Paper long abstract:

Climate change has extensive effects on many facets of our existence, including our food systems and interpersonal interactions. The food system is one area where climate change and gender-based violence (GBV) interact however, there is paucity of studies on the links between climate change, food systems and GBV. In this article, we examine the relationship between climate change, food systems and gender-based violence, highlighting how these interrelated concerns can affect individuals and communities, particularly women and girls. We adopted a systematic review method, searched five databases including Web of science, Scopus, Science direct, Pubmed, EbscoHost using key pre-defined search terms up till December 2022. We identified 2,615 articles of quantitative and qualitative studies alongside grey literatures from key organisations. 26 eligible articles that investigated the relationship between climate change, several nodes of the food systems with links to GBV, were included in this review. We found that most articles domiciled within the grey literature, a handful of research and review articles were published before the COVID-19 pandemic. Our review demonstrates the knowledge frontier on the interconnectedness between climate change-food systems and GBV, bolstered by systematic social and patriarchal structures that enable and normalise GBV, and the direct and indirect pathways in which the trio combine and influence the wider community. Furthermore, we discuss how this complex interaction may reinforce a vicious cycle of food insecurity and further trigger extreme climate change in the long run. The review's findings could help to design sustainable, GBV-sensitive policy framework for food system transformation.