Learning from Women for a World in Crisis

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Learning from Women for a World in Crisis

• Maureen Fordham BSc PhD
• Northumbria University
• Disaster and Development Centre
• Maureen.fordham_at_northumbria.ac.uk

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Lets begin here

• Why show a picture of donkeys?

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Lets begin with a story

• given to me by Tess Sprayson, who is a vet (and a
  student with our MSc) who has just carried out a
  needs assessment in Samburu District in Kenya

VetDMI -Veterinary Disaster Management
International
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Tess story

• Tess I went to the village elders to ask
  permission to be in their territory, no problem.
  Discussed with men and elders problems in donkey
  health etc.
• The Men Yes, some problems. Yes, we lost a few
  donkeys...
• Tess I went to the women ...
• The Women Yes, we've had a terrible time.
• Tess Where are the donkeys? Working?
• The Women They're all dead. We have lost them
  all during the famine and then as the rains came.
  
• Tess But the men said you only lost a few
• The Women What do the men know? They haven't
  even realised that all the donkeys have been dead
  for the last six months. We are now the donkeys.

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So what is the relevance to our topic?

• The donkeys, and the work they do, were invisible
  to the men and to the outside humanitarian aid
  workers
• This is largely due to the donkeys association
  with women, who are also often invisible
• As Tess says It is not really surprising
  interventions go wrong or are inappropriate when
  nobody asks the people who are primarily
  involved!

http//www.animaltraction.com/4_3experiences_.htm
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Women, doing the donkey work

• Women in many parts of the world walk many
  miles, carrying heavy loads to fetch water for
  the households use
• This invisible work supports the livelihoods
  and the very existence of the household
• Without the donkeys, women will have to take time
  out from other productive activities
• This situation is all too common

http//www.itdg.org/?idideas_for_life
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Learning from women and girls

• What happens when women and girls can access
  education and training?
• What happens when women and girls are active
  partners in disasters and development?
• What happens when you listen to, and learn from,
  women and girls?
• And what happens when you dont?

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This presentation case studies of vulnerability
and resilience

• Examples of women and girls at greater risk
• but also
• Examples of women and girls
• challenging socio-cultural norms
• setting up post-disaster enterprises
• leading communities
• as active rescuers
• as managers of emergency shelters
• Being active in disasters as they are in their
  everyday lives

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Disaster data in 2005

• According to WDR 2006 (reporting on 2005)
• The death toll from natural and technological
  disasters in 2005 was 99,425 above average for
  the decade
• The number of disasters was up 15 from the
  previous year
• 161 million people were affected by natural
  disasters down from the decade average of 250
  million
• The cost of natural disaster damage was
  US160billion more than double the decade
  average Hurricane Katrina accounted for three
  quarters of this

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Disaster headline data whats missing?

• Indian Ocean, 2004 227,000 deaths in tsunami
• Pakistan/Kashmir, 2005 73,000 earthquake dead
• USA, Gulf Coast states, 2005 More than 1,300
  Katrina-related deaths have been reported across
  five states
• Sierra Leone, 1999 A nine-year campaign against
  the government has left thousands of people dead,
  mutilated or dismembered and displaced many more
  within and outside the country
• USA, Chicago, 1995 Heatwave - 739 excess
  deaths
• UK, 2005 Five people were feared dead after
  floods and gales cut a trail of devastation
  across northern parts of Britain and Ireland

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What we dont hear about -Differentiating
amongst the category victim

• Men and women (girls and boys)
• Of different ages
• Of different social classes
• Of different race/ethnicity
• Of different physical or mental ability
• Of different sexual orientation

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Disaster headline data

• Indian Ocean, 2004 tsunami
• Pakistan/Kashmir, 2005 earthquake
• USA, 2005 Hurricane Katrina
• Sierra Leone, 1999 conflict
• Chicago, 1995 heatwave
• UK, 2005 floods and storms

• Four times as many women died in the tsunami
• 17,000 children were killed in the Pakistan
  earthquake
• In Katrina, there was initial silence about the
  race/ethnicity of the victims. It still is not
  widely recognized that there were major gender
  issues too
• It was a long time before it became publicly
  acknowledged that the Sierra Leone conflict
  entailed massive sexual violence primarily
  against women
• While elderly women were thought to be the main
  victims, men were twice as likely to die
• Virtually nobody collects sex-disaggregated data
  in disasters. In Europe the gender dimensions are
  almost totally ignored

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Discriminating disasters and disaster management

• For all
• Disaster types
• Countries/cultures
• Disaster stages
• Stages in the life course
• The experiences of women and girls are often more
  severe and yet less visible
• Paradoxically, our understanding of mens
  experiences as men and not universal categories
  is less well understood

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Paradoxically, our understanding of mens
experiences as men is less well understood

• Certainly, men suffer in disasters
• But men as men do not face the enormous
  barriers and inequalities which women do simply
  because they are women
• In any situation, men generally start with
  greater advantages
• However, men face their own socially constructed
  roles and expectations which may also place them
  at risk
• The main focus for this presentation is on women
  and girls why?

Photo Pakistan Red Crescent
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Why is there so much of a focus on women in
gender and disaster work?

• Compare it to someone arguing for the inclusion
  of the rich in a poverty debate
• It is like saying, why does everyone focus on the
  poor all the time when the rich also have
  problems in disasters?
• Gender means power relations between men AND
  women males do also deserve to be included in
  any debate/study in their own right but the
  overwhelming evidence is that females, across the
  world, across classes and cultures, are
  disadvantaged in disasters as they are in
  everyday life
• That is why they get the coverage they do
• It is a question of equality and justice

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Gendered representations in disasters

• Men shown as active
• Disaster management militarized
• Focus on technology, command and control
• Women as passive victims
• Helpless and inactive
• Waiting for help from others/outside

www.honduras.com
The Guardian
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Some examples from my own research

• October 2005 earthquake in Kashmir/Pakistan
• October 2005 Hurricane Stan in El Salvador
• Floods in Scotland 1993/1994
• Conflict in Sierra Leone
• Many other examples could be given
• See The World Disasters Report 2006 - Focus on
  neglected crises http//www.ifrc.org/publicat/wdr2
  006/index.asp
• Chapter 6 - Please don't raise gender now
  were in an emergency! by Maureen Fordham,
  Madhavi Malalgoda Ariyabandu, Prema Gopalan, Kris
  Peterson, Elizabeth Edna Wangui

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October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan
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In the early stages of response, a large
proportion of dead and injured
IFRC
were estimated to have been women and children
IFRC
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And yet, what do you notice about these images?
IFRC
IFRC
IFRC
IFRC
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The disaster made worse by poor management

• Where disaster relief was delivered by men from
  outside the home/community/country and channelled
  through men,

• women could not avail themselves of it without
  incurring dishonour on the family
• General lack of awareness in international relief
  workers of the cultural context in Pakistan
  with some exceptions

IFRC (Photo credit) hygiene promotion teams work
with female volunteers to educate local
communities
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Made worse by poor preparation and planning for
vulnerability reduction

• There was a lack of female workers and volunteers
  within Pakistan
• Social norms for women throughout Pakistan, but
  particularly in the remoter mountain regions,
  left women with few opportunities to access
  livelihood opportunities when male family members
  died

Catholic Relief Services distributes supplies in
Purri, outside Balakot. Photo USAID
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But there were also more positive examples

• In camps
• Ashiana Shelter for women and children a women
  and child friendly space no men allowed,
  security guards on the gate, the result
• unlike other camp settlements, where families
  tend to huddle together in scared clusters, young
  girls and children run freely through the area,
  vying for a turn on one of the swings, and women
  sit outside in the sunshine mending clothes or
  knitting (15 December 2005, IRIN)

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Rare examples of what might have been

• Out of disaster comes opportunity
• Female Committee in Muzaffarabad, established by
  UNHCR. For most of the women, this is the first
  time they have aired their problems in a public
  forum. 'God caused the earthquake and it has
  brought a lot of destruction, but it has shaken
  the roots of society and has brought change into
  women's lives and has given us a voice (21
  February 2006, IRIN)

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Rare examples of what might have been

• Employment
• ILO employed women to be responsible for
  cleanliness of a tent village in Balakot
• Piles of unsuitable donated clothes were being
  burned to keep warm - ILO helped women to cut the
  cloth into pieces and sew them into quilts. This
  was successful and the women then started to get
  orders
• Good examples of context specific, culturally
  appropriate disaster management

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October 2005 Hurricane Stan in El Salvador
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Community organization for disaster and
development

• Many women in El Salvador have been helped by
  Plan International to set up and join local
  community committees
• These communities have few resources other than
  their members own knowledge, labour and
  commitment to cooperative working. These helped
  them save lives in Hurricane Stan

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San Alfonso, El Salvador

• Marta García, the community leader
• We went through some very bad worries in Stan
  and were still living through them. The river is
  a risk here. Right now it looks harmless but the
  river is a traitor. The latrines collapsed,
  houses were damaged, we dont have drinking water
  and have chronic diseases.

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The problem is the water

• One of the mothers says
• The problem is the water. It is contaminated and
  we dont have any other choice. For us it really
  hurts to see our children so badly affected. Here
  we had women who lost their jobs because they had
  to stay at home and tend their children. People
  said, I dont care about the job, I dont want
  to lose my children.

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Miss Teresa Rivera says in Mitch we were not
organized

• In Mitch we were not organized we were like
  crazy bees after the beehive is shakenafter
  Mitch we learned to get organized. Now in Storm
  Stan we have that experience and all houses were
  evacuated in time.

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Women active in organizing

• Marta, the community leader says In spite of
  what we have gone through we are better
  organized. When we have an emergency we know we
  can count on each other. We have various
  committees support, sanitation, emergency
  here in San Alfonso. We know what our goal is and
  our purpose.

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Girls were also active in Hurricane Stan

• We organized the shelter. Others were surprised
  that the youth were organizing the shelter. We
  ran the shelter for one and a half months. 23
  families and 30 children were sheltered here
  (Cindy)
• Cindy, the President of the School Emergency
  Committee, and two fellow students are credited
  with rescuing a woman and her child from a house
  where the husband/father refused to leave. We
  saw a child was at risk. We begged them to leave
  the house.
• A landslide buried the 7 year old child to his
  shoulders but the committee members pulled him
  out. The house later collapsed.

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Two more examples in brief
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Floods in Scotland 1993 and 1994
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Relief provision after disaster also lacks gender
awareness in the developed world

• Fifty families were housed in a caravan/trailer
  park for nearly a year during reconstruction of
  flood damaged houses in Scotland
• There was 50 caravans/trailers and one washing
  machine, so it was pandemonium trying to wash
  everything for the kids

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When women complain about their post-disaster
situation it is often interpreted as a problem of
individual psychology

• For a working class woman household head in
  Scotland, living with the after effects of a
  flood leads to depression for which the doctors
  answer was tranquilisers. However, she saw the
  solution in organized action
• I thought I can do two things. I can just sit
  and worry about it all the time or I can get
  myself involved. And I thought, right, just get
  myself involved. And it escalated from there.
• She joined a flood action committee to campaign
  for the needs of her community and changed her
  life in the process

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Conflict in Sierra Leone
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Widespread sexual and physical violence against
women and girls

• During the ten year civil war in Sierra Leone,
  women and girls were targeted by rebel forces,
  raped, gang-raped and forced into sexual slavery
• They were also at risk of further abuse when
  fleeing to, and when living in, refugee camps
  having to travel to unsafe areas to find food,
  water and firewood forced to provide sexual
  favours in exchange for food for themselves and
  their children
• Even the peacekeepers were guilty of exploiting
  women

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Who will protect us from the protectors?
Physical and sexual violence against women in
relief/refugee camps

• a hyper-masculine culture that encourages
  sexual exploitation and abuse and a tradition of
  silence have evolved...This culture has produced
  a tolerance for extreme behaviors such as sexual
  exploitation and abuse. This boys will be boys
  attitude will continue to taint the debate until
  approaches to sexual exploitation are changed to
  reflect the fact that sexual exploitation and
  abuse are primarily problems of abuse of power
  that merit disciplinary action, and only
  secondarily problems of sexual behavior.
• Martin, Sarah 2005 Must Boys Be Boys? Ending
  Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in UN Peacekeeping
  Missions. Washington, DC Refugees International

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One form of community reconciliation and
recovery

• Plan International have supported the creation of
  childrens radio in Sierra Leone
• Girls have an active role in the healing process
  Moyamba District Children's Awareness Radio
  (MODCAR)

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Not just Sierra Leone, not just conflict

• There are many other examples of women and girls
  being targeted in conflict Darfur is a current
  case
• But physical and sexual violence are not confined
  to conflict situations they are to be found in
  all disasters as recent research shows

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What do all these women and girls have in common?

• They are all women who have been impacted, not
  just by disaster but by socially constructed,
  gender-based inequalities that deny them
  opportunities to actively manage their own and
  their familys situation.
• Our view of women and girls as dependent and
  subordinate is reinforced by media stories which
  represent them as weak, passive and in need of
  rescue.

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Commonly seen forms of gender discrimination
around the world pre-disaster

• Violence physical and sexual against women
  and girls
• Lack of land and property rights
• Lack of economic assets and opportunities
• Fewer social assets
• Lack of political power
• Skills with little/no market value
• Less education

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Commonly seen forms of gender discrimination
around the world disaster management-generated

• No gender-disaggregated statistics
• Male dominated disaster management and response
• Few women participating in decision making roles
  at any stage of disaster
• Womens needs unrecognized or dismissed
• Reproductive health needs unmet
• Camp design puts women and girls at risk

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Women and girls are not just victims they are
also active managers and organizers

• Sometimes we women dont know about our
  strength. In emergencies we have the opportunity
  to test ourself and become not just womenIt
  was us women who dared to go in the canyons,
  going after the victims. It was us women who took
  the elderly out of the house.
• Marisol Carmen Arevalo of La Laguna Municipal
  Civil Protection Committee, El Salvador

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Little England El Salvador, committee members
and visitors
Yuola (Health and WatSan Committees) We used to
live in a very uncomfortable way, now we are
free. Now we are organized
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When women join together it can change their
lives and change the lives of others

• These examples show the close relationship
  between disasters and development
• Some women have organized around disaster
  management and then progressed to development
  issues
• Others have done it the other way round, starting
  with development and using that as the basis of
  organizing around disasters
• Some communities in El Salvador have worked on
  both disaster and development from the start
• All have been strengthened by the process

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Women in El Portillo

• The other day when I went to another village and
  I was invited to speak about our committee and I
  did. Now I feel comfortable speaking in front of
  people
• I learned to have my own ideas

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Marisol Carmen Arevalo

• Maybe we women are not used to share our
  experiences but I am going to dare to sharemy
  husband is not keen on me attending committee
  meetings and I had problems going out to assess
  damages but I delivered food aid in Hurricane
  Stan. We cooked for families and we gained
  strength in doing good. In Hurricane Stan I was
  doing home visits to my neighbours despite mud
  going up to my knees but I realized we had to
  save them. We understood that we are important in
  a committee.

...It was us women who dared to go in the
canyons, going after the victims. It was us women
who took the elderly out of the house.
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Conclusions and Recommendations

• We must examine disasters through a
  gender-sensitive lens
• Be alert for the ways in which gender stereotypes
  and gendered power relations at every scale,
  interfere with equal rights for women and men,
  girls and boys, to meet their specific needs
  during and after disasters, and in disaster risk
  reduction generally

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We already have good models for

• Womens active involvement in disaster risk
  reduction
• Gendered relief and response
• Women friendly spaces and structures for womens
  equal inclusion in camp management and decision
  making
• Womens equal partnership in post-disaster
  reconstruction
• We must ensure these are mainstreamed into
  training so that they become automatic in future

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The Gender and Disaster Network www.gdnonline.org
for more resources
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We must have higher aspirations for women and
girls

• These examples should have indicated the
  transformative potential of gender fair training
  and education
• This should not be special pleading
• Gender rights are human rights

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• Too often, the management of disaster fails women

http//www.voanews.com/english/2005-in-Review.cfm
Voice of America, Kashmiri women reach out for
relief
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I have learned from these women

• I hope you have too
• Thank you for your attention

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A short video on community based disaster risk
reduction and response

• When the sun shines again from Plan
  International www.plan-international.org
• A short report on what happened in Hurricane Stan
  in October 2005