Poverty and violence plague female tsunami survivors

On Dec. 26, 2004, a tsunami killed an estimated 230,000 people and displaced another 1.5 million. According to a new report by the Alliance of Women Affected by the Tsunami, whose members include 174 non-governmental organizations and women's groups working in tsunami-affected areas, many women devastated by the tsunami continue to face impoverishment and violence at relief camps in South Asia. The report says that discussions with over 7,500 tsunami-affected women in Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Thailand, India and Somalia reveal that failure to involve women and girls in decision making on relief and rehabilitation fueled an increase in poverty and violence against them. The report states that: "Women were left out of consultations, formulation of policies and design of programs for relief operations, camp management, damage and needs assessments, allocation of houses and land, and the rebuilding of livelihoods," and that post-tsunami aid has disproportionately assisted men, leaving women survivors in continuing poverty. Government compensation and rehabilitation programs most often recognize men as the heads of households, which results in women–particularly widowed, single, older or disabled women–being left out of such efforts, it stated. "We were shifted to a place where there is no work, no food to feed our children. I sold my kidney and got a small amount. They did not give me the promised amount. Now I am suffering with heavy abdominal pain. I cannot work," the report quoted a woman living in a camp in India, as saying. There has also been increasing sex tourism in the coastal areas of the tsunami-affected regions as a result of new hotels being built near the shoreline, according to the report. Poor women, especially from devastated fishing communities, are particularly vulnerable to this exploitation. Under normal circumstances there is a high incidence of violence against women in South Asian countries, but tsunami-affected women reported that violence intensified and continues even now, the report said. "[Men] would often beat their wives after getting drunk and would force them to have sex in the camps, sometimes in front of children," said Sriyani Perera, ActionAid International's women rights coordinator for Asia. The report was released before a summit of the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which began on Apr. 3. The report urges the SAARC member-states to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls–emotional, physical and sexual–through implementing laws and punishing perpetrators, and ensure that their rights to land and access to adequate housing, education and health facilities are protected in the wake of all disasters.