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International Disability Rights
MonitorDisability and Early Tsunami Relief
Efforts in India, Indonesia and Thailand

Anne Hayes, International Coordinator for the
International Disability RightsMonitor (IDRM
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International Disability Right Monitor (IDRM)

• The IDRM project is an effort to thoroughly and
  accurately report on the situation facing people
  with disabilities around the world.
• The goals of the IDRM project are to promote the
  full inclusion and participation of persons with
  disabilities in society and to advance the use of
  international humanitarian law to ensure that the
  rights of persons with disabilities are respected
  and enforced.

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International Disability Right Monitor (IDRM)

• The impetus of the IDRM grew from the negotiation
  process of the Convention for the Rights of
  People with Disabilities and the need to provide
  local disability advocates with the tools to
  independently monitor the situation of disability
  rights within their countries

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IDRM

• In general, we have access to very little
  information about the extent of the challenges
  faced by persons with disabilities
• The IDRM project addresses this gap by
  documenting the problems, progress and barriers
  experienced by people with disabilities in a
  coordinated, systematic and sustained way

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IDRM

• The IDRM research network that is responsible for
  these reports consists of local and regional
  researchers drawn primarily from the disability
  community. These advocates are then trained in
  research methodology.
• The researchers also form regional advocacy
  networks.

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IDRM Publications

• 2003- International Disability Rights Compendium
• 2004- Regional Report of the Americas
• 2005- Regional Report of Asia
• 2005- Disability and Early Relief Efforts in
  India, Indonesia and Thailand

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Future Publications

• 2006- Regional Report of Europe
• 2006/2007- Regional Report of Middle East and
  Northern Africa
• 2007- Regional Report of Africa

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Disability and the Tsunami

• Joint report with the United Nations Special
  Rapporteur on Disability
• The purpose of this special report is to provide
  information on the status of people with
  disabilities in countries devastated by the
  December 2004 tsunami that struck Southeast Asia.
  
• This report highlights the need of local,
  national, and international agencies to include
  people with disabilities in relief and
  reconstruction plans.

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Country Researchers

• INDIA, RITU KUMAR
• INDONESIA, CUCU SAIDAH
• THAILAND, PRAYAT PUNONG-ONG

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Why the Tsunami was a good test case?

• A large-scale humanitarian efforts including the
  major relief organizations
• The relief was well-funded
• Sphere standards were revised in 2004 to include
  disability.

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Country Backgrounds

• All countries had some sort of disability law
  prior to the disaster
• Limited and unreliable statistics on the number
  of people with disabilities in each country prior
  to the disaster. Therefore, it is difficult to
  assess the number of elderly with disabilities
  were affected by the tsunami
• None of the countries had an emergency plan that
  incorporated people with disabilities

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Results

• Difficult to know the new number of people with
  disabilities or the fatality rate of people with
  disabilities due to poor statistical systems in
  place pre and post tsunami
• People with disabilities suffered
  inproportionately in terms of survival and relief
  
• People with disabilities outside the formal
  systems of identification were largely excluded
  from relief efforts

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Results

• There was a lack of awareness among relief
  agencies concerning disability resulting in
  exclusion
• Communications (using multiple channels to
  communicate) was reasonably successful
• Mental health services in general were
  insufficient and retained a negative
  stigmatization
• Although some agencies have manuals or guidelines
  on how to incorporate people with disabilities
  into relief efforts, relief workers in affected
  areas were either not aware of them or simply did
  not use them.

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Results

• The majority of the short and long-term shelters,
  including latrines, were not accessible to people
  with disabilities
• Health care and food and water distributions
  often provided at the shelters, which were not
  accessible
• Although there was unprecedented amounts of funds
  that were raised to assist in the tsunami relief,
  these funds tended to primarily remain with
  larger NGOs and were not made available to
  smaller local, NGOs or DPOs

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Country Specific Information

• For specific information on each of the
  countries, please visit www.cirnetwork.org or
  contact Anne Hayes at ahayes_at_cirnetwork.org

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India

• 2.14 of population has a disability but
  disabilities leaders feel this is very low.
  Reason why include definitions, methodology and
  poor understanding of disability and lack of
  training of enumerators
• Its difficult to know the exact numbers of people
  with disabilities who have died as a result of
  the tsunami however, there is one case of a man
  who worked with 700 polio survivors prior to the
  tsunami. Post tsunami he could not contact a
  single individual after the disaster and presumes
  they are all dead
• Prior to the tsunami, there were only 4,000
  psychiatrists in all of India prior to the
  tsunami none of the 5 regional hospitals in the
  affected areas had a physiatrists on staff prior
  to the disaster greatly impacting mental health
  services and follow-up

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Indonesia

• UNESCAP estimated that 20 of people in the
  affected areas will have a physical or a
  psychosocial disability as a result of tsunami
  however, due to the lack of a central data
  collection center, it impossible to know the
  exact numbers
• Disability was never mentioned in any of the NGO
  coordination meetings
• IMO committed to 11,000 shelters, but the design
  of these shelters are not accessible (latrines
  also not accessible)
• The WHO has a policy to conduct outreach and
  provide services to vulnerable populations. When
  asked if they implemented this policy, the field
  representative did not know about the policy and
  stated that disability was too small of a
  population, guessing it was only 1-2 of
  population, and therefore not a priority. The
  WHO estimates that 10 of any population will
  have a disability.

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Thailand

• Thailand has a registration service that allowed
  to identify registered people with disabilities
  and provide them with services such as
  replacement for prosthetic devices and low
  interest loans to rebuild their businesses
• Those individuals not registered often went
  without services since most of the shelters
  within Thailand were not accessible.
• As of June 2005, most reconstruction efforts are
  not being made accessible. Disabled Person
  International is working to change that and wrote
  letters to government requesting that new
  buildings are made accessible but did not receive
  a response

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Recommendations

• Create concrete, disability and elderly related
  standards for relief workers as well as
  governments
• Capacity building for local level disability
  organizations and other representative vulnerable
  groups
• Awareness raising campaigns on the importance of
  inclusion of vulnerable groups in relief efforts
  at both the local and international levels.

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Recommendations (cont)

• Increase training of international agencies and
  relief workers to include inclusion of vulnerable
  groups in existing programs
• Improve coordination and collaboration between
  international agencies and disability
  organizations.

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Conclusions

• Its imperative to make sure that people with
  disabilities are no longer marginalized or
  ignored in both the relief and reconstruction
• The issue of rights lies at the root of
  humanitarian efforts following disasters and
  emergencies
• The right to life and personal security is a
  significant concern for first emergency responders

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Conclusion (cont)

• Reconstruction aims to restore the right to
  shelter, education and work.
• There is a lack of concrete, disability-related
  standards for relief workers. Although disability
  is included in the most recent version of the
  Sphere standards, it is in a very generalized way
  that may increase barriers to implementation.
• The continued exclusion of people with
  disabilities from the exercise of fundamental
  human rights both in the wake of disasters and
  more generally is a vital issue that needs to
  be addressed.