| Violence: A Gendered By Product of Disaster |
|
by Jacqui Patterson As hurricane season draws to a close and the 5th anniversary of the Tsunami approaches, we are preparing to engage in UN high level talks on climate change in Copenhagen. Beginning the 16 Days of Activism on violence against women and girls comes at an opportune time because analysis of all of the aforementioned events leads to an examination of the impact of disaster and climate change in elevating occurrences of violence against women and girls as well as heightening risk for HIV&AIDS which is directly linked to violence and many of the same factors that contribute to violence. In times of disaster, insecurity and instability combine with high levels of stress, economic duress, dearth of counseling, substance abuse, and lack of protectionism, to render a situation resulting in increased vulnerability to violence and HIV&AIDS for women and girls. “I am 17 years old. In the relief camp when I was sleeping in the night, I was raped. I did not know what had happened to me. I had heavy bleeding. Now I see some disturbances in my body and when my mother took me to hospital I was told I am pregnant.” A woman in India interviewed in a Tsunami humanitarian assistance camp (1). In the United States, where I live, Hurricane Katrina was a stark demonstration of the differential impact of disaster on women and particularly women of color, as it relates to violence. A friend of mine was among the throngs of people, primarily African American due to the structural inequalities that rendered them disproportionately immobilized, taking refuge in the New Orleans Superdome. She told of the chilling sound of the screams of women she heard echoing through the building while she sat terrified both for herself and for the fate of one of her sisters. Though little data is available, the anecdotal accounts of sexual and physical violence are many. “I’m crying as I write….I found out two days ago that Charmaine Neville, like hundreds of other women, was raped during the storm.” —Shana Griffin, New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic (2). Given the elevated risk of contracting HIV during coerced or forced sex, due to lack of use of prevention methods, it is important to keep in mind this intersecting hazard when considering the differential dangers faced by women and girls in disaster situations.. Other disasters have documented incidence of domestic violence associated with severe weather events. Police reports of domestic violence following the eruption of Mt. St. Helen's in 1980 increased by 46% (3). Directly after the 1993 floods in Missouri, the turn-away rate at domestic violence shelters rose 111% (4) and the Montreal police department reported that 25% of calls received during the ice storm of 1997 were from women experiencing abuse (5). After Hurricane Mitch, in Nicaragua 30% of community leaders and 42% of the mayors interviewed reported increased battery (6). The trajectory we find ourselves on with escalating climate change finds us facing the current and growing specter of increased occurrence of severe weather events and resulting disasters. Thus, at global, national, and local levels, we must prepare ourselves for by making sure disaster preparedness, response, recovery, and reconstruction policies and programs are designed to address the differential impact on women and girls, with requisite resource allocation, as well as strengthening community based prevention and responses. “I’m not interested in any action plan to rebuild/organize a people’s agenda in New Orleans without a gender analysis and a demand for community accountability.”—Shana Griffin Jacqui Patterson is the Co-Founder and Coordinator of Women of Color United as well as the Director of the Climate Justice Initiative at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Endnotes (1) Violence Against Women in the Post Tsunami Context, People’s Report—India, the Maldives, Puntland (Somalia), Sri Lanka, and Thailand (2007) www.actionaid.org
|