Hillary Clinton: Women Are ‘Primary Victims’ of Climate Change; Ukraine Prime Example

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during an event at Kuda village, in Li
SAM PANTHAKY/AFP via Getty
Hannah Knudsen

Women are the “primary victims” of “climate change,” twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said during a discussion Wednesday at the 30/50 Summit in Abu Dhabi, pointing to Ukraine as the prime example.

“Women and children are the primary victims of conflict and of climate change and there is no place that unfortunately, tragically, shows us that more dramatically than Ukraine today,” Clinton despaired to MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski.

“But there are a lot of other conflicts, a lot of other challenges that we have to take into account as we look at gender apartheid and Afghanistan. The persecution and oppression of girls and women exercising their freedom of choice in Iran and so many other places,” she continued.

It remains unclear how, exactly, the conflict in Ukraine demonstrates how women are “primary victims” of climate change, as the current conflict has virtually nothing to do with the planet’s cooling or warming patterns. It also remains unclear how fluctuations in the earth’s temperature — a phenomenon that has occurred throughout the history of the world — disproportionally impacts women:

During the discussion, Brzezinski also asserted that some of our “children and grandchildren have fewer rights than we had.” 

“Can you talk about the consequences of that reality as it pertains to women’s rights in America but also around the world?” she asked Clinton. 

Clinton asserted that progress is being made on a “range of issues” related to women’s rights but declared that the coronavirus had a “disproportionate impact on women and girls around the world.” Consequences, according to Clinton, include “increases in domestic violence, increase[s] in child marriage, increase[s] in unemployment”

“And we have seen organized pushback to the advancement of women,” she said, citing the Secretary General of the United Nations who said that based on current data, “it would take 250 years for women to achieve pay equality” post-coronavirus, according to Clinton:

Clinton’s prior focus on Ukraine comes as no surprise, as she praised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after his speech to a joint meeting of Congress in December, calling it “extraordinary” and akin to speeches offered by former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

“Their cause is our cause,” she said in December.

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