Gender dimension to policy on disaster management

Mahbuba Nasreen

Star

Bangladesh is exposed to several disasters such as, floods, river erosion, cyclones, droughts, tornadoes, cold waves, drainage congestion/ water logging, arsenic contamination, salinity intrusion, monga, earthquakes and many more. The highly talked about agenda of contemporary world 'climate change' would further intensify the existing disaster. IPCC projected that South Asia will suffer most due to climate change as 22 percent of world's population (about 1.4 billion) including 40 percent of world's poor live of which more than half of the population is directly dependent on agriculture. The global mean annual surface air temperature by the end of this century will likely to be increased in the range of 1.8 to 4.0d C and the temperature will likely to be much higher in winter (robi crop season) than in monsoon (kharif season). It is also predicted that heat waves, heavy precipitation events will become more frequent and crop yields could decrease up to 30% in Central and South Asia by the mid-21st. All of these would contribute to increase the disaster events and Bangladesh would be the most vulnerable country to face climate induced disasters more frequently.

Although a disaster affects all segments of population, there are gender variations to vulnerability and capability during disasters. Women in the disaster prone areas face number of problems due to their gender identity. As a result women in poor and marginal households become more vulnerable and distressed. Both women and men are unable to utilize their times and labour in productive activities due to absence of employment opportunities. Longitudinal studies (Nasreen, 1995, 1999, 2008) argue that disasters affect both women and men but the burden of coping with disasters falls heavily on women. For example, during and aftermath a disaster men in rural areas lose their places of work while women shoulder the responsibilities to maintain households' sustenance. However, although poor rural women have very few options open to them to overcome their problems, their roles in disasters are obviously not simple: they relate to a complete range of socio-economic activities. During floods women continue to be bearers and socialisers of children, collectors and providers of food, fuel, water, fodder, building materials and keepers of household belongings: they also represent a productive potential which is not discussed earlier. It is women's strategies, developed over the years, those are vital in enabling the rural people to cope with disaster.

It is evident that women face several problems during disaster in procuring and processing food, collecting drinking water, maintaining health and sanitation, facilitating child caring, living in platforms/shelters/flood refuges, maintaining security, getting access to resources or support from different sources etc. There was almost no state mechanism to provide security in the disaster shelters. Even women and girls were not safe from neighbouring men or close relatives. Many women and girls do not go to shelter due to lack of security. In general women's human rights suffered a lot: denial of access to information, food, safe water and sanitation, to health care facilities, to education, housing and ownership, land and inheritance and to livelihood. They are also denied participation in decision making and protection, security and bodily integrity. Most of the rights violations go unrecognised.

It is evident that women face violence throughout their lives. Disaster affected women cite many forms of structural discriminations against them: early marriage, men's unemployment, frustration, dowry, use of drugs/smoking, lack of women's security and many more as causes of violence against them. It has been learnt that women and girls with disability are the most vulnerable. Intellectually handicapped women and girls are always at risk but try to remain silent for fear of society. However, some of the women preserve means to protect themselves (knife, fish cutter etc.) or shout. Parents look after their safety too. During disaster the incidence of violence increases and women have to face those along with other problems. It is evident that violence against women during disasters is common phenomenon. All women and girls have suffered some forms of violence or the other throughout their lives. The physical and emotional violence occurring within the households and in the flood shelters make women's living more difficult. There is no specific policy to combat violence against women during disaster.

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Within the South Asian region Bangladesh is well known for her disaster management policy. Being the most disaster-prone country within South Asia Bangladesh is the first to have a separate Disaster Management Bureau (DMB) since mid-90s. The country has a good number of institutional structures to achieve technical monitoring, capacity building, preparedness and response. The Ministry of Food and Disaster Management is responsible for coordinating national disaster management efforts across all agencies. In 2004 MoFDM launched the Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme (CDMP), (currently inaugurated its second phase), to facilitate reform of the disaster management approach by expanding its focus from reactive emergency response to proactive risk reduction. Bangladesh has created a simplistic model to guide disaster risk reduction and emergency response management efforts in Bangladesh. The model has three key elements and ensures that the move to a more comprehensive risk reduction culture remains central to all efforts. It must be mentioned here that the second pillar of the six pillars of Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan under the Ministry of Environment and Forest is the 'Comprehensive Disaster Management'.

A draft for the National Plan for Disaster Management (2007-2015) has been prepared and the draft has been approved by the National Disaster Managament Coordination Committee on 22 February, 2009 and is waiting for final approval from the National Disaster Management Council. CDMP was the lead agency for preparing the draft under the guidance of MoFDM. However, although Bangladesh has a comprehensive disaster management programme, a well developed plan, mainstreaming strategies, CRA guideline and disaster management institutions etc. the whole operation of the disaster management is highly centralised. In case of emergency responses committees become dysfunctional. Control of the budget, relief items, disaster management mechanisms are in the hands of higher authorities at central level. The local government institutions completely depend on the decision and resources of the central disaster management authority to respond to the flood victims.

Government and many other bodies dealing with disaster management mainly communicate with wealthier, influential people who hardly represent or serve the interest of the poor or of women. Nor does it seem to have occurred to policy makers that women might be involved in different activities from men or experience disasters differently from men. Gender dimensions are not taken care of with due attention at the time of disaster. Women's issues are only seen in case of vulnerability perspective and their names are only listed for relief distribution. Moreover violence against women during disaster is not getting any attention. In fact, disaster management in Bangladesh has become concomitant to relief. Other activities related to risk reduction mostly remain silent throughout the year. None of the document of disaster management mentioned about women's contributions or capabilities during disaster. It must be mentioned here that despite research (Nasreen, 1995) available in the country on women's heroic efforts, since long, this has always been ignored in the government policy. It is also evident that in the standing order there is no clear instruction for inclusion of women elected representatives of the local government institutions and as a result they are ignored at both national and sub-district levels disaster management activities. To ensure effective planning and coordination of disaster risk reduction and emergency response management, involvement of women elected representatives in local government has been a consistent demand since late 90's but they are still being left out by men elected representatives.

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