COP17: Herder Women’s Unpaid Care Work Highlighted in Mongolia Press

Mongolia Press featured the “Nomadic Women’s Lives: Care Work” event jointly organized by the MONFEMNET National Network and the National Committee on Gender as part of UNCCD COP17.

Held at Pavilion 35 in the Science and Community Area of the COP17 Green Zone, the event brought greater visibility to the daily lives, unpaid care work, and time burden of herder women through lived experiences, personal stories, and participatory activities.

One of the interactive activities, “24 Hours in the Life of a Herder Woman,” illustrated how herder women often manage multiple responsibilities at the same time, including livestock herding, household work, childcare, and caring for other family members. These responsibilities can leave women with very limited time for rest, personal wellbeing, and their own needs.

Herder women from Bayan-Ölgii and Dornod provinces also shared their lived experiences, including the realities of unpaid care work and the changes and opportunities that have emerged through organizing collectively in their communities.

MONFEMNET emphasized that challenges such as desertification, land degradation, and drought cannot be separated from the everyday realities of herder households, particularly the unpaid care responsibilities carried by women.

As environmental pressures increase, they can also affect access to water, food production, household labour, livelihoods, and the amount of time required for care-related tasks. For this reason, MONFEMNET highlighted the importance of bringing herder women’s lived experiences, needs, and voices into policy discussions and responses to environmental and climate-related challenges.

The full Mongolia Press article, “COP17: Нүүдэлчин ээжүүдийн ‘үүрдэг’ хөлсгүй хөдөлмөр,” is available on the Mongolia Press website.

COP17: Нүүдэлчин ээжүүдийн “үүрдэг” хөлсгүй хөдөлмөр