvest had failed, and flash floods had drowned the family’s remaining goats.
Her father, once a herdsman, now spent his days gazing into the horizon, waiting for rain that never came. When a man old enough to be her grandfather offered five cows and a sack of maize for her hand, her father didn’t hesitate. “It was the only way to feed the rest of the children,” he said. That night, as elders chanted blessings over a faded wedding cloth, Nyandeng’s tears fell into the dust. Her dreams of returning to school and becoming a nurse vanished, swept away by the same drought that had stolen her childhood.
Her story reflects a growing crisis in climate-hit South Sudan, where worsening floods and droughts are destroying crops, washing away homes and shattering girls’ futures. Families stripped of livelihoods are marrying off daughters for food or cash, or pushing them into transactional sex to survive.
In South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, the climate onslaught has deepened hunger and poverty.
“As floodwaters submerge homes and parched fields crack under the scorching sun, women and girls are bearing the brunt of a deepening climate crisis that has blurred the line between survival and abuse,” said Nina Masore, programme officer for End Sexual Violence at Equality Now.
“The country is currently suffering severe floods, with the UN estimating that almost 900,000 people have already been impacted by this latest humanitarian disaster,” she said. “This comes just months after a spell of extreme heat, with temperatures reaching 45 degrees Celsius, forcing South Sudan’s government to close schools for the second year in a row due to unsafe temperatures.”
According to Masore, the country is trapped in a vicious cycle of severe droughts and catastrophic floods that have depleted water sources, eroded fertile land and deepened food insecurity. “Floods have destroyed homes, harvests and herds, while droughts have disrupted planting seasons and killed the remaining cattle,” she said. “These extreme weather events have displaced many people and intensified competition over scarce resources, heightening tensions and driving conflict among families and between communities.”
Masore said climate change acts as a “threat multiplier”, worsening long-standing inequalities and exposing women and girls to greater risks. “While its impacts are widespread and affect everyone, some groups bear a far greater burden than others,” she noted. “In South Sudan and around the world, extreme weather takes a heavier toll on women and girls, intensifying discrimination and directly fueling violence and exploitation.”
When disaster hits, women and girls are often the first to suffer and the last to recover. “In South Sudan, widespread forms of violence or exploitation that emerge during climate-induced crises include child and forced marriage, intimate partner violence, sexual exploitation, rape and survival-driven transactional sex,” Masore said.
She explained that extreme weather events displace populations, disrupt livelihoods and increase economic pressures, pushing families into desperate measures. “Displaced women and girls face heightened risks of sexual violence in overcrowded, insecure shelters,” she said. “Interrupted access to education due to school closures further exposes girls to early marriage and exploitation, curtailing their future prospects.”
With families struggling to feed themselves, child marriage has become a grim coping mechanism. “Parents may see marriage as a strategy when facing financial difficulties, or as a way to protect their daughters from sexual violence,” Masore said. “But child marriage increases the likelihood of girls being exposed to domestic violence, early and unwanted pregnancy and complications in childbirth.”
Even more alarming, economic desperation is driving some women into transactional sex. “When women can no longer access enough food or afford basic necessities, they face immense pressure to find other ways to survive,” Masore said. “This economic vulnerability often exposes them to sexual exploitation. Women can be forced into transactional sex, exchanging sexual relationships for essentials like food, water, money, or protection.”
Droughts, she said, are emerging as a powerful predictor of gender-based violence. “Droughts erode livelihoods, plunge families into poverty and hunger, and often lead to harmful coping mechanisms,” she said. “As environmental degradation depletes natural resources and clean water sources become scarce, women and girls are forced to travel longer distances to gather water, exposing them to harassment, rape, and assault along the way.”
A United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) assessment found that climate change is driving a surge in gender-based violence, child marriage, transactional sex and child labour, while worsening health risks for women and girls.
Half of respondents in Malakal, Rubkona and Kapoeta South counties reported rising gender-based violence in climate-affected areas, with droughts identified as the strongest trigger. Prolonged droughts and flooding have destroyed health facilities, forced maternity clinics to close and disrupted supply chains, leaving pregnant women without essential care.
“Climate change has left women more vulnerable than ever,” said Rebecca, 50, from Rubkona. “We can’t grow food anymore and when we walk long distances for firewood, we risk being raped or even killed.”
“The climate crisis in South Sudan is not gender neutral,” said Innocent Modisaotsile, UNFPA’s acting representative. “It is driving child marriage, disrupting health services and exposing women and girls to violence. Urgent investment in resilient health systems, gender-based violence protection and women’s empowerment can help break this cycle.”
The 2024 report Vulnerability Assessment of the Impact of Climate Change on Gender Equality, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Gender-Based Violence in South Sudan based on 528 households and community interviews, found that half of the respondents reported an increase in intimate partner violence and other forms of abuse in areas hit hardest by floods and droughts.
Prolonged dry spells, it noted, have destroyed crops, killed livestock and eroded traditional income sources such as farming and pastoralism. “Women are bearing the heaviest economic burden,” the report said. Families are marrying off daughters to repay debts, while boys are pushed into child labour or recruited by gangs, the researchers found.
The report also highlighted the collapse of sexual and reproductive health services in climate-affected areas, where floods and heatwaves have closed clinics, cut off maternal care and forced women to rely on untrained birth attendants. With limited government support and dwindling NGO aid, “cultural barriers, stigma and lack of funding mean many women have nowhere to turn”, the authors observsed.
UNFPA has called for mobile maternity clinics, heat-resistant health centres, and gender-responsive adaptation plans to help women withstand climate shocks. It has also urged stronger legal protections against gender-based violence, safer displacement camps and expanded access to livelihoods and financial services.
Years of conflict and insecurity have hindered progress in law reform, allowing harmful traditional practices like child marriage to persist, said Masore. “To effectively address these issues, the government and humanitarian actors must implement coordinated strategies that combine legal reform, social protection, education, and community engagement,” she added.
She urged the government to strengthen economic stability through cash transfers, school fee waivers and livelihood programmes to reduce the pressures driving exploitation. “These measures help women and youth achieve economic independence,” she said. “Establishing support centres for vulnerable children, including orphans, would ensure their safety and well-being.”
Masore also emphasised on the importance of preventive awareness campaigns to stop boys from being recruited into child labour and girls from early marriages. “South Sudan’s transitional constitution commits to including women in all climate action and disaster response decision-making,” she said. “That commitment must be enforced. When the most affected people have a voice, the solutions will be more effective and fair.”
Despite a national policy mandating 35 per cent gender inclusion in climate planning, women remain largely excluded from decision-making. The UNFPA report showed that South Sudan’s climate and gender policies are “fragmented and reactive”, with no clear link between climate change and child marriage or sexual exploitation.
Ahead of COP30 in Belem, Brazil, leaders are being urged to close the gap between policy and practice by directing climate finance and aid toward programmes that protect women’s rights, build resilience and empower them to lead their communities towards a more secure future.
