22 Gender Issues in Disaster Management

Dr. Lubna Siddiqui

Objectives

• To develop an understanding of gender differences and prevailing inequalities
• To understand gender issues arising out in a disaster situation
•  To explore the possible solutions and the best practices to address gender issues in disaster management.

    Rationale

Many studies have suggested that gender equality and disaster resilience is closely interrelated. Disasters often affect certain genders specifically and reinforce the gender inequalities already prevailing in the society. The module aims to provide an outline of the gender issues in the context of disaster management and the best practices to be followed.

Learning Objectives-

Unit 1 – The idea of Gender and relegation of female gender as unproductive

Sex is the biological characteristics of male and female while gender refers to the socially constructed attributes of being male or female. The idea of gender is shaped by ideological, religious, ethnic, economic and cultural factors. Gender roles define the behaviours, tasks and responsibilities that a society considers appropriate for each community. Thus gender shapes the social and cultural expectations from an individual based on their sex, the rights and powers available to them, and often determines the opportunities available. For instance, in some of the societies, women are attributed with the role of meeting domestic needs while men take part in formal cash earning jobs. Whereas, in other societies both men and women can join the workforce and directly contribute to household income without any inhibitions. This is an example of gender differentiated roles in different social and cultural settings.

It is a biological fact that women are the primary care giver of children due to biological attributes. But the social construction of gender, in many societies has associated women primarily to the household and men with economically productive activities. Predominantly men have been associated with the productive and public interactions, while women have been considered as private and associated primarily with reproductive functions. This constricts the exposure and interaction of women within the household, leading to their dependency on the male members for external activities. This is particularly applicable in patriarchal societies. In few societies, women’s education is considered unnecessary considering the fact that their interactions with the external society is minimal. Even their presence in the public space is looked down upon. This increased dependency on their male counterparts for the simplest part of activities. With the emergence of market oriented economy, women’s role in the household left them further dependent on the male members of the household. For instance in an agricultural household, men are often involved in selling the outputs. Women though involved in many intermediate activities, like planting of saplings, post-harvest tasks like harvesting, cleaning, storing etc., these are not separately accounted for and the net cash received flowed through men in the family. It has relegated women to a status of inferiority and continued dependency while their male counterparts enjoy a position of authority.“Discrimination against women happens because of a series of complex interconnected factors; like the gender blind structure of the labour markets, agricultural innovations which miss to recognize women labours, land and asset ownership policies etc.” (Harriss, 1990). These factors affect the financial independence and access to productive resources, which ultimately reduce the decision-making capability of women within and outside the household.

Gender equality applies to both genders having the liberty to develop their own abilities, make their own choices, identify their own responsibilities and have equal opportunities not limited by gender stereotypes, gender roles or prejudices. Their rights, responsibilities and opportunities should not get determined by their sex. Gender inequality predominantly impacts negatively on women and the third gender.

Gender and Disasters

Studies have shown that how gender, race, ethnicity and poverty reduce resilience and exacerbate vulnerabilities (Fothergill & Peek, 2004). High vulnerability of individuals, households or societies often translates into compromised resilience to disasters. Agencies operating in disaster scenarios identify women as a “vulnerable group” (Wiest, Mocellin, & Motsisi, 1994; Office of the United Nations High Commisoner for Human Rights, 2009). Adolescents, pregnant women, lactating mothers, the disabled, and the aged make up particularly vulnerable groups in emergencies. Additionally, studies find women to be disproportionately affected by disasters.The root cause of women’s vulnerability to the adverse impacts of disasters are lack of access to the resources such as income, education, health and social networks which is governed by the intra household dynamics (Bradshaw, Fordham 2013). Women’s limited control of resources which is a cultural aspect. Thus, women are more vulnerable to disasters due to societal and intra household gender discrimination inequality and inhibiting gender roles (Office of the United Nations High Commisoner for Human Rights, 2009; Krishnamurty, 2001; Jones, 2005).

Unit 2 – Gender issues in disasters

The combined effect of the gender differences and inequalities imply that men, women, boys and girls face different forms and levels of exposure and vulnerability to natural hazards. The effects and impacts of disasters and the individual and institutional response mechanisms adopted by different genders are also different. Thus the gender differences in disasters arise as an outcome of biological and socio- cultural factors which engender roles and behaviours of an individual within a community.

The key gender issues that are observed in context of disasters are:

Nutritional, Reproductive and sexual health concerns – Women go through multiple life phases like pregnancy and lactation periods. These phases create differential needs in women, primarily from nutritional and health care perspective. In the aftermath of a disaster and during the disaster event, addressing these requirements becomes a key concern. Life cycle differentiated food products and non-food items are often not available post disasters. This becomes a serious concern for women residing in relief camps for longer durations or women residing in areas affected chronically by floods. In time of disaster, absence of sufficient food would result in women and girls being the primary victims (Wiest, Mocellin, & Motsisi, 1994). The shortage or absence of food items results in the reduction in the food share of women/ girls, whereas larger share of foods are enjoyed by men and boys that ultimately results in the increased incidences of malnutrition among women. (Brown, Deshpande, Hill, Lambrou, Marina, &Ragasa, 2009).

In many cultural regimes, traditional practices and customs are observed at the time of child birth to ensure the health and well-being of both mother and the child. The environment of the temporary shelters does not allow such practices to be held. On the contrary hygiene becomes a severe concern in the camps. In most cases pregnant women lack access to suitable obstetric care and have suffered miscarriage or delivery in unhygienic/unsafe conditions.

Social stigma related to menstruation and sexual health is another major concern. The need for faster mobilization of resources often obscures the needs which are equally important but less visible. Without careful planning and sound understanding of the local context, often the relief provided is not appropriate and equitable. Women and minority groups often have lower representation in social, economic and political power spheres. But in post disaster scenarios, these are often the sectors which are the key points of contacts and decision making for relief personnel. This leads to missing needs of the vulnerable groups. In the relief products, materials like sanitary napkins, women’s undergarments and condoms are rarely provided, which subject women to compromise their sexual health.

These concerns continue even after the emergency phase is over. In the aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami, it was observed that “women underwent operations to reverse tubal ligations with recanalisation surgery” to enable them to have children again. This was as a result of the massive life-loss in the disaster. The increasing trends of underage marriages among girls are also observed in several disasters especially where female mortality is higher than male mortality in disasters.

Inaccessible or poorly designed relief shelters – Often relief shelters are located in locations inaccessible to women due to physical vulnerability. In such situations women depend on their male counterparts to access relief support during distress conditions. Pregnant women, elderly, differently abled and woman headed households without adult male members face specific difficulty in such situations. The only available food is the stored food items , food provided by neighbours/relatives or food provided in door to door distribution.

Shelter Issues –

The female members of the community may be reluctant to seek shelter in temporary camps because of shared communal facilities which do not have separate, private spaces for women. Often the partition between the living spaces of different people is flimsy, which hinder the privacy of women. This is particularly applicable for pregnant, lactating mothers and menstruating women.

Access to clean and safe washroom is another key concern for women. In the absence of clean washrooms, women are often exposed to different diseases or are forced to defecate in the open, compromising the cleanliness of the place. This also dissuades many to take shelter in relief camps.

Mortality Rates – Mortality rates show a gendered pattern across different hazards. While it is observed that in the Indian Ocean Tsunami or the Latur Earthquake, a high percentage of women died, in certain other hazards like Cyclone Mitch or thunderstorm deaths, high percentage of male death was reported.

This can be largely attributed to the gender differentiated roles of the two sexes. In Indian Ocean tsunami, the physical inability to climb trees or swim became the constraint. Attire of women was also blamed for their inability to swim. In the Latur earthquake, the women communities were indoor while the earthquake occurred which led to large no of female deaths. The same is applicable for Gujrat earthquake 2001, where women involved in household activities indoors got affected by the building collapses. On the contrary, a high death percentage of men were observed in Cyclone Mitch in 1998. This was attributed to the societal concept of masculinity and the gendered role of men as the protector of the family which often compelled them to take up risks to protect the family, community or property. Even in thunderstorms or industrial accidents in India, the death percentage of men is much more than that of women. This is because men are traditionally involved in outdoor activities which expose them to such risks.

Limitation and restrictions on mobility – Cultural constraints on female mobility often hinder self-rescue. There are regions where women need to be accompanied by men when they are leaving home. In such cases women may hesitate to leave the house without the permission of male even after receiving hazard information or early warning. The Western idea of gender relations and position of women in the society does not hold in South East Asia due to differences in ethnicity and cultural peculiarity. These creates multiple hindrances while the western approach is taken up in disaster management.

Inherent vulnerability –Poverty is considered as the primary factor influencing vulnerability. It has been observed that poverty has a gendered dimension and around 60 percent of the poor people consist of women. Additionally, women are often considered as helpless victims in disasters due to their dependent status. Lower literacy rates, lower levels of schooling or training, lower decision making capability and lack of resource control become a key concern post disaster. In many instances women and girls face difficulties in access to recovery and relief assistance as they are not the household heads. This is applicable to livelihood provisions also. This again causes further disempowerment of women leading to cyclical impacts.

Increased abuse and violence

Child abuse and neglect, intimate partner violence, sexual molestation, forced marriage, child marriage, and sexual exploitation and trafficking see a hike after disasters. Due to the high concentration of people in a limited space, security gets compromised and women are largely exposed to demands for sexual favours, rape and other forms of sexual and physical abuse in camps and other temporary shelter arrangements. The paths to toilets, dark spaces etc. are particularly vulnerable in this context. Tents made of thin material are often cut using knifes or sharp weapons to get access in camps housing single women. After El Salvador earthquake in 2001, single women requested sheeting for temporary shelters which is opaque and strong. In the translucent sheet, shelters were easy to notice when the women are alone and it can be easily cut with machete. Many women were raped in such shelters. (ALNAP, 2003).

Domestic violence also witnessed sharp rise post disasters. After cyclone Aila, in many households heightened tension and increased incidences of domestic violences were observed. These led to high concerns of security and safety of women post disasters.

Unfamiliar Gender roles

    After a disaster, women often become the household head in case of infirmity or death of the male member. Unfamiliar to the public space, women often face multiple difficulties in performing the financial support functions and outdoor activities. At the same time, when traditional support networks are damaged, workloads may increase in terms of taking care of children, the infirm, the elderly and people with functional limitations or disabilities. Men on the contrary often find themselves engaged in tasks done predominantly by women in case of death/disabilities of female counterparts. Childcare and household labour are largely unfamiliar territories for men and often they struggle to manage these along with performing economically productive functions.

Women’s participation in DM

Disaster management as a sector is treated largely as a male domain. This often leaves the gender concerns unheard with little focus on the female constraints and concern. The lower women participation in the disaster management processes can be attributed to the societal constraints. The lack of participation also results in their reduced access to warning information, poor ability to respond and leads to the development of imperfect coping strategies. Additionally the knowledge and capacity of women remain largely underutilised in disaster management phases due to their non-participation.

Poor Disaster research

Gender concerns in disaster is under-researched which results in their slower adoption in policies and guidelines. This is particularly evident for the concerns of the third gender.

Thus it is extremely necessary to address these impacts to develop societal resilience to hazards.

Implementing gender sensitive approach will minimize gender differentiated impacts of disasters, build a resilient societies and lead to the proper utilization of the post disaster window of opportunity.

Case study – Indian Ocean Tsunami

A study by Oxfam suggested that after the Indian Ocean tsunami, in Banda Aceh (Indonesia), as many as four women died compared to one man. This discrepancy can be largely attributed to the fact that women were largely unaware of swimming or climbing trees. Some other studies stated that women stayed back to look after their households, children and elderly which resulted in their higher death toll. After the Tsunami, the trend to marry off women early to have children was observed to compensate for the life loss. This resulted in having children closer together which had implications on the education, nutritional security and health of the children. In many cases, the relief and livelihood provisions were provided only to the male members of the family as they were the household heads which created dependency. Thus the pre-existing gender issues were escalated by the tsunami and the gender differentiated effects of disaster management processes got highlighted.

Third Gender – Challenges faced

The severely neglected aspect of disaster management is the integration of the third gender in different phases of disaster management. Discriminated and excluded in the normal social interactions, the third gender face severe difficulties in the aftermath of disasters. Being less studied and understood in disaster research, their needs are often unrecognized. IFRC has recorded their observations that often their death and losses remain unrecorded in disaster statistics, their differentiated needs are not acknowledged, and they are stigmatized in ways, which result in minimizing their access to normal channels of information, warning or communication. In many cases they are dishonoured and their presence is not accepted in different phases of disaster response, recovery and mitigation. Though there is limited literature on needs and challenges faced by the third gender, one illustrative example is provided below:

In the aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami, many belongings to the third gender did not find place in the temporary shelters. They were not registered as beneficiaries for relief and they faced stigma which dissuaded them from enlisting in the beneficiary rolls. This forced them to experience acute hunger, homelessness and sexual violence. Many had to sleep in open areas and were gang raped several times. Their livelihood needs stayed largely unrecognized in the response and rehabilitation process, due to lack of supporting documents and loss of livelihood assets available with them. One study indicates that common shelters for transgender communities would have provided a sense of security and helped in the prevention of some of the trauma that the third gender faced (C Pincha, 2008). Similar issues were noted in Kosi floods, 2008, where the third gender community incurred severe losses like other gender communities , but institutional assistance was not provided.

Unit 3 –Guidelines and standards to address Gender concerns in disaster management

There are many approaches and guidelines developed to address gender concerns in disasters. In this module, we have elaborated the IFRC guidelines on Gender Sensitive Approaches for Disaster Management.

Disaster Response –

1. Emergency Needs assessment

Data on age, gender and diversity of affected people to be collected during emergency needs assessment.

Separate interviews to be conducted with sections of affected men and women to identify and understand the relief needs before planning for relief assistance.

Gender and Diversity balance in the needs-assessment and interventions by the response teams should be ensured as in some of gender specific cultures, women can only talk to women.

Possible need to protect vulnerable men and women, including those from ethnic minorities or who are older or disabled needs to be identified. The safety of these groups needs to be rigorously monitored, reported on and advocated.

2. Beneficiary registration and relief distribution systems

     It needs to be made certain that procedures for relief registration and distribution do not accidentally exclude women or vulnerable and marginalized groups or individuals, for example households headed by women, the disabled or trans genders. Beneficiaries should not be registered solely based on male heads of household.

Both men and women needs to be consulted with and sought their feedback in order to ensure the contents of relief packages actually meet their respective needs and are socially and culturally appropriate. Preferably this should be done as part of disaster preparedness planning and pre-stocking of relief items.

3.  Emergency response teams

Both male and female health personnel need to be provided, especially when cultural norms may not allow the examination of women by male physicians and when women’s mobility may be restricted.

4.  Appropriateness of relief items

Gender and culture specific needs for community to be taken into consideration.

Items (condoms and midwifery kits) and information that meets both men’s and  women’s  reproductive  health  needs  should  to  be  included  in  relief assistance,  including   protection   against   HIV/AIDS   and   other                    sexually transmitted diseases. Pregnant and lactating women have special needs for ensuring adequate milk production and for other crucial nutrients and vitamin supplements that can be incorporated into family or mother and baby assistance packages.

Counselling on domestic violence and alcohol abuse prevention needs to be included when providing psycho-social support. This support should be sensitive to the needs of some men for help coping with changes in their gender roles, i.e. caring for young children after loss of a spouse.

5. Provision of Safe shelter and WASH requirements

Emergency and transitional shelters and support services (toilets, water supply, lighting) should be designed, that are responsive to the socio-cultural and economic needs and preferences identified by both affected men and women, and keep in mind privacy and safety considerations.

Secure doors and adequate lighting can be important factors in safety.

Cooking, bathing and toilet arrangements also need to be adequate, safe and culturally appropriate. This requires participation by both male and female beneficiaries in designing such facilities.

If it is not possible to provide individual household sanitation facilities, then bathing areas and toilets are best segregated by sex. Female and male bathing areas should be placed at some distance from each other and near areas with adequate lighting.

Whenever culturally necessary, women’s bathing and toilet areas should also include a separate area for washing and drying menstruation cloths.

Kitchens should be adapted to local food preparation customs.

Disaster Recovery

1.  Recovery Assessment

A full gender analysis needs to be conducted as an essential component of recovery needs assessment.

The team conducting the needs assessment needs to be gender and diversity balanced.

2. Housing and WASH

Women and men from all the social and economic groupings should be fully involved and consulted within the affected communities when making decisions about the repair, design and location of new housing and community infrastructures, such as water and sanitation facilities and community halls.

Local participation needs to be encouraged in physical reconstruction including the hiring of women and providing them with training in construction-related skills.

3. Strengthening livelihoods

Livelihood needs of both men and women needs to be recognized and considered in the rehabilitation and recovery phases, especially those women who have lost their husbands and are now heading the family.

4. Health concerns

Both male and female health personnel needs to be used to meet ongoing health and rehabilitation needs, especially when cultural norms may not allow women to be examined by male physicians, and when women’s mobility may be restricted.

Accurate information on different roles women and men play in contributing to the household’s food security or income, whether as family members or heads of the family needs to be obtained, and livelihood recovery activities that meet the needs of both should be designed.

Housing, cash or food based assistance (home reconstruction, cash or food for work, cash grants) should be designed, that provides opportunities for both vulnerable men and women and ensures that those without land title, such as squatters, unregistered migrants, and female heads of household, are not missed. All persons must be paid fairly and equally for performing the work.

Disaster Preparedness and Mitigation –

Practical strategies can include spreading awareness of a “culture of safety” and promoting attitudes that favour such a culture, as well as advocating for laws, government policies and incentives for risk reduction measures.

1. Mitigation activities

A systematic gender analysis needs to be carried out of the different roles responsibilities and socio-economic status of men, women and other household members in needs assessments. A focus on diversity issues must be included in the analysis, such as the situation of men and women who are poorer, ethnic minorities, elderly, disabled, etc.

Men and women from diverse groups needs to be actively involved in the planning, design, construction, and maintenance of mitigation works.

Both male and female capacity in activities such as risk mapping must be strengthened to enable gender perspectives of risks and vulnerabilities to be identified through processes such as VCA.

2. Early warning systems

Involvement and engagement of both genders should be promoted in community-based early warning systems to ensure procedures are sensitive to both female and male needs, including privacy, security and adequate protection of valuable assets like livestock, in communal shelters.

3. Knowledge and information transfer and communication system

Existing local organizations should be collaborated with and strengthened that represent women and diverse groups in order to encourage community participation, either in the promotion, planning or implementation of the programme.

Full participation of local female and male volunteers should be ensured in identifying at-risk areas, groups and individuals and in developing community-based early warning systems that use the local tools and knowledge of both men and women.

4. Advocacy

Proportional representation of women and men from diverse groups should be promoted in the decision-making process of community-based disaster risk reduction and preparedness activities to ensure that the social, cultural and economic gender aspects of risk reduction are being addressed.

Local government officials and community leaders should be educated and advocated with to fully involve women and men, as well as marginalized groups, in disaster management activities and decision-making.

Case study:

After the 2005 Pakistan earthquake, over 8000 community and lady health workers were mobilized under the Lady Health Worker programme. Local women were recruited and mobilized along with mobile health teams to serve remote areas. They delivered health care for minor ailments and conducted immunization camps. Special attention was provided to maintain the reproductive health services in their communities. As a result of this effort, the mortality and morbidity rates after the disaster were significantly lower than what was expected (A Dimitríjevics, 2007).

Challenges to mainstreaming gender sensitivity in Disaster Management

Poor understanding of Gender-DRR linkages at conceptual and practice levels, especially at national level that lays down guidelines and policies

Lack of genuine political accountability and financial resources for global advocacy and action on gender and DRR

Lack of institutional and individual capacity and tools to mainstream gender and DRR

Summary

Gender roles define the behaviours, tasks and responsibilities that a society considers appropriate for each gender. The combined effect of the gender differences and inequalities imply that men, women, boys and girls face different forms and levels of exposure and vulnerability to natural hazards. The key gender issues that are observed in context of disasters are:

Nutritional, Reproductive and sexual health concerns, Inaccessible relief shelters or poorly designed, Issues with Shelter, differential mortality rates between genders, Limitation and restrictions on mobility, Increased abuse and violence, Unfamiliar gender roles, Poor Disaster research and participation of women in Disaster Management, lack of recognition of third gender.

There are guidelines developed to address gender concerns in disasters which must be utilized in disaster management.

References

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