5 Disproportionate impacts on children in vulnerable situations The UN Human Rights Council has recognized that the worst effects of climate change are experienced by those who are already vulnerable “owing to factors such as geography, poverty, gender, age, indigenous or minority status, national or social origin, birth or other status and disability”.137 The Fifth Assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change similarly recognizes that those who are “socially, economically, culturally, politically, institutionally or otherwise marginalized are especially vulnerable to climate change”.138 While children per se, and particularly young children, must be considered a disproportionately vulnerable group in the context of climate change due to their unique stage of development and specific needs, certain subsets of children may be considered at heightened risk. According to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, “the negative impacts of climate change will disproportionately affect poor children, indigenous children, minorities, migrants and other children on the move, children with disabilities and others in vulnerable situations. Girls also face heightened risks…”139 In the Philippines, there is considerably uneven performance in meeting children’s rights for particular groups of children, notably children living in poverty, children living in rural locations and informal urban settlements, children with disabilities, and children from indigenous communities – all of whom experience significant gaps in their access to services and in meeting key development targets across a range of key outcome areas. 140 Climate shocks and stress will increase this inequity. The following seeks to highlight some of these disproportionate impacts of climate change on girls, indigenous children, the urban poor, and children with disabilities, within the limiting constraints of available evidence, data and research. It is by no means exhaustive. 5.1 Girls Research suggests that girls are more likely to lose out on education, rest, play and leisure when households are affected by climate change pressures, as they are frequently responsible for performing time-consuming chores such as cooking, gathering fuel and collecting water.141 Furthermore, girls are more likely to become the victims of trafficking, gender-based violence, prostitution, sexual exploitation and child marriage in the context of both climate-related disasters and increasing pressure on household incomes, with severe implications for their rights to health, education and freedom from violence, exploitation and abuse.142 Girls have also been found to suffer disproportionately during droughts due to reduced water availability and food insecurity.143 Many of these impacts have been documented in the Philippines and are explored in the preceding section. One recent study suggests that typhoons in the Philippines can lead to dramatic spikes in the mortality rate for infant girls up to two years after the disaster. Post-typhoon mortality among baby girls was found to be approximately 15 times higher than the average number of deaths due to typhoon exposure recorded by the Government, most likely due to indirect effects of the storm in exacerbating poverty and dramatically reduced spending by households as a coping mechanism.144 The study estimates that these deaths could account for as much as 13 per cent of overall infant mortality. No similar increase in the mortality rate for baby boys was found. The authors suggested that the finding was unlikely to be due to families intentionally allowing girls to die, but that the correlation could be linked to parents believing that newborns could cope with higher-than-average levels of neglect, combined with potentially unconscious behavior in providing more or different food and care to baby boys than girls. The risk of a baby girl dying was found to double if she had older sisters in the home, and to double again if she had older brothers, suggesting that competition for resources among siblings may play an important role.