EMELI Sande opened up today, on International Women’s Day, about the impact the climate crisis had on her family in Zambia – and said women are often disproportionately affected.

The singer spoke out as she joined stars including Natalie Dormer, Sandi Toksvig and Nicola Coughlan at the #March4Women event campaigning for climate justice and gender equality.

The rally, held in London, is organised by the social justice organisation CARE International UK. This year the event was focused on the women and girls who are responding to the climate crisis.

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Sande said: “My heritage is Zambian and I have a lot of family over there, all my dad’s family are in Zambia, and just over the past year I’ve been reading about how the climate crisis has really been affecting lots of sub-Saharan African countries, Zambia included in that, and often it’s the women who are already [victims of] social injustice and are already up against so much, they are being left completely vulnerable in this crisis.

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“I think that was another reason that I really wanted to get involved because I don’t think the media has really covered it to the extent in which it should be, the emergency a lot of people are finding themselves in, I think more people should be aware of it.”

As well as a focus on the climate crisis, the thousands of attendees at the #March4Women event called for equal rights and an end to period poverty. Sande, who grew up in Aberdeenshire, added: “I think just having all the women together and us all being able to communicate and network with one another and show physical presence and really demand what we think is fair, I think it’s so essential that we can do that and it goes beyond just one day.

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“There are so many appalling injustices that women face around the world and just kind of raising my voice for this day is wonderful and then if we can echo that throughout the year it would be really powerful.”