COP

Rural women lead the way Rural women were the first to make their cry for climate justice heard at COP17.

  On Friday afternoon at Speakers' Corner, 500 women from across rural southern Africa gathered to share the realities of climate change for their communities.  Loudly, they demanded climate-change action: “We are rural women, we don’t live in cities, we can’t move to cities, we want action now,” they said.  They then set off to march on the Conference.

Part way the protest was halted, thankfully to remind opportunist activists that the rural women were to lead their demonstration; others were to hang back.

 As one of the women’s banners said:

  “There’s no climate justice without gender justice”.

Julia