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Gender inequality in the comprehensible disaster risk management. An introduction.1 Cecilia Castro García Abstract This article emphasizes the importance of one of the perspectives less considered in most of the studies and policies about risks and disasters, that is, the differentiated experiences lived by men and women during the occurrence of a disaster, as a result of their gender. The paper also discusses another kind of differences, such as social, economical, generational, racial, ethnic condition, or linguistic performance, which became inequalities and inequities during the occurrence of disasters and, in general, during each phase of the comprehensible disaster risk management as part of development policies, where prevention / mitigation work and emergency relief, as well as post-disaster rehabilitation and rebuilding are included. The ignorance of those differences caused the reproduction of inequities and new disaster risk sceneries, reducing the scope of influence of any program or project related to disaster prevention. Resumen En este artículo se destaca la importancia de una perspectiva poco trabajada en la mayoría de los estudios y políticas sobre riesgos y desastres: la experiencia diferencial que viven, en virtud de su género, hombres y mujeres en situaciones de desastres. Del mismo modo, se analizan otras diferencias –condición socioeconómica, generacional, racial, étnica o manejo lingüístico- que también llegan a convertirse en desigualdades e inequidades durante tales las situaciones y, en general, durante todas las fases de la gestión o manejo integral del riesgo de desastre como parte de las políticas de desarrollo, lo cual incluye tanto el trabajo de prevención-mitigación y ayuda de emergencia, como la rehabilitación y la reconstrucción. La ignorancia de tales diferencias conlleva la reproducción de la inequidad y el desarrollo de nuevos escenarios de riesgos de desastres, con la consecuente reducción del alcance de los proyectos y programas vinculados a la prevención de los mismos.

Introduction On this paper I will try to link the gender equality perspective2 with the perspective of comprehensible disaster risk management, both of them as integral parts of a process of development much more democratic and sustainable. I’m only introducing some studies on natural and socio-natural disasters experienced by different societies during the last two decades which make specific allusion to differential and particular experiences of men and women during the different

1 Published in spanish on: Revista de la Universidad Cristóbal Colón, No. 20, Tercera época, Año III, Veracruz, Veracruz, 2005 Traduction to english by Emilia Reyes 2 Gender perspective includes the analysis of social relations, whether these are inter-gendered as well as intra-gendered, private and public, personal, in group and collectives, intimae, sacred, political amongst many others. Civil and governmental institutions are responsible of achieving a certain degree of consensus to the order of gender, and in that sense institutional mechanism for social coercion in order to sanction those who violate norms, duties and gender limits become fundamental from our point of view (Lagarde 1996). Gender equality seeks, then, to modify cultural structures that enhance inequalities in power relations based in the construction of diverse roles that subordinate women in societies.

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phases of the process of the comprehensible disaster risk management, whether because of natural phenomenon or Hazards –which are sudden and unexpected, that is, that cause immediate damages- such as earthquakes, land sliding, floods, volcanic explosions, or, dangers engendered on a slow beginning, that is to say, whose damages develop in longer periods but with catastrophic results as well in several parts of the planet, such as environmental degradation, desertification deforestation, drought, famine, amongst others (Demeter, 2004). On this paper I do not present specific cases of disasters induced by direct human acts, known as anthropics. In the first place, I’m assuming that disasters do expose existent inequalities in a certain society, and this is valid for gender issues as well as for any other issue on power relations –socioeconomic and political, including intimate relationships- and in any other territorial ambit: global, national, regional or local (Enarson y Morrow, 1998:2). One of those evident inequalities is that of the gender roles, culturally and historically assigned by distinct societies to men and women in virtue of their biological sex, what forces us to recognize that

“gender is a social construction, [that] gender is not an eternal an unmovable imposition (…)[but] is the result of history, of education, of the immersion of each subject into its society, or the result of the action of each individual as an agent of history, and therefore it is not possible to sustain a general and absolute statement (…), [but it is necessary to acknowledge that] Gender ascribes roles, dictates norms, guides in every act, accentuates differences, construes dissimilar experiences and, for reasons not quite explained yet, imposes inequalities” (Reyes, 2006:2)

Therefore, gender roles propitiate a generic division of work, assigning the women a main journey with tasks linked almost exclusively with domestic reproduction, such as being wife and mothers, that makes them responsible of the caring of others, whether these be infants, ill people, the elders and the disabled. All this set of factors places women in a situation that allows them less mobility to seek and find resources and limits them for an academic and professional career and the development of their professional non-traditional skills (Collins 1995; De Beauvoir, 1989; Rubín, 1986). In a situation of disaster, this generic difference directly impacts on the development of participation of women, for in spite that women do spend most of their time in caring and house administering tasks they also have a greater disposition to carry on a double and even a triple journey of daily work: salaried, political or syndical activism, and as a volunteer on their communities, which is not always fully acknowledged or valued. The needs of men and their interests tend to be more assertive and visible and, even though most of the men fulfill a one and only work journey, they do oppose a strong resistance to commit and to participate in domestic tasks, of feeding and caring their families and other members in their communities. This is due to the little value assigned to domestic reproduction within the hierarchy and division of work in a society with patriarchal values. In the second place, I have to make clear that, traditionally, disaster management

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has been mainly focused to those activities of attention during the emergency and the immediate recovery after a catastrophic disaster, including the previous immediate preparation. However, in the recent years the conception of disasters has modified, and they have begun to be considered more and more as a result of complex social multi-causal processes, which, in turn, are a consequence of vulnerable pre-existent conditions socially construed through time in a specific territory, exposed to the impact of a natural, socio-natural or directly socially induced danger or threat (socio-organizational, technological, chemical-sanitary, among others) (Garcia, 1997:8-13), whose consequences cause damages and considerable deaths on the population, its socio-political organization, its economy and its construed or biological environment. Thus, disaster management is nowadays only a part of the comprehensible disaster risk management, and this conception comprises an institutional, multi-sectorial and interdisciplinary handling addressed to take preventive and corrective actions to overcome and anticipate the sole preparation for emergency and immediate answer, all of that with the purpose of strengthening the capacity of a specific society to face dangers and to reduce existent and future vulnerabilities in the prevention as well as in the reconstruction (Demeter, 2004). This last phase, reconstruction, is also -as the preventive phase- of vital importance because it is here where the reconstruction of old vulnerabilities or new risks should be avoided. However, we can say that gender differences in academic as well as in the normative literature and in the institutional action linked with prevention-mitigation of risks and disaster management, have been rarely studied, highlighted and attended in their right value. Most of the studies with gender perspective have been developed by academic feminists for Asian and African cases, and a few less for Centro America, but most of them are in English language and are rarely known among its region of study (Gender, Equality and Disaster Risk Reduction Workshop, 2004); but for Mexico there are practically no studies, and is not even considered on the official literature, so there is still much to evaluate on that regard. I share the vision of the Network of Social Studies and Disaster Prevention in Latin America (La Red, 1992:11) when they consider that disasters are a non-solved problem of development, as well as that disasters are not a problem of nature per-se, but in fact a problem between what is natural and the structure and organization of society and development processes. On that sense, comprehensible disaster risk management requires, in order to be effective, to be part of comprehensible development plan and programs, of territorial, economic and political planning in local, regional, national and international ambits. It is so because risks and vulnerabilities enlarge more and more in dependent societies. These societies are immersed in a process with inherent patterns of an economic and social development that is capitalist and globalized market oriented, characterized by its inequalities and for being predator of environment, reproducing poverty and economic and political dependency in rural and urban communities in countries that are addressing towards a more profound underdevelopment. Comprehensible disaster risk management contemplates then two phases: ex ante the disaster and ex post the disaster. Within the previous phase to disaster, ex ante,

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four different and interrelated components are included: a) identification and analysis of risks, b) risk prevention, reduction and mitigation, c) transference of risk or financial protection, and, d) disaster management during preparation and emergency alert. Let us see now how the differential experience has been for men and women; and also in regard with the unequal impact disasters have had due to socio-economic class, race, ethnic belonging, among other conditions, in different parts of the process, starting with the tasks prior to disaster. Ex ante disaster phase Identification and analysis of risks On this phase we require an analysis of individual and collective perception of disaster risks and of risks because of disaster, as well as of social representation and the objective estimation of risks calculations that include probability and estimate losses. We include here register and mapping of the location and the characterization of the local people (differential, accumulated and global capability and vulnerability), of the conditions of goods and urban, regional, infrastructure, as well as of the register of the frequency, severity and intensity of minor and larger events historically recorded in a specific territory that have ended in disasters, and, finally, risks scenarios that are likely to turn into a future disaster. To exemplify the importance of perception and representation of risks, I will mention that if a community has not faced calamities and has no information and conscience on the risk it faces with possible Hazards, it is possible that it may not follow evacuation orders because they do not understand the magnitude of the disaster risk, like in the recent case of flood in the cost of Mississippi and Alabama caused by Hurricane Katrina, in August of 2005, where, besides misinformation to the population, the American government gave proof of a profound feeling of clasism and racism by not sending transportation means to evacuate the immense black and latin population with low income, who had no way out of the city of New Orleans. On this city with 500 thousand inhabitants, 70% of the population is black and 25% of them are in poverty, without a car of their own and no money to pay for hotel rooms and private buses to leave the town, and that is why they could not evacuate on their own or they took too much time to arrive into distant shelters disposed by authorities on stadiums, which turned out to be terribly saturated and with serious failures in the supplies in sanitary services and food, violating the norms of aid developed worldwide during the last decade (see www.sphereproject.org). New Orleans’s Superdome was evacuated after its saturation because it didn’t had the conditions to host 25 thousand surviving people, who were driven by bus to the Houston’s Astrodome, causing a huge chaos (see “Shame of a nation” in Daily News, 2005; Nossiter, 2005). Only 350 thousand of the 500 thousand inhabitants of Jefferson Parish in New Orleans left prior or immediately after the initial impact of Katrina on August 29th. The rest did it progressively in the successive days and in really difficult conditions, that could have been avoided with a fine program of prevention. Those who could not evacuate and could not leave the city, died. Approximately a thousand deaths were

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of elders, disabled people on wheel chairs and those who thought that they weren’t running any risk; on the other hand, some elders died by dehydration because of the suffocating tropical heat and the lack of food at the shelters, as well as on some roads and houses that were isolated by the flood. Officially, the loss of human lives did not coincide with the 25 thousand bags for the disposal of dead bodies immediately requested by local authorities –fortunately-; however, this tragedy do force us to face the issue of socio-economic-racial inequality, since the racial and social class factors are silent indicators of who were the ones that lived to tell and who weren’t, in a city built under the sea level and was submerged after the strength of the hurricane Katrina destroyed the protection dikes, causing the flood. Dikes weren’t strong enough because of their lack of maintenance to its system of regulation and because of the dashing of the water by the rise of the water level.(See Egan, 2005; González, 2005; Brown, 2005). Risk prevention by means of reducing vulnerabilities The phase of prevention would have to include a proactive approach in order to ensure the development of policies containing measures allowing the reduction of vulnerabilities and consider a comprehensible management of natural resources. In order to diminish the possibility of a risk becoming a disaster, we definitely need to change the risks scenarios. The following formula expresses briefly the elements to be considered when diminishing disaster risks; the modification of each component will necessarily affect the rest of the other elements considered:

Disaster risks= Vulnerabilities + Hazards +Capabilities

When wanting to identify and reduce disaster risks we must evaluate, identify and analyze existent, differential and accumulated vulnerabilities, and to go to the roots of the causes in order to eliminate them, modify them or reduce them (Demeter, 2004). There are different vulnerabilities in the face of disaster risks depending on the existent capabilities or resilience of individuals and their societies to face, deal and recover from a crisis. Such resilience capacity is a consequence of a complex interaction of social, political, economical and ideological practices on a locality, including the access to private, public and social resources (Blaikie et al., 1994; Cannon, 1994; Wiest et al., 1994). Among the main causes that increase or sustain on a society social, economical, physical and environmental existent vulnerabilities in the face of a disaster risk, I will detail some of the ones discussed at the on line forum of the “Comprehensive Disaster Risk Management Framework. Natural Disaster Risk Management Program” (WBI y EPC, 2004) directly related to governmental policies addressed to the development of a society:

1 Unstable political situation on the forms of government and social participation, which inhibits citizen’s and communities’ integration and

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participation in democratic processes of development and in the diminishing of disaster risk.

2 Failures on the protection of human rights and social justice, resulting in sustaining gender inequalities linked with other forms of social inequalities: class, race, ethnic belonging, erotic preference, generational, historic and cultural context and language.

3 Basic needs unsolved, sustaining generational poverty in great sectors of society: access to quality housing, health and educational services, supply of food, potable water, mobility and communications, amongst others.

4 Dependence on foreign markets and weakening of inner production and its market, increase of local unemployment and shortage, low training of labor force.

5 Low profile in public and private education, insufficiency in governmental and private support for scientific, technological and social research, which perpetuates dependency in resources and technology; insufficiency in resources and knowledge generated locally or regionally; preexistence of functional analphabetism; loss of cultural goods, specially in indigenous communities.

6 Poor putting into practice of environmental laws and of urban development, and/or its factious use by economic or political interest groups; environmental degradation by human actions in rural and urban zones, contributing to break climate cycles of regulation, thus diminishing the natural protection against hazards or threats, causing deforestation, loss of biodiversity, reduction of water supply and desertification.

7 Fragmented, not comprehensible, territorial and administrative planning; and incorrect or not applied zoning of urban and rural land uses; inadequate building codes and poorly applied on zones prone to natural and man made hazards; limited orientation to the best functioning of the real estate and property market and not to the habitability and quality of the constructed space: constructions built without the security or quality required for living (low cost building materials with low durability)

8 Migration, urban over-population and accelerated urbanization without the control of sustainable resources; urban and rural poverty, increase of human settlements placed on risk and irregular zones; insecurity on the ownership of land and other properties

9 Lack of education and wide information on civil protection, mitigation and disaster risk prevention; lack of safety mechanisms against economic losses, like insurances on goods and lives; insufficiency in institutional mechanisms on risk and disasters reduction, including the maintenance of built spaces and sustainable management of natural resources; lack of early warnings and monitoring, amongst many other factors.

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Minimize and mitigation Risk Comprehensible disaster risk management also requires of a holistic and historic approach, so that disaster may be seen as an opportunity to change processes, as a platform to legitimize and build possible and needed social, political and economical changes in order to diminish disaster risk and therefore vulnerabilities in communities (Demeter, 2004). However, such change must come, necessarily, by organizing the efforts of civil society along with governmental support. Members of a society must realize task to strengthen it so it can resist the negative impact of natural, environmental and technological dangerous events by taking into account preventive measures to diminish the impact and the intensity of a hazardous event, as well as reducing present and future vulnerabilities by means of mitigation plans clearly determining who, how, when, what and where to work, enhancing social above economic or political profits. In general, public policies are still formulated without careful consideration for asymmetrical power relations based on gender, and there is a tendency to keep women invisible by means of a supposedly neutrality, silencing women’s successful adaptative experiences and strategies, and this is no different in the comprehensible disaster risk management. Within the so called neutrality, hard facts, non-disaggregated by sex, do not let us see that women and children are the majority of the victims during disasters, although it is a fact we by now know. That is why we must include the difference of gender while doing all data collection in disasters, such as recognize the work done by men and women in the transference of adaptative strategies in all the different groups and community based, support scientific research with gender perspective always assuming the existent traditional knowledge and the development and transfer of new knowledge and technologies, as well as the link between the management of natural resources with the management to reduce disasters (See Enarson, 2000; Rochelle, 2005:1). Risk transferring Since governmental resources are always insufficient in comparison to what is needed to repair the great damages caused during disasters, it will always be better to reduce vulnerabilities and develop capabilities in order to avoid them in communities and in the governmental areas. That is why risk transference tries to reduce financial risks through transferences of funds ensuring the disposition of budgets for repairing of damages, reconstruction and maintenance, specially to avoid the consumption of regular resources for development in the rehabilitation and the emergent reconstruction, thus avoiding the weakening the economy of local government (Demeter, 2004). The methods of transference refer to a market of capitals, insurance and reinsurance industry, title of ensured risk, catastrophe bonus, and risk retention. The risk is transferred and assumed by different sectors, such as the owners of housing and mortgage sector, small business and corporations, and those responsible for the infrastructure of public supplies and services. In general, there are not much statistics on this matter, and, of course, there is still no gender differentiation on this field.

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Preparation This phase includes the ex-ante measures immediately prior to disaster, addressed to improve the capacity of a quick response in order to save lives and goods. It also includes systems of early warnings, plans to attend the contingency, evacuation and the establishing of shelters and refuges (Demeter, 2004). During this phase it is really important to make use of existent experiences and knowledge from local women and men in order to optimize present resources and to know the developed capabilities that may be useful in other phases of the comprehensible disaster risk management. In the ex-ante as in the ex-post the disaster phases, it is important to avoid every resources agent or administrator to interpret gender equality in to his own way, and thus interfere with an inner coherence in the programs, that is why it is necessary a national strategy on gender equality involving the different ambits of the government and its relation to the damaged communities. Institutional support must be comprehensive in the entire national ambit, so that the need to use gender equality does not become a small and isolated project, since the failures at national level may become useful many local communitarian initiatives (ACDI, 2003:4). Ex post disaster phase Ex post or posterior to disaster phase includes: a) emergency response and relief, b) rehabilitation and recovery, as well as c) reconstruction. Emergency response and relief On this phase posterior to disaster, we must mention that disasters ill handled may detonate crises and latent social changes, protagonized by the most affected population, who lives immersed on unequal relations. Shortage as a result of a collapsed market and the lack of immediate response may also bring robbery, lack of order and law, violent conflicts and armed self-defense or violent episodes that may force a governmental militarized response, with curfew bells not always desirables. The immediate response to emergency requires response measures to rescue and save all the possible human lives, not forgetting the animals, because generally animals’ survival, whether these are pets or wild, and this contributes to the loss of biodiversity on the planet. The response must be sensitive to gender equality and social diversity, and, as well, to those conditions of inequality of income, age, race, culture and ethnic belonging, language, amongst other factors, during the evacuation and during the supply and install of temporary shelters, the psychological and medical assistance to the males and females affected population, as well as the males and females operative technicians who do their field work restoring transportation and communications (Demeter, 2004). Several studies acknowledge that psychosocial support is essential in rehabilitation activities, since it allows people going back to its economic activities in a faster way. Gender equality is decisive to achieve efficiency in every action in the comprehensible disaster risk management, but it requires the modification of unequal power relations in gender

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roles. It is imperative that the efforts should be addressed towards the proper attention of needs and interests of women as well as of men. On that sense, Gender and Disaster Network states that during the posterior period of a disaster, women should contribute in the decision making and participate in all the community consultations, especially in those regarding emergency shelters and/or temporary camps, in order they are made according to their needs. They should also have the right to cultural opportunities so that they may practice their traditional religious practices. Prevision and supply of basic products to victims on shelters (food, clothing and potable water) should be made in accordance to gender equality since, for instance, there is no unique size to fit all men and women, there are specific cultural needs and wishes that should be respected and, thus, clothes should be culturally proper. In shelters, women and men are vulnerable to acquire sexually transmitted diseases or HIV/AIDS, as well as non wanted pregnancies, so provisions for sexual protection; family planning and reproductive health; contraceptives and medicines against sexual diseases; sanitary pads and underwear; enough privacy and safety to use them rightly and without risks, are indispensable. Pregnant women and those who have had a recent labor must also have access to specific help, including alimentary supplements for themselves and their babies. Women have capabilities as well as vulnerabilities, and many of these are different than men’s, that is, there is a social construction of gender vulnerabilities and capabilities that are hierarchical and unequal, granting greater privileges on men, not acknowledging nor crediting any value on women’s contribution. That is why it is vital that women are not seen as vulnerable per se, but that we acknowledge that certain unequal conditions and situations do place specific groups of women in situation of social disadvantage and vulnerability. This is the main reason why men and women do not stand on equal basis on a disaster, do not react in the same way and do not have the same access to resources for recovery (Gomariz, 1999:60). For example sexual exploitation and women’s and children’s trafficking pre-existent on several Asian countries came to light during the post-tsunami tragedy (Macan-Markar, 2005). It has been proven in many cases that women, female and male children are victims of sexual harassment and abuse, not only during the rescue or their staying on camps or shelters, but even during reconstruction; this is something that needs to be widely researched, understood and rectified (“Sri Lanka, Activists warn of tsunami survivor rapes”, 2005). Thus, they must be protected against human trafficking, and they should benefit from a complete guarantee of security against sexual abuse and extortion. Also, women’s exploitation for food or roof for their children and themselves must end. Unfortunately, it is known that cases of rape and sexual abuse are not officially reported if there is not a support network. In order to avoid abuse, women should be able to have access to support, so that they may have an income from the programs of economic recovery, as well as the support to exercise a paid work (Gender and Disaster Network, 2005a). Until very recently, researchers considered that natural disasters made no discrimination on their victims. However, recent research has shown that the rates of mortality are higher on women than in men’s, according to the report from

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Kumar-Range (2001), at least on cases such as tsunamis, cyclones and hurricanes (Ikeda, 1995; Enarson and Morrow, 1997), droughts and famines (Vaughan, 1987) and earthquakes (Dufka, 1988). Another example is the study of Enrique Gomáriz (1999:194) on Hurricane Mitch in Centro America, since he mentions that the incidence of deaths was greater in men because they participate the most on activities of rescue and search, and because they had a greater tolerance to risk; however, in the case of women, they showed a greater number on hospitalization and pre-hospitalization attention, as well as a pronounced ill attendance on sanitary affections, like vaginal or skin infections. In the case of Mexico there are no public statistics gender disaggregated data collection to permit us know if women, men, elders, children, or disabled are the most affected, who are the damaged survivors or the fatal victims by region or locality, which, in general terms, makes it more difficult to determine the specific needs by gender, as well as a better attention and prevention. It is known, for instance, that famines registered on Bangladesh causes men migrating to cities, where apparently they have a greater life expectation than the feminine, infantile and elder’s remaining population at rural zones (Langsten, 1982). In the tsunami that damaged the Asian costs on December 2004, by each dead man four women died. This is due to cultural reasons, since traditionally women are not taught to swim, and mothers over-expose them selves to save the infants and to accomplish their responsibilities their task in the caring of the elders, the sick and disabled. But also because of discriminatory practices, by their placement on the cost in the moment of disaster, as well as by factors that kept them from a greater physical mobility, such as being pregnant and using clothing that allowed them little movements, or get stocked on the ruins of buildings, as it was reported on the district of Cuddalore in India, in Aceh, Indonesia and in several camps on Sri Lanka. On Indonesia it is known that many men were involved on a local guerrilla and, at the time of the tsunami, were placed inland in high zones, which helped them not to be exposed (Aglionby, 2005; Sukarsono, 2005). A sociological study on the gender dimensions in the periodic floods in the north of Bangladesh shows that women on that country have strong cultural restrictions of mobility limited to the territory occupied by their domestic farm:

Women are under a lot of pressure due to the “purdah” practice, the traditional use of not leaving the house while their husband is away. If their husband is not there to go with her, she cannot go on her own to a shelter in case of a cyclone… and many husbands work away form home. Usually, after a cyclone, women are alone in their damaged houses, outside of the reach of aid services, unable to take part in the decisions to rehabilitate their community…” (Domeisen, 1997:3)

But a lot of women have also spontaneously mobilized to help their affected relatives and neighbors, escaping from floods and cultural norms that limit them (Khondker, 1994). On this phase, proper recovery of human dead bodies, its handling and correct identification, as well as the transitory and final disposition of lifeless bodies,

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independent of its number, is of vital importance so that no posterior harm is caused and to avoid unnecessary suffering to the surviving relatives (OPS, 2004). With this element on mind we can avoid the so called disasters on the disaster, generated by improvisation and desperation, by having multiple bosses without power and many guideless or directionless workers (González, 2004:35). And, even if available evidence shows that the presence of human and animal bodies represents a minimum or none risk for public health, dead bodies have to have a proper and timely handling so that future sanitary problems may be avoided (Western, 2004: 87-91). Since women assume responsibilities on the caring and feeding of others, whether these be children, elders, sick people and disabled, before, during and after a disaster,(Ariyabandu, 2005:1); and that this may limit their mobility and access to information regarding evacuation, emergency and aid and income post-disaster access, whether be in or outside the shelters. Recovery and Rehabilitation Rehabilitation considers measures to restore previous daily conditions on the affected areas of communities. It includes repairing on houses, buildings, as well as transport and public services networks infrastructures, such as potable water, electricity and others. Allows population to go back to work and/or create income sources, to mobilize financial, private, public and social, insurance’s and multilateral resources, to attend the consequences of the disaster (Demeter, 2004). During rehabilitation and reconstruction, temporary job programs tend to strengthen traditional roles of paid work for men outside the shelters or the house, while women assume triple journeys of work: reproductive, communitary organization, and productive work in the informal economy. That is why it is recommended the incorporation of women and men in non-traditional tasks. In case of a disaster, inequalities and vulnerabilities for women are exacerbated. Many times they’re overloaded with work and domestic responsibilities difficult to solve during a crisis, limiting their autonomy to seek and find income sources to relief their economic burden. Besides, women find difficult to participate in local decision committees due that reunions are scheduled without taking into account domestic responsibilities and, at the same time, they do not have any place to leave their children or people dependent of them (Domeisen, 1997:3). In the response and recovery of disasters, social and relative networks are the ones that determine the available strategies and their ability to recover or their economic resilience. Even though the main domestic unity in the world is the nuclear –nowadays nuclear domestic unity means 75% of the families in Mexico, 65% in Argentina and 54% in Venezuela (Kumar-Range, 2001) – in order to overcome a disaster, women tend to look for help with other women or with relatives in their networks instead than in the official administrative ways of help, just as it has been referenced in relation to Scotland and Wales (Fordham y Ketteridge 1998 quoted by Kumar-Range, 2001), Philippines (Delica, 1998), Australia (Cox, 1998), and Mexico (Pradilla et al., 1996, Massolo and Schteingart, 1987). Another factor to consider is that after living an unexpected disaster women do

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undergo a higher post-traumatic stress disorder caused by multiple sources of stress increase of their limits and lack of control of resources to keep up with the nutritional and caring demanding of people under her care (sons, sick and injured people, disabled, elders). It is a higher stress than the one that would come in an armed conflict on a prolonged lapse of time (Domeisen, 1997). An immense suffering after a disaster, associated with limitations by poverty and discrimination, may generate a stress disorder. If this disorder and the causing conditions are not quickly and effectively handled, may lead to a psycho-socio inability, in short and long term. In the case of women they also may get collateral and adverse effects on the health, growth and development of the abilities of their children. In the disasters caused by natural phenomena of great impact or by war crimes, it has been known of an increase on many men of violent conducts and an excessive consumption of alcohol, besides the increase of suicides in posterior periods of the massive dying of people (Rodríguez, 2004:127-128). The population composition also tends to change after a disaster. The percentage of women leading the house increases; for instance, after Hurricane Mitch in Honduras on November 1998 houses with feminine leading went from 20.4% to 50%, and migration towards United States substantially increased. With Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, in August 2005, 100 thousand Hondurans victims, several of which had run away from Hurricane Mitch. When women are the leading head in their families and have inequality incomes, extremely low, recovery takes longer time for them, and it has repercussions in a loss of economic potential for their future and their children. These, on poverty condition, are exposed to ill health and generational malnutrition. This is why the accumulative effects of successive disasters set women and children under great risk and vulnerabilities. It is frequent that female-headed households refrain from eating enough in order to feed their families, what may cause diseases that could affect them for the rest of their lives (PAHO, s/f; Enarson, 2000; Rochelle, 2005). Even though in post disaster situations women have an active participation in the response with their communities and families, actually they are hardly recognized and even marginalized by development agencies and organizations of aid who work in support of the local needs (Kumar-Range, 2001). In a survey made during 1990 on the role of women on the disaster management on the Caribbean zone, of the 22 countries surveyed, only two had women in the national directive of emergency management. Besides, most of the staff sent to rehabilitation and reconstruction areas was men (Noel, 1998). Even aid and assistance organizations also present prejudices against women within a society dominantly male, where women are seen as inherently vulnerable and always accompanied or directed by a men, limiting their participation to traditional roles (Scanlon, 1998:49). Due to the thought that there are supposedly areas not considered safe for local women to work in, women and men in humanitarian and governmental agencies impose cultural barriers in the hiring and participation of local women in the preparation, emergency and reconstruction. This has had serious implications for surviving women who are in need of support and income, since they are not sufficiently considered by the officers of the government and the humanitarian agencies.

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International Labor Organization has found cases where surviving women on a disaster cannot freely discuss their needs with men from the teams working in aid agencies because their culture does not allow them to speak with strangers or let them come into their houses (Bangladesh, Turkey). In operative and technical teams in field it is simple: there are no women (Enarson, 2000, Rochelle, 2005). In order that gender work is effective, it is crucial that women have more visibility on official institutional areas related to disaster management, because nowadays they are run by male staff, as is also in the official communal work, where there are very few women involved (Domeisen, 1997). According to the Pan-American Health Organization, it is urgent to understand disasters under a gender perspective so that we know what a disaster means in the daily life of those affected. Although recovery efforts on a certain area are to help an entire population, help canalization depends on the existent structures for resource distribution, which are a reflection of a patriarchal structure in society, where women are marginalized in the access to resources (PAHO, s/f; Rochelle, 2005). This is why income and assistance distribution must allow women to have access to them without running the risk of abuse. Women should also be distributing assistance in aid teams in order to avoid an exclusively male control on the resources for disasters recovery. Reconstruction Reconstruction requires canalization of budgets to emergent social priorities and activities for the revitalization of affected economic sectors. It includes temporary job programs, reconstruction of houses and vital infrastructures and incorporates mitigation measures to reduce present and future vulnerabilities, specially avoiding the reconstruction of previous vulnerabilities (Demeter, 2004). This is the case of the replacement of housing re-construed in lands prone to new disaster risks, or that are built with homogeneous designs and materials, not apt for every kind of weather, whose inefficiencies may cause an excessive consumption of electricity to keep the house fresh or, in the opposite case, to heat it up. Recent studies show that energetic consumption has an environmental cost that has an impact on the global climate change, but also an economical cost that many families with low income cannot afford. Besides, lack of temperature and spatial comfort in the re-construed housing, usually of a minimum size for the number of inhabitants (more than five), may cause stress and gender violence, mainly suffered by women, elders and children, whom, on the other side, are the ones who spend more time on these inadequate dwellings (Morillón, 2005). It is important to take advantage of the opportunity that comes with post disaster recovery and reconstruction, because now is the time when authorities have the legitimacy to make positive changes, and there are available resources (loaned and canalized) that may be of use not only to come out of the bad times, but to pursue institutional and social changes. These must include on their objectives gender equality, sustainable environmental management and social justice, vital to reduce society’s vulnerabilities in the face of a disaster risk. We have to mention that some local governments overvalue infrastructure reconstruction above other local priority need, such as quality housing reconstruction for people with the lowest incomes, with credits to acquire it;

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agricultural production; generation of income for female-headed households; political decentralization and the democratization of communal social processes. Another important factor influencing the quality of reconstruction process is the urge on administrative and political time to deliver the final built product, along to the fragmentation of sectors on governmental administration, that, if they’re not under a unique direction during the entire process, they may turn in chaotic and doubled expenses and efforts without achieving better results in terms of sustainable development and sensibility towards gender equality. Indicators of disaster risk management In order that a disaster risk management is truly effective, it needs, for its implementation, of a visible political commitment with a perspective of gender equality, to be observed on appropriate policies for risks reduction –necessarily linked with policies for urban and regional planning- assisted by an effective legislation to assign responsibilities and resources to preventive, risk reduction and disaster attention funds. At the same time, it is necessary to create indicators for the disaster risk management so that we can measure it effectively, especially on the governmental performance, which includes the Gross Domestic Product percentage destined for a budget on prevention and on poverty and risks mitigation, on emergency preparation and management, evaluation, control and achievement of goals and responsibilities with a perspective of gender equality. Concerning identification of disaster risks, indicators must consider its development, systematic dangers and vulnerabilities monitoring, the percentage of research projects –including those with perspective of gender equality- and investment projects to evaluate disaster risk. Regarding risk management, we must include indicators like tendencies on deforestation and reforestation, insurance covering, existent networks of social security in the phase of recovery, the actual fulfillment of zoning plans for up to date, trends on human settlements installed on danger zones –or built without the security standards- knowledge management, among others (Demeter, 2004). Gender equality must be integrated in policies of disaster risk management, and vice versa: risk management must be included on the already existent gender policies instruments. Gender indicators must include and present disaggregated data collection by sex, so we can identify and document real differences between genders, in order that we can foresee for short and long term specific needs, plan programs, review and modify institutional norms in force that includes gender equality, mandate audits on financial resources, analyze democratic and human rights processes with an eye on the impact of gender during recovery and reconstruction, avoid sexist or neutral language, among others. Disaster risk and culture Discriminatory and stereotyped prejudices Even if people and communities have developed a planning centered on disaster risk management, this does not explicitly considers gender dimension as an

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imperative part of it (Maskrey, 1989). Prejudices and cultural perception of gender are often totally independent of the actual life, but are important for the conformation of discriminatory perceptions on women’s rights and contributions which explain why women are still invisible within their communities in social dimensions of disaster vulnerabilities, and why are they discriminated in governmental programs of development and comprehensible disaster risk management. In spite the fact that women often offer themselves as volunteers in programs and important works for the entire society, and for their family units in particular, agencies often see women’s groups as illegitimate –non-official-, as an extension of domestic frailties and they tend to see as trivial what they do and work during the phases of disaster (Fothergill, 1998:20). Beyond the patriarchal normative speech, setting its limits for women while appropriating their daily work and controlling their reproductive rights, reality surpasses stereotyped prejudices, allowing us to see that women tend to do more than what is acknowledge on her or valued. That is why it is important to recognize the abilities women have developed on daily basis, which are brought up in the case of a disaster. This is the reason why decisions should be made on actual facts that women live, and not on prejudices on what women should be or how they should behave. Madhavi Ariyabandu (2004) from the Program for Risk Mitigation Management in the south of Asia says that women are more innovative during the immediate help for their families and communities, and that they play a greater role during risk and emergency management. Post disaster situations also permits women to have an opportunity to change perceptions on their capabilities and challenge the limits placed on gender roles within their societies, making their contributions more visible and introducing changes in order that inequality roles are not reproduced during disaster managements on their communities (PAHO, s/f; Rochelle, 2005). In the ambit of public policies, the practices of disaster managements is widely conducted by men whose experiences and attitudes reflect cultural norms for male gender, class and race privileges (Enarson and Morrow, 1998:4). Alice Fothergill (1988:16) states that in more planned, formal and institutional organizations, women do tend to diminish their presence on medium and higher ranks, which contributes to their exclusion from decision making and planning, and this occurs in developed countries and in underdeveloped and developing countries. Unfortunately, these differences are little known (and even less acknowledged), exception made for a bunch of specialists and academics, and rarely and occasionally on governmental officers, civil protection policies and their programs of risk mitigation and disasters, response and recovery (Enarson and Morrow, 1998). Ongoing changes and the small specialization of staff on governmental offices for civil protection tend to make of training something repetitive instead of progressive. Because of this a training is begun again without there ever been lessons learned in matter of gender equality as well as in the very own disaster risk management (Gomáriz, 1999:9). Inclusion of gender equality on governmental entities has been proposed by the mainstreaming of gender in the entire institutional functions and structures, to stop

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the creation and perpetuation of gender inequalities and economic deficiencies –which limit communal development where programs are to be executed-. Without equality of gender mainstreaming in institutional programs, these become inefficient, resulting in strong conflicts that enhance inequalities between men and women. Thus, the expected changes to diminish vulnerabilities in the face of disaster risk, the eradication of poverty and the protection of environment are hardly reached (Reed, 1996, quoted by Kumar-Range, 2001). According to Sadako Ogata, United Nations for Refugees High Commissioned, mainstreaming is the process of evaluation and the strategy to make of worries and experiences of men and women a comprehensible dimension in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programs in all of the political, economical and social spheres, so that women and men are equally benefited and inequalities be not perpetuated, where the maxim aim is to achieve gender equality (ACNUR, 2000; Reyes, 2003). Integration of gender equality in community plans Female leaderships are more tolerated on America and the Caribbean than in the Asian region. This tolerance allows women to be actively involved in salaried economical activities, obtaining organizational and administrative abilities with which they can sustain a social commitment to their societies (Toscani, 1998). After the 1985 earthquakes in Mexico, many surviving women widened and modified their roles while assuming leading roles and coordinating collective tasks, while working with human rights agencies, international humanitarian agencies, syndicates, feminist groups or by simply actively participating on social mobilization of inhabitants of damaged neighborhoods. In spite this empowerment3 of women, in shelters, temporary camps, and on reconstructed housings, many cases of violent scenes with husbands or partners (beatings, public undressment or verbal humiliation) were known, of men who were trying to force their wives and partners to go back to their house in an exclusively way, that is, to limit their activities within traditional roles reigning before the disaster and to abandon their new born leaderships, their active participation, links with organizations of surviving people and housing solicitants, of feminists and women, amongst others (Muñoz, 1993; García, 1993). But gender discrimination, occasionally, is made even by women themselves, because even when they are leading large groups of people, they tend to relegate the leadership on the hands of a man in decisive moments, even if he is not really the true leader, just as Yolanda Tello, Former Leader of Neighborhoods Assembly of Mexico City comments: “there was a time when all the work was done by women, but if there was a man, he was the one chosen as responsible, even if he 3 The Conference on Development and Population, in El Cairo, 1994, incorporated the concept of women’s empowerment, that is, the need that the women gain power, strength and self esteem as requisites for an equitable development among the genders (UNIFEM). The empowerment proposal contains a change in power relations “right down the bases”. The problem with this kind of conceptualization is that it is still immersed on a vertical notion of power, but this is not the only one that exists. Gender is lived on a relational logic, in which necessarily there is a multidirectional power relation, on several levels and on many angles. Empowerment of bases may be a good immediate solution, but until we can find the way to incorporate men on the idea that a change of gender relations is a thing that will benefit us all, results can only be superfluous (Reyes, 2003:56).

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did not knew or did anything (…), it was part of our culture, idiosyncrasy or way of life” (Tello, 2003). There are other cases where patriarchal order has been moved on a time of crisis, engendering desperate acts executed by men who, with increased violence, pretend to force women to return to the traditional practices of manly domination, so that limits for women are again established and clear. I’m referring to the specific case of humanitarian disaster suffered by men and women who were refugees in Mexico and now are returnees on Guatemala, their country of origin4. Several reports state that returnee women have suffered violence not only on behalf of their male partners, but also by the hands of men from their communities, with the sole purpose to force them to assume traditional roles. These roles had been modified during their staying on refugee camps in Mexico, on which their daily life allowed indigenous women a certain degree of empowerment. However, this empowerment, accepted by men whilst their staying on the refugee camps, was violently rejected when they arrived to their communities of origin. As Emilia Reyes highlights on her study on Guatemalan refugee women: “Maybe the orientation of implemented gender policies actually were not designed to achieve internalized changes on gender conceptions; perhaps they were only attending women’s practical needs instead of women’s strategic interests 5 ” (Reyes, 2003:66). “If gender policies were thought useful to avoid 4 After the return of Guatemalan refugees, we know by the reports of several media that there have been more than one thousand 534 violent deaths during the period of 2001 to 2004 (“Casos de violencia en Guatemala” 2005; “Feminicidio: Mujeres de Guatemala denuncian…” 2005 ), in very similar conditions to the ones that we have witnessed of the north of Mexico, a zone of male unemployment. In the areas of manual work industries (maquiladoras is the Mexican term) in Mexico, as in many other zones of production, women have had a massive introduction to labor market, but with low salaries and on inferior conditions of those that men could get. In the World Study on the role of women on development. Globalization, gender and labor, presented by Angela King, special advisor for the General Secretary of United Nations, Kofi Annan, on matters concerning women it is a fact that

“Since 1980 female labor force has been numerous than male in almost the entire world because of globalization, but it has also been more affected by economic adjustments, specially poorer women, (…) [besides] labor flexibilization –without any social or labor insurance- and the diminishing of salaries between men and women on certain sectors are an expression of the worsening of the male conditions of work, instead of the improvement of the female conditions”. (Dpa, 1999),

Maquila wage is extremely low and the surrounding inhabited by female workers lacks of an entire urban development, due to the abandon of governmental responsibilities, which contributes to the female workers exposure to the risk of serious damages in isolated zones of the region, implying sexual abuse, kidnap and death. The so called “dead women of Juarez” officially are 349, but other sources state that during the past 11 years there have been 415 cases of murdered women and thousands of denounces of absent or lost women around the same area (PIEM-PUEG, et al., 2004).

5 Gender strategic interests are related to the unequal power relation and social position assumed by genders on a given society, where every gender has specific interests. In the case of women, their strategic interests may be: “The abolition of the gender labor division; the elimination of institutionalized ways of discrimination; political equality; reproductive options; measures against masculine violence, sexual exploitation of women and forced forms of marriage”. Gender practical needs come up from the pre-assigned and daily responsibilities on the existent gender order and on

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problems within the camp, such as intra-familiar violence, alcoholism, sexual abuse, abortions, inadequate resource distribution, and others, now we also know that they are needed to facilitate the moment of return to the country of origin and the beginning of a new life (…), now we know that we must foresee the moment of return or re-settlement” (Reyes, 2003:61). In order we can introduce a notion of gender equality after a disaster and even on the actions assumed towards development processes, we must design a strategy based on the promotion of alliances between men and women, within the family as well as within the community, allowing a change of attitude and behavior in both genders. A program of gender equality should include the work with men so that they develop a more democratic and equal attitude, accept the new leading and empowered roles of women. It is crucial to actively work with husbands and partners and, in collaboration with the rest of the men on a community, promote a bigger understanding and support so that women may be able to participate more and more on their communities. In general terms, if men receive a training allowing them to understand the place that women occupy on society and they become aware of the roles dominating women and also them, it would be easier for them to “allow” their women to participate in other areas. This would be useful too for men, since they feel less threatened by the changes and more integrated to the democratizing process; besides, they feel satisfied with themselves with the progress achieved by women and with the contribution these make to the family income, which benefits them as well as their communities. These tasks begin with the recognition and visualization of the contribution made by women to family economy, after of which it is a matter of showing that is right and fare that women do participate in the decision making process that has an effect on them and their families (ACDI, 2003). Post disaster unemployment and couple breaking After a disaster, generalized unemployment and lack of local sources of income are aggravated; this may cause the fragmentation of family units. Even if in some regions with prolonged draught or desertification men are traditionally the ones who leave their homes in the search for a job, female migration has starting to be considerable. In the face of the abandonment of family or death of one of the married partners, families with one head – mostly headed by women- are much more vulnerable to poverty and ill health; added this to a repeated exposition to disasters, it may lead low income groups and without any support to a spiral of generational chronic poverty. Another tendency is that men who have seen better days and now are subsumed in poverty tend to feel their rights diminished and stop fulfilling their marital obligations and of maintenance of those who depend on him (Agarwal, 1990:391; Wiest et al., 1994). On Brazil, there is a case known as “the drought’s widows” (Branco, 1995). Separations and cases of domestic violence against women after a post disaster situation, report an increase when emergency crisis diminishes but economic pressure starts taking the lead (Morrow, 1997; Delica,

the gender labor division; in general, these do not constitute a strategic goal (such as gender equality) (Reyes, 2003:11; see also Kabeer, 1998: 302-306, and Fraser, 1993: 3-40)

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1998). Conclusions. Gender, Disasters and Tsunami As a synthetic conclusion, I shall mention some of the punctual contributions recently made by Gender and Disaster Network (2005a) on several bulletins and during the on-line forum kept with specialists around the world regarding the impact of the earthquake on the costs of Indonesia and the tsunami on the costs of Asia on the past December 26, 2004.These proposals on disaster management , emergency and reconstruction aid, do set a vision of gender equality, and even though they were directly designed to support the aid and reconstruction tasks on Asian communities, and keeping, of course, proportions, they may be widely applied in other regions. Tsunamis affected hundreds of thousand people in Asia, but consequences have, in many cases, an effect of greater prominence on women. In a disaster immediate posterior period, female childs and women are in high risk because of sexual segregation criteria in some regions of Asia, which culturally diminishes them, and may cause the public renounce to seek help for them. It is true that many communities suffer form high ranges of poverty, ill nutrition and analphabetism, but these are stronger of female childs and women. In other cases, wives or alone women heads of family are on a situation of social exclusion marginalizing them from income opportunities, and, therefore, their economical needs are greater. Besides, women have reproductive health needs which require protection and attention and that in the case of a crisis, tend to worsen (pregnancy and/or labor). In order to contribute to development, women and men should be able to access to the same opportunities so that they feel themselves able to act on their societies and territories. To achieve that, we must understand the way our societies are structures and how differences have become inequalities that need to be overcome (whether these be inequalities of gender, class, race, cast, ethnic belonging, generational or by erotic or political preferences). It isn’t difficult to predict that if unequal gender patterns are unattended on present days, undeniably they will produce greater gender inequalities and other more in the future. In the following paragraphs I shall mention the main principles of gender equality set to be considered on the disaster risk management, edited by Elaine Enarson (Gender and Disaster Network, 2005), and I recommend to consult the full document: Six principles to apply gender notion to aid and reconstruction 1. Gender equality and risk reduction principles must guide all aspects of disaster

mitigation, response and reconstruction. The “window of opportunity” for change and political organization closes very quickly.

2. Gender analysis is not optional or divisive but imperative to direct aid and plan for full and equitable recovery. Nothing in disaster work is “gender neutral.”

3. Women’s community organizations have insight, information, experience,

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networks, and resources vital to increasing disaster resilience 4. Base all Initiatives on knowledge of difference and specific cultural, economic,

political, and sexual contexts, not on false generalities 5. Democratic and participatory initiatives serve women and girls them best.

Women and men alike must be assured of the conditions of life needed to enjoy their fundamental human rights, as well as simply survive

6. Avoid overburdening women with already heavy work loads and family responsibilities likely to increase

Once we have recognized the importance of gender roles, we cannot forget anything about gender inequalities on the comprehensible disaster risk management. Thus, we need to distinguish preexisting vulnerabilities and give more importance to the capabilities of women and men so that we possess a better understanding of them. This will ensure and make possible that women avoid any difficulty on the access to aid and support when a disaster occurs, and take part on the improvement process within development programs and plans, especially on disaster risk management and all humanitarian relief. It will require for women not only being acknowledged, but a high priority. Consult sources: ACDI (2003): “Integración de la igualdad de género en Ecuador y Guatemala. Lo que estamos

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