General
African leaders have been criticised for not taking the issues of climate change and women seriously after the African First Ladies Forum on Climate Change failed to draw the participation of first ladies on the continent.
Dr Aminu Zakari of the Centre for Climate Change and Environmental Studies in Nigeria says the forum's work has already been delayed for two years.
"It's part of the politics. This is like the example of how our leaders are not really taking this issue seriously. We've been advocating for this. The first African first ladies would have started from Copenhagen in Denmark. We postponed it and looked forward to have African first ladies' forum in Cancun, it didn't work and here we are again. This dream we will not stop it until we get there, until on this high table we can see 10 or 20 African first ladies meeting annually to discuss issues concerning women."
It was supposed to be one of the side events at the UN climate talks under way in Durban. The forum proposes to tackle environmental issues and their impacts on African women, as well as to devise interventions in the climate talks.
A group of women from Zambia who travelled through five African countries to reach the COP 17 meeting in Durban, have taken a religious view of climate change.
Women and girl children are said to be the most vulnerable to climate change.
Meanwhile, a group of women from Zambia who travelled through five African countries to reach the COP 17 meeting in Durban, have taken a religious view of climate change.
The group's spokesperson, Mailes Muke, says they are women farmers and have been to Mali, Burundi, Zimbabwe and Botswana since the 9th to witness the effects of climate change.
Muke says they belong to a movement called Save the Environment and People's Agency.
"People have sinned against the environment. In the bible in Revelation 11:17 says God, the time will come that he is going to judge people who are sinning, including people who are ruining the environment. Man has ruined the environment and that is why we have climate change. Long time ago we used to have seasons where we could predict that this time we are going to have a rain season, for instance in Zambia it would start in November and end in April but it is no longer the same, we have dry outs, cattle have died and we have places where people and animals fight for water," she says.
Women and girl children are said to be the most vulnerable to climate change.(REUTERS)