The impact of water insecurity on women’s wellbeing in South Africa

This article examines how chronic household and community-level water insecurity affects women’s physical health, emotional well-being, and personal safety in South Africa’s informal settlements. The study focuses on women living in the informal settlements of Shawela and Wedela, where basic water and sanitation services remain unreliable and unevenly distributed. Using a qualitative research design, we conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with thirteen (13) women aged 18 and above and analyzed the data using thematic analysis to characterize the pathways linking water insecurity to health and safety outcomes. The findings show that water insecurity heightens women’s exposure to sanitation-related disease risks, reinforces heavy care and hygiene burdens within households, and generates persistent emotional distress, including fear, anxiety, and feelings of neglect by the state. Insecure and irregular access to water and safe sanitation also compels women to walk long distances, queue at unsafe times, or use secluded open spaces, thereby increasing their vulnerability to harassment, theft, and gender-based violence. For South Africa, this study demonstrates that progress towards water security cannot be assessed solely in terms of technical service coverage, but must also account for gendered indicators of safety, mental health, and everyday insecurity in informal settlements. More broadly, the article advances scholarship on water insecurity and gender by providing context-specific qualitative evidence on the multiple, intersecting pathways through which water insecurity reproduces gendered vulnerabilities in low-income urban settings.