WUNRN
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09
December 2011 |
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Key note address in Japan by Dr. Sepali Kottegoda Chair, Asia Pacific Women’s Watch I would like to express my sincere thanks to the National Women’s Education Centre of Japan for inviting me to give this Key Note Address. It is an honour not only for me as Director of the Women and Media Collective, Sri Lanka, but also to the women of the Asia-Pacific region whom I represent as Chair of the Asia-Pacific Women’s Watch. As communities in
earthquake and tsunami-hit Women’s special vulnerability in disasters The need to mainstream gender within disaster management policies has arisen from the realization that not only were women among the most affected by natural and human-caused disasters, but that they were also the community requiring most support in the post-disaster environment since they bore primary responsibility for care of the young, the elderly, the sick and those living with disabilities. According to relief agencies, women and children are particularly affected by disasters: in addition to the overall impact of the disaster on the general community, the breakdown of infrastructure, displacement and isolation, collapse of familial and social support networks all specifically add to women’s burdens in their social roles, while increasing women’s vulnerability, especially to sexual and domestic violence. The loss of male bread winners and the male heads of household and/or livelihoods also contribute to increasing women’s burdens and responsibilities. A woman’s pre-disaster familial responsibilities and roles are magnified and expanded by the onset of a disaster or emergency, with significantly less support and resources for those roles. Women’s lack of skills - including literacy, especially in countries with less access of women to education - combined with their lack of experience in the public sphere, makes it difficult for them to engage with relief and emergency response mechanisms that do not pay adequate attention to these realities. Women are most present in areas of employment within the agricultural and informal sectors, which are often the worst affected by disasters; thus the rates of unemployment among women after a disaster are inordinately high. In the aftermath of a disaster, women are compelled to take on a central role within the family, securing relief from emergency authorities, meeting the immediate survival needs of family members and managing temporary relocation, among other matters. Temporary shelters allocated for those displaced by disasters often lack essential facilities and are overcrowded – e.g. there is often no privacy for women in bathing and toilet areas. Although the UNHCR Guidelines for Protection of Refugee Women explicitly stipulates the need to have separate covered bathing areas for women, along with adequate lighting and perimeter fencing to provide security and privacy, these Guidelines are often disregarded. Women’s experience of the Tsunami It is estimated that
80 percent of the deaths that resulted from the 2004 In the course of displacement and re-settlement after the tsunami, women faced a range of violations of their rights including physical and sexual violence. Many re-settlement packages, especially those aimed at restoring livelihoods, paid no attention to the specific nature of women’s work both inside and outside the home and related needs. Young orphaned women became victims of predatory men seeking to capitalize on their entitlements. The reconstruction of infrastructure took place without due consideration for the specific needs of women; this was particularly so in the case of the health infrastructure, where easy access is crucial for women. Consideration of the specific needs and concerns of women, was, we can safely say, very low on the agenda of planners and decision-makers. Women’s contribution to Disaster survival and recovery At the same time, what the tsunami experience made very clear to us is that women also constitute a valuable human resource in terms of disaster response. They have an intimate knowledge of their communities and the vulnerabilities and needs of individuals within their communities, which can provide an invaluable data base on which reconstruction and recovery programmes can be developed. Experiences such as ours in Sri Lanka have made it clear to all those working in the area of Disaster Management that in the context of disasters women are not only victims and survivors, but are also key actors in re-building communities in a sustainable manner. Thus, developing women’s capacities to mitigate disaster risks and harmful post-disaster impacts has become a focus area of work in disaster management. Post-disaster situations pose particular opportunities for women, as well as risks and dangers. According to experiences not only from the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 but also from Hurricane Katrina in the Caribbean and, the earthquake in Haiti, a key lesson learned has been that disaster response programming must be aware of the existence and impact of gender relations and gendered roles in society and within communities and, design and plan responses in a gender-sensitive and gender-aware manner. For example, one key learning has been the need to ensure that re-settlement and livelihood programmes do not strengthen and perpetuate male control over economic resources during a reconstruction phase in post-disaster situations. Ensuring women’s involvement and participation in disaster response planning programmes at every level has now been identified as a critical factor in enabling sustainable reconstruction after disasters. ‘Vulnerability’ as a gendered social construct In her pioneering work on disasters and gender, Elaine Enarson has pointed to the social construction of vulnerability to disasters, particularly on the basis of gender relations. Looking at the policy and research implications for using existing knowledge about gender, work and employment in the context of disasters, she has pointed to the dramatic increase in women's economic insecurity and in their workload that is a consequence of surviving disasters. The Gender and Disaster Network, in which Enarson and other practitioners of Disaster Response and Management collaborate, identifies some broad conclusions that should take precedence in our discussion on mainstreaming gender in disaster management: that both women and men have specific short-term needs and long-term interests in disasters; that women are key economic actors throughout the disaster cycle of preparedness, mitigation, relief, and reconstruction; and, that women's economic vulnerability to future disasters is increased by lack of attention to gender equity and equality in disaster interventions. Disaster Management approaches There are, broadly speaking, four types of disasters now identified in the field of Disaster Management studies:- 1. Natural: e.g. floods, hurricanes, tsunamis 2. Environmental emergencies caused by humans: e.g. industrial accidents that involve hazardous waste, oil spills, large forest fires 3. Complex emergencies: in the context of conflicts and wars 4. Pandemic emergencies: outbreaks of infectious disease Disaster Management calls for four levels of short-term and long-term interventions:- (1) Mitigation This includes risk assessment, prevention, reduction of impact, and long term measures for reducing or eliminating the potential risk from disasters. These could be both structural and non-structural measures. Structural measures could be, for example, flood levees while non-structural measures could be legislation, land use planning and insurance and, also the creation of policies and regulations pertaining to evacuation. (2) Preparedness This would be a continuous cycle, with the aim of minimizing loss of life. It would include communication plans, emergency shelter and evacuation plans, training in emergency response, and building community emergency response teams, especially in high risk localities. (3) Response Disaster response includes disaster relief operations, rescue operations, re-location, provision of food, treatment and prevention of disease and disability, repairing of essential utilities and services, providing temporary shelter and emergency health care. (4) Recovery Recovery from a disaster involves re-settlement, rehabilitation, and reconstruction. Modern disaster recovery approaches have adapted the principle of ‘building back better’. Relevance of Gender In each of these above-mentioned areas of intervention, gender mainstreaming calls for attention to be paid to existing social structures of gender relations, which result in the unequal status of women and the systemic and systematic discrimination against women that limits their capabilities and renders them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse of all forms. It calls for a specific emphasis on the participation of women in all processes which design and build programmes and policies for disaster management and mitigation as well as for disaster relief and response as well as post–disaster reconstruction. Effective gender mainstreaming in disaster management as well as in post-disaster programming also calls for legal and policy reforms that would transform gender relations in order to make them more equitable and to offer women guarantees for equality in dignity and in rights. In 2005, in (a) Governance: organizational, legal and policy frameworks (b) Risk identification: assessment, monitoring and early warning (c) Knowledge management and education (d) Reducing underlying risk factors (e) Preparedness for effective response and recovery. Pointing out that in the past twenty years over 200 million people had been affected by disasters, the Hyogo Framework declared that sustainable development, poverty reduction, good governance and disaster risk reduction were mutually supportive objectives for all states and an important element for the achievement of internationally agreed Development Goals including those contained in the UN Millennium Declaration. In Section III of the Framework, under the heading ‘Priorities for Action: 2005-2015’ the Hyogo Framework sets out ‘General Considerations’ that includes Paragraph ‘(d)’ that says: A gender perspective should be integrated into all disaster risk management policies, plans and decision-making processes, including those related to risk assessment, early warning, information management, and education and training. However, the Framework’s Section on ‘Priorities for Action’, mentions women and gender only twice: (a) with regard to ‘Early Warning’, calling for the development of early warning systems that are people-centered, in particular systems whose warnings are timely and understandable to those at risk, which take into account the demographic, gender, cultural and livelihood characteristics of the target audiences…’ and, (b) with regard to ‘Education and Training’, calling for ‘equal access to appropriate training and educational opportunities for women and vulnerable constituencies and for the promotion of gender and cultural sensitivity training as integral components of education and training for disaster risk reduction’. It is also significant that although the Hyogo Framework mentions the need to ‘empower’ communities and local authorities, it is quite silent on issues of community participation in decision-making and on the need for consultative processes in designing programmes and policies for recovery, relief and reconstruction. The challenge before us, therefore, is to ensure that policymakers, planners and practitioners bring a gender focus to the analysis of disasters and disaster response. Among key aspects that have been identified in terms of incorporating gender issues in disaster management and, mainstreaming gender in disaster management, are:
There are many examples of how disasters have enabled women to become active agents for change, transforming not only their lives but also the lives of their communities. The phenomenon of the female-headed household comes to the fore in disaster and post-disaster environments. Women take on roles that had previously been the domain of men, engaging with public officials and becoming breadwinners for their families. Women have also been successful community mobilisers, forming support and self help groups that negotiate on behalf of communities for the most advantageous benefit packages, for example. There is also the
emergence of significant numbers of widowers, as was found in tsunami
affected districts in In Given the currently predominant social and institutional orientations, disasters give rise to some dynamics and compulsions that could be critical factors that colour and constrain the immediate as well as long term disaster responses. Among these dynamics that emerge after a disaster occurs are:
A focus on gender mainstreaming in disaster management is therefore critical because otherwise, women will continue to be disproportionately affected by disasters. All those working in the area, whether in the field of study and analysis or in the field of relief distribution and emergency response, should recognize the specific needs and concerns of women in a disaster situation as well as the specific contribution that women can make to sustainable recovery and reconstruction. All disaster responses and interventions should be designed based on such a gender-sensitive understanding. The inclusion of a gender perspective in all norms and procedures established to mitigate and manage disasters is by now an absolutely essential component of the work in this area. Existing knowledge proves that women have been strong advocates for disaster preparedness measures at the community level because they understand what disaster means to the day-to-day realities of life. It is imperative that pilot projects should explore gender sensitive disaster responses during every phase from mitigation and preparedness to relief and recovery and to reconstruction. These processes should take place within an environment of open dialogue with at-risk communities and, also, encourage intra-community dialogue and collaboration. In all such situations, special attention should be paid to strengthen and support women’s leadership at the local and community level as well as at the national level. For this to become a success, training and capacity-building programmes for women before, during and after disasters is a prerequisite. In the end, for any disaster management programme to succeed in both the short term and the long term, it must be a part of an effective and sustainable development process which considers the needs and the potential contributions of women as well as men. As Enarson says, ‘…a community-based disaster preparedness and response plan that takes women’s physical, psychological, social and economic vulnerabilities into account will help to reduce women’s vulnerability to disaster overall. A plan that goes even further to recognize women’s abilities and include them in disaster relief efforts will help to change gendered beliefs about women. A gender-based approach to the study and analysis of natural disasters is essential in accomplishing this goal. |