CASE STUDY 11
Community-Led Feminist Climate Action
Pakistan
Context
Baithak operates primarily in Sindh, a province facing severe climate-related challenges, including heatwaves, flooding, and water scarcity. These environmental crises amplify existing vulnerabilities—particularly among women, girls, and trans individuals who already face inferior infrastructure in climate-impacted rural areas. The 2022 floods– one of the country’s worst-ever climate disasters– deepened these inequalities, affecting 33 million people, including over 8 million women of reproductive age and 650,000 pregnant women.
Organization
Baithak is a feminist, community-rooted organisation with the mission to create safe spaces and platforms for community-led advocacy and dialogue around issues of bodily autonomy, sexuality, and health—especially in under-resourced and marginalised areas. They focus on dismantling stigma around menstruation, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and gender-based violence while integrating climate justice. During the 2022 floods, they leveraged their model to include SRHR resources during climate crises.
Approach
Inspired by traditional baithaks (communal gatherings), they create women-only safe spaces for dialogue, healing, and dismantling stigma around SRHR and GBV. The 2022 flood crisis became a key catalyst for Baithak’s shift into intersectional work at the intersection of climate, SRHR, and emergency relief. Previously focused on stigma-breaking education, the flood crisis catalyzed Baithak to shift its focus to direct climate emergency relief and intersectional work. They transformed their pre-existing networks of feminist community gathering spaces into community-powered hubs of frontline response for women’s health, including the distribution of emergency menstrual and pregnancy kits.
Baithak has also been actively working on flood response in the recent 2025 floods in Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Besides delivering menstrual and delivery kits, the team has been on the ground in hard-to-access areas, creating safe spaces for girls and women to voice their concerns and needs regarding their SRHR and mental health, providing emotional first aid to affected communities, and conducting in-depth assessments of gender-specific needs in disaster-hit areas. Their work has impacted the lives of over 500,000 young girls and women in 48 districts across Pakistan.
Results to Date
Their work has impacted the lives of 500k+ young girls and women in 48 districts across Pakistan, including AJK and Gilgit Baltistan.
Facilitated feminist, community-led disaster relief after the 2022 and 2025 floods in Pakistan; delivering menstrual and delivery kits, safe spaces for women and girls, emotional first aid, and assessments on gender specific needs in disaster-hit areas.
Advocated globally at CSW, AWID, COP28, and UNGA for gender-responsive disaster planning, emphasizing that menstruation, reproductive care, and emotional safety are essential—not optional—in emergency responses.
“This was a turning point. We couldn’t just talk about stigma—we had to meet people in the crisis with what they needed to survive.”
AYESHA AMIN
Founder & CEO, Baithak - Challenging Taboos
PDF Resilience Rising: Case Studies of Impact at the Climate-SRHR Nexus Across South Asia