Lack of sensitivity to gender issues

Accomplishments and lessons in Tsunami Recovery - a sociological analysis :

by Indeewara Thilakarathne

As the country marks two years since the Asia Tsunami which wiped out entire communities and causing considerable structural damages amounting into millions, major stake holders and academics in the reconstruction process have undertaken a sociological study on the success and failures of the massive recovery effect launched by the Government, the INGO and International Community and end -use of the unprecedented amount of foreign exchange poured into the country since the aftermath of the calamity.

The study focused on cardinal areas covering almost all realms of human activities. It has also looked into the inherent institutional defects such as lack of accountability and transparency, especially in the areas of distribution of financial aid by the Government, NGO and INGO sectors.

Against the back drop of massive disaster, a policy brief which was presented in a Seminar organized by Social Policy Analysis and Research Centre (SPARC), Faculty of Arts of the University of Colombo, in collaboration with Action Aid International Sri Lanka, key areas of women's rights and participation, housing and resettlement, mitigating insecurity, livelihood development, accountability, transparency and corruption, central control and local coordination and public participation and/or consultation in the process of recovery, were addressed.

The policy brief has also presented a set of recommendations with strategies and rectifying measures that could be adapted in order to ensure transparency, public participation and minimizing corruption in a future recovery effect.

Women's Rights and participation in the recovery effect has also been discussed highlighting the issues of safety and security of widowed women and their daughters and young women who have lost their mothers. It has been pointed out that in the aftermath of the disaster, a large number of women became extremely vulnerable to sexual harassment and abused by criminal elements as well as male members of family and neighbours.

The study has also brought to light the fact that the non-availability of a gender segregated comprehensive data base with data in the areas of women who lose their lives, women in transit camps and those who are living with their relatives, number of widowed and their specific needs and that it has hampered the rehabilitation designs aimed at women and vulnerable groups, destabilizing their security.

In the major sphere of Re-settlement and housing, one of the major stumbling blocks was that state administrative mechanisms could not cope with the massive construction projects.

This inherent defect in the state mechanism was compounded by the policy dilemma of an exclusive buffer zone which not only delayed providing alternative lands for resettlement but also contributed to the spread of the idea among the Tsunami victims that it was created to facilitate transfer of coastal land to hoteliers.

Another factor that has been pointed out in the study and which hampered the reconstruction and resettlement process is the gulf between the vision and the capacity. In the aftermath of the disaster, many quarters were of the opinion that the tsunami was a blessing in disguise as it would offer an opportunity to construct mega cities with futuristic amenities.

The State could not materialize the mega projects as it both lacked capacity and the manpower to successfully carry out the projects.

However, in the process, feasible small ventures were completely neglected making the construction efforts extremely slow. This exercise has virtually undermined the effective re-settlement of victims and even after two years, still considerable number of tsunami victims remain in transit camps.

An expert opined that a comprehensive resettlement strategy should include three elements; paradigm shift, incremental building and cost effective technology.

Mitigating security

In this area, a very little attention has been paid to economic security of vulnerable groups including women tsunami victims who are traditionally engaged in small scale business such as fishing, weaving, handicraft, tailoring, small boutiques, catering.

These small scale enterprises substantially depended on micro credit schemes. In the recovery process, as the main concern was on the tourism industry and the micro sector which provides livelihood to large number of women who lost their livelihood during the tsunami was neglected.

This had an adverse impact on the self-recovery process of women as a result of their gaining little assistance from officials and others involved in the reconstruction. The situation by and large, resulted in lack of sensitivity to women's needs and cultural misunderstanding on the part of those who were involved in planning and implementing.

Therefore, it is essential to introduce measures such as micro-credit projects that assist rebuilding of economic security of women in tsunami affected areas.

Another major concern was sexual harassment by criminal elements and some times relatives of women and child victims.

Several cases of criminal attack on children have been reported during and after the tsunami with one particular case of burglary leading to a death sentence.

Many cases however, have not been reported to the law enforcement agencies and other relevant authorities.

The study has identified specific areas that have to be improved including measures such as law enforcement, awareness-building, rebuilding families.

However, it has been detected that women's vulnerability born out of structural causes such as poverty, cultural factors that limits women's ability to social mobility has to be addressed on a long term basis with a view to deal with future catastrophe.

Principally, two suggestions were made in the areas of ensuing the economic security of the women; ensuing women's employment and livelihood opportunities and safeguarding their properties such as jewellery, land and creating vibrant new social security networks in places of those destroyed displaced during the Tsunami.

Although there were shortcomings in the areas of transparency, vision, coordination, the livelihood of the majority of the tsunami victims who were fishermen in the coastal belt, the situation has been restored.

Professor S. T. Hettige of the University of Colombo identified the non-availability of gender segregated data, issues of security, lack of consultation with women who were affected in the areas of housing and loss of livelihood as a major lapses that hindered implementation of an effective recovery effect. He emphasized that data related to gender is imperative for the implementation of an effective recovery process.

Summing up of the issues discussed, the presentation of a Policy Brief by Prof. Hettige highlighted the equity issue in the area of resettlement, housing and quality of housing.

The socio-political aspects of re-settlement of communities, the tension between the host community and the new community and the distance, creating cohesive community with harmonizing social networks (intra-community relations, environment concerns) and security.

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Recommendations of the Policy Brief

1. To create a data-base with systematic and organized data on victimized women, entailing information on the number of women who were killed by the tsunami, number of displaced with detailed information on how many are in transition camps and how many are living with relatives and others, widows, information on immediate and long term needs and so on.

2. Protection provided by social networks and neighbourhood for women have been destroyed by the tsunami. Hence, rethink and create new mechanisms, which could deliver similar protection

3. Introduce measures such as micro credit projects, which suit the needs of women to speed the self recovery process.

4. Take steps to mitigate insecurity among vulnerable groups for instance enforcing the law and introducing awareness building projects.

5. Initiate projects that look at structural issues to deal with future catastrophe with long term goals.

6. Reexamine the counselling programs and other schemes introduced to address the psychological needs of the tsunami victims in order to improve the existing projects and introduce new ones.

7. Clearly define policies regarding various buffer zone and other restricted areas with clear and justifiable reasons.

8. Avoid forcing tsunami victims to resettle in socially, psychologically and economically irreconcilable places.

9. Formulate schemes to facilitate rapid resettlement of the victims.

10. Provide training and skills to facilitate and encourage sustainable livelihood activities.

11. Create mechanism to coordinate and monitor on going tsunami recovery projects.

12. Make development partners, both governmental as well as non governmental agencies accountable to authorities and the beneficiaries.

13. Make provisions to encourage accountability and transparency in the tsunami recovery process.

14. Consult people, especially beneficiaries in all tsunami recovery processes and make them partners of that process.

15. Strengthen the capacity of local government institutions by training personnel and conferring powers guaranteed by the constitution enabling them to take decisions at local level rather than dependent on the centre.

16. Build pools of experts in various areas in order to get the best possible solution for the unfolding events.

17. Public awareness campaign on good governance and a society free of corruption and rent seeking focusing on economy in general and the tsunami recovery in particular.