Humanitarian Assistance: Gender

Gender is one factor defining vulnerability. Women are more vulnerable during the disaster cycle because of their persistent lack of access to political participation, regular income, and land acquisition. Governments and communities that ignore these challenges to empower women increase their social and economic costs during extreme events. The equality between men and women is the platform to build resilient societies. Vulnerabilities to disaster are not equally distributed. Unsustainable global patterns of settlement, resource management, social organization, and political economy increasingly put some population groups more than others at risk from disaster. Exposure to environmental hazard and risk of catastrophic disaster, like other life chances, are shaped by overarching social structures of caste and class, race and ethnicity, age and physical ability, and sex and gender. Gender, especially, is a pervasive division affecting all societies, and it channels access to social and economic resources away from women and towards men. Women are often denied the vote, the right to inherit land, and generally have less control over income-earning opportunities and cash within their own households. Normally women access to resources -- vote, land, and income -- is inferior to that of men. Less access to resources, in the absence of other compensations to provide safe conditions, leads to increased vulnerability (Enarson, 2000). The challenge to address gender issues in the context of humanitarian assistance is that the appeal to “pay attention to gender issues” often falls on deaf ears and may seem irrelevant. “Paying attention to gender issues”, however, means recognizing the different needs, capacities and contributions of women, girls, boys and men (IASC, 2006). The defense for less vulnerability can come from an economic perspective. As societies are invariably linked and their parts function as a system, it is logical to affirm that whenever a portion of the collectivity is harmed, the totality is indirectly affected. The consequences of vulnerability for a society are usually translated into social disruptions and financial costs. The more political disagreements and development losses a locality encounters during extreme events, the more resources are devoted to vulnerable groups at the expense of other collective priorities. The right timing to reduce vulnerabilities -- and address gender issues, for instance -- is at the preparation stage of disasters as this is the period when decisions can be made reasonably. The responsibility to address vulnerability deriving from gender issues comes from the government. Elected officials represent the totality of the voters, and so are accountable for the welfare of their constituents. Governments, however, are guided by political and economic interests rather than humanitarian affairs. Therefore, vulnerable groups must coordinate and organize themselves in order to claim for resources and improvements in their living conditions so that they are better prepared to “bounce back” once a disaster hits. The solution to vulnerability depends on social mobilization. References: Enarson, E.; Morrow, B.“Toward Gendered Disaster Policy, Practice and Research.” In The Gendered Terrain of Disaster: Through Women’s Eyes, Elaine Enarson and Betty Hearn Morrow (editors). Praeger Publishers and the International Hurricane Center, Florida International University, 2000. Inter-agency Standing Committee, “Women, Girls, Boys and Men Different Needs – Equal Opportunities”. IASC, 2006.