Zero Draft: Intersectional Feminist Youth Recommendation on Climate (Im)mobility

Nov 12

Why integrated approaches matter: Climate justice, Climate immobility, and gender inequality

Viewing climate change through an intersectional feminist lens, one that recognizes how overlapping forms of inequality reinforce each other, reveals that its impacts are not felt equally. The risks are particularly severe for Indigenous women and girls, women with disabilities, older women, migrant women, and those living in rural, remote, conflict-affected, or disaster-prone contexts (UN Women, 2025).

Climate change is intensifying extreme weather events and environmental hazards. When crises strike, women are disproportionately affected, facing higher risks of injury and loss due to entrenched gender inequalities that limit their access to information, mobility, decision-making, training, and resources. Post-disaster recovery often reproduces these inequalities, with women and girls facing barriers to relief and assistance, which in turn undermines their livelihoods, security, and resilience—perpetuating a cycle of vulnerability in the face of future shocks (UN Women, 2025).

Human mobility in the context of climate change (HMCCC) is deeply shaped by social stratifications, including gender, class, ethnicity, geography, sexual orientation, and gender identity. As such, HMCCC is not a neutral process, but inherently gendered, emerging from an interplay of structural inequalities, historical power hierarchies, and climate pressures. Research points to four main pathways of climate mobility, migration, displacement, planned relocation, and immobility or "trapped populations," all of which are experienced differently along gender and intersectional lines (GIZ, 2023).

Mobility and immobility decisions can be both voluntary and involuntary, but they are rarely neutral. In many contexts, household and community decisions around (im)mobility are dominated by male heads of households. This dynamic often silences women’s agency; even when women may want or need to move, barriers such as financial dependency, cultural expectations, and patriarchal norms prevent them from doing so. This blurs the distinction between voluntary and forced immobility. When women are excluded from decision-making, their needs and realities remain invisible in policies, which frequently results in gender-insensitive responses (Bourai, 2025).

The dire experience of women during natural disasters illustrates how structural discrimination intersects with climate risks. Limited resources push many to rely on loans or male migration as survival strategies, yet these same dynamics can intensify women’s precarity. Male migration, for instance, often leaves women with increased responsibilities and few financial resources for adaptation. Traditional practices, including dowry systems, further exacerbate inequalities, while the absence of steady remittances deepens women’s immobility and dependency. Addressing these challenges requires rethinking how climate change intersects with entrenched cultural, gendered, and economic norms (Henriksen, Plambech, Dahlin & Raft, 2024).

Climate-induced mobility and immobility also have profound consequences for health, education, and social stability. Frequent movement disrupts access to healthcare, particularly sexual and reproductive health services, increasing risks for pregnant women and limiting nutritional security. Girls often shoulder heavier domestic workloads during mobility or when men migrate, which restricts their schooling and contributes to higher rates of early marriage. In contrast, when women and families are left immobile for extended periods during male migration, they face heavier labor burdens, limited access to education and healthcare, and heightened risks of conflict with neighboring groups over dwindling resources. Both mobility and immobility therefore deepen existing gender inequalities while creating new vulnerabilities under conditions of climate stress (Jansen & Mahat, 2024).

Taken together, these dynamics highlight that climate change is not simply an environmental issue, but a structural and gendered crisis. To fully understand its impact on human mobility and immobility, it is essential to adopt an intersectional perspective that accounts for overlapping systems of oppression. Only then can responses to climate mobility be truly just and inclusive.

Key messages:

Adopt intersectional approaches
Climate action must integrate an intersectional feminist lens to ensure the specific vulnerabilities of women and marginalized groups in climate mobility and immobility are recognized and addressed.
Guarantee women’s agency in mobility decisions
Policies must dismantle patriarchal norms that restrict women’s choices, ensuring their equal participation in decision-making on migration, displacement, relocation, and immobility.
Address structural inequalities
Governments and institutions must tackle entrenched systems—such as discriminatory cultural practices, economic exclusion, and dependence on remittances—that trap women in cycles of immobility and vulnerability.
Protect health, education, and livelihoods
Climate mobility policies must safeguard women’s SRHR, girls’ education, and equitable access to resources, while reducing the burdens of unpaid care work and labor intensified by displacement or male migration.
End gender-based violence in mobility contexts
Integrate strong GBV prevention and response measures into all climate mobility and immobility strategies to address heightened risks of exploitation, child marriage, and violence.
Break cycles of vulnerability
Humanitarian and adaptation responses must be gender-responsive, ensuring women and girls have equitable access to relief, aid, and recovery systems to build long-term resilience to climate shocks.
Advance climate justice through inclusive governance
Climate mobility and immobility are justice issues. Solutions must center women’s leadership, amplify marginalized voices, and ensure accountability to communities most affected by displacement and immobility.

Recommendations:

1. Education

Youth Organisations
Develop grassroots initiatives that link climate change, migration, and gender using feminist and decolonial approaches.
Create localized workshops and campaigns that raise awareness of statelessness and the gendered impacts of climate mobility.
Establish mentorship networks connecting climate-displaced youth and women with local activists, educators, and professionals, using proactive approaches such as educating them on steps and measures to take in cases of migration.
Establish mentorship networks connecting climate-displaced youth and women with local activists, educators, and professionals.
Co-create storytelling and advocacy projects with girls from affected communities to challenge harmful norms.

Governments

Integrate intersectional gender and climate mobility into national education curricula and teacher training programs.
Ensure equitable access to climate-resilient education for girls in rural and climate-vulnerable regions, including SRHR and gender-responsive content.
Support community education programs in vulnerable areas that focus on climate justice, migration, and gender equality.
Establish safeguards against tokenism in “diversity” initiatives to prevent further marginalization of displaced communities.

International & Intergovernmental Organisations

Fund feminist-led and community-driven educational programs on the links between climate justice, gender, and mobility.
Develop open-access, multilingual educational resources on statelessness, displacement, and gendered climate impacts.
Promote decolonized education frameworks that center Global South experiences and knowledge systems.
Support research and data collection on education access and climate mobility patterns through an intersectional feminist lens.

2. Infrastructure

Youth Organisations
Advocate for inclusive housing and services that meet the needs of climate-displaced and stateless women and girls.
Organize community mapping and storytelling projects to identify unsafe or underserved areas affected by climate shocks.
Campaign for alternatives to long-term refugee camps, ensuring displaced people have access to dignified, permanent housing solutions.

Governments

Build climate-resilient infrastructure (e.g. housing, transport, water systems) in areas impacted by drought and displacement.
Ensure shelters and public services are inclusive of women with disabilities, undocumented women, and other marginalized groups.
Include displaced, informal, and rural women as decision-makers in urban planning and climate adaptation strategies.
Hold NGOs/INGOs accountable for providing dignified and safe shelter infrastructure in disaster-prone areas.

International & Intergovernmental Organisations

Prioritize funding for gender-responsive infrastructure, especially in displacement-prone regions (water, sanitation, housing).
Partner with feminist and grassroots actors to design and implement infrastructure solutions for stateless and mobile communities.
Establish coordinated mechanisms to combat trafficking and exploitation on migration routes, including safe houses and protected transit options for women and girls.

3. International Law and Politics

Youth Organisations
Campaign to reform migration and refugee laws that exclude or criminalize stateless and climate-displaced women and girls, and ensure these laws and policies are translated into clear, understandable language for local communities.
Document and amplify testimonies of exclusion from legal systems, citizenship, and documentation.
Mobilize feminist legal advocacy to integrate climate (im)mobility into migration and asylum frameworks.
Push for greater youth representation and equitable access to visas, funding, and spaces at global policy fora.

Governments

Reform migration, asylum, and nationality laws to recognize climate displacement as grounds for protection, with safeguards for women and girls.
Guarantee access to civil registration, ID documents, and nationality rights for displaced and stateless women.
Ratify and implement international agreements relevant to climate mobility (e.g., CEDAW, Sendai Framework, Global Compact on Migration).
Ensure the protection of women activists and displaced persons from retaliation and violence when they advocate for their rights, and remain open to their critiques, acknowledging that actions such as abduction or forcing activists into exile undermine trust and democratic dialogue.

International & Intergovernmental Organisations

Develop binding international legal frameworks protecting climate-displaced and stateless people, especially women and girls.
Hold governments accountable for rights-based responses to climate mobility through monitoring and enforcement mechanisms.
Ensure meaningful participation of women and youth in negotiations on climate mobility (UNFCCC, COP, GCM).
Create strong accountability mechanisms for external funding to prevent corruption and ensure resources reach affected communities.

4. GBV and Child Marriage

Youth Organisations
Build community-based support networks for displaced and stateless women and girls facing GBV.
Raise awareness of how climate-related displacement increases risks of child marriage, trafficking, and sextortion.
Advocate for youth-led campaigns that challenge harmful gender norms intensified by climate crises.

Governments
Integrate GBV prevention and response services into all climate adaptation, migration, and displacement policies.
Enforce laws against child marriage and expand education and livelihood opportunities in climate-stressed regions.
Ensure refugee and displaced populations are included in national GBV and child protection systems.
International & Intergovernmental Organisations
Fund comprehensive GBV services for stateless and displaced communities, including safe shelters and psychosocial support.
Establish global standards for addressing GBV in climate mobility contexts and ensure governments adopt them.
Monitor and report on GBV trends in climate-affected regions, ensuring accountability in humanitarian responses.
Establish monitoring mechanisms for GBV in climate-affected regions.

5. SRHR

Youth Organisations
Involve all genders and diverse groups in SRHR education and advocacy to promote shared responsibility.
Organize mobile SRHR clinics and awareness campaigns during climate-related displacements.
Collect and amplify testimonies of youth facing barriers to SRHR in contexts of climate mobility.

Governments

Co-create SRHR policies with affected communities, ensuring grassroots participation in design and implementation.
Establish strong accountability mechanisms, including penalties, to prevent abuse and misuse of SRHR resources.
Create specialized task forces to monitor and enforce SRHR protections in climate and displacement settings.

International & Intergovernmental Organisations

Fund and strengthen SRHR services for women, girls, and marginalized groups on the move or in blockaded areas.
Ensure SRHR needs are systematically integrated into humanitarian and climate response frameworks.
Support local health systems with resources and training to sustain SRHR access in climate-affected regions.

6. Persons with Disabilities

Youth Organisations
Center the voices of disabled women and girls in climate mobility advocacy and storytelling.
Build coalitions with youth-led disability organizations to share resources, funding, and best practices.
Challenge exclusionary practices by promoting cross-sector initiatives that highlight accessibility in climate responses.

Governments

Ensure climate mobility policies, shelters, transport, and services are fully accessible to people with disabilities.
Allocate dedicated funding for disability-inclusive infrastructure and services in displacement contexts.
Guarantee equal access to healthcare for disabled citizens and non-citizens, including those in transit or with temporary status.

International & Intergovernmental Organisations

Mandate the inclusion of persons with disabilities in climate negotiations and decision-making bodies.
Support disaggregated data collection on disability, gender, and climate mobility to inform inclusive policies.
Resource and strengthen leadership roles for disabled communities within advisory and governing structures.

7. Conflict and War

Youth Organisations:
Advocate for monitoring gendered patterns of displacement and immobility in climate-related conflict zones.
Elevate voices of displaced youth and women in humanitarian and peacebuilding spaces.
Document intersections between environmental degradation, militarism, and forced migration.
Facilitate cross-border feminist solidarity networks to support women and girls affected by conflict and climate impacts.
Governments:
Integrate climate-migration considerations into national security and conflict prevention strategies.
Ensure displaced women in conflict and climate-affected areas have access to identity, protection, and legal aid.
Address political drivers of statelessness and provide inclusive protection policies for displaced women and girls.
Recognize and respond to the compounded vulnerabilities of communities facing both war and environmental crises.
International and Inter-Governmental Organisations:
Fund peacebuilding initiatives addressing climate drivers of displacement and their gendered impacts.
Integrate climate mobility into conflict resolution, humanitarian response, and post-conflict reconstruction frameworks.
Ensure international protection mechanisms account for displacement caused by both armed conflict and climate change.

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