HMN 2025: How Climate change impacts sexual and reproductive well being of refugee youth in Ugandan humanitarian setting

Extreme climate occasions pushed by local weather change have profound penalties for the sexual and reproductive well being of younger refugees in Uganda, in accordance with a research published in Global Public Health.

The study reveals that excessive climate occasions worsen useful resource insecurities and improve sexual and reproductive well being dangers for youth in Uganda’s Bidi Bidi Refugee Settlement, one of many world’s largest humanitarian settings.

“The study powerfully illustrates the interconnectedness of local weather stress and youth sexual and reproductive well being in humanitarian settings,” says lead creator Dr. Carmen Logie, Professor on the University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work (FIFSW) and Canada Research Chair in Global Health Equity and Social Justice with Marginalized Populations, in addition to Adjunct Professor on the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH).

“Refugee settlements are dealing with not simply environmental hazards, however cascading threats to younger folks’s well being, security, and future.”

The study’s authors embody researchers on the University of Toronto who labored in collaboration with the Uganda Refugee and Disaster Management Council (URDMC), a community-based group that protects the rights of refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced individuals in Uganda. Youth aged 16 to 24 residing within the Bidi Bidi Refugee Settlement have been engaged in walk-along interviews, which concerned strolling with analysis workers to a spot where they accessed meals, water and sanitation sources for the interview to be performed.

Interviews have been additionally performed with service suppliers working intently with the youth.

“These youth shared that useful resource shortage is a matter inside the Bidi Bidi refugee settlement,” says co-author Frannie MacKenzie, Research Officer at FIFSW. “Extreme climate occasions intensify these vulnerabilities and expose youth to unprecedented sexual and reproductive well being dangers which have profound impacts on their lives.”

The study discovered that drought and flooding-related useful resource insecurities elevated refugee youth’s publicity to sexual and gender-based violence and engagement with transactional intercourse. During droughts, youth usually journey lengthy distances at night time to gather water, rising their threat of violence.

Droughts and floods cut back crop yields and meals rations, pushing youth into early marriage and transactional intercourse to entry meals. These climate-related pressures are putting refugee youth, significantly younger girls, at a heightened threat of unplanned being pregnant, HIV and STIs, and menstruation administration challenges.

The study’s researchers name for pressing integration of climate-informed methods to deal with sexual and reproductive well being at neighborhood, interpersonal, and sociopolitical ranges, with particular consideration to the gendered impacts of useful resource insecurity.

“Integrating climate-resilient sexual and reproductive well being interventions is crucial,” says co-author Simon Odong Lukone, Field Coordinator at URDMC. As co-applicant and co-author, Dr. Moses Okumu, Assistant Professor on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign defined, “There is an pressing want for humanitarian methods and applications to deal with sexual and reproductive well being wants within the face of local weather stressors.”