handout 20-7: violence against women in disasters source: gender and disaster network =================================== www.gdnonlin

Handout 20-7: VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN DISASTERS
Source: Gender and Disaster Network
===================================
www.gdnonline.org
Domestic violence is a social fact contributing to the vulnerability
of women to disaster. Women in violent relationships are a vulnerable
population less visibly at risk than poor women, refugees, single
mothers, widows, senior or disabled women. Indeed, violence against
women in intimate relations crosses these and other social lines,
impacting an estimated one in four women in the US and Canada and as
many as 60 percent in parts of Africa, Latin America and Asia .i
Violence against women is unlikely not to be present after as well as
before disaster, but does it increase? Barriers to reporting increase
in the event of widespread damage, but some indicators suggest that it
does, though the data are very limited:
*
Sexual and domestic violence are often identified as issues for
women refugees in temporary camps. ii
*
Some field reports of social impacts include abuse, as in this
account of an Australian flood: “Human relations were laid bare
and the strengths and weaknesses in relationships came more
sharply into focus. Thus, socially isolated women became more
isolated, domestic violence increased, and the core of
relationships with family, friends and spouses were exposed.” iii
Increased violence was also noted in field reports from the
Philippines after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption .iv
*
The national Canadian press reported domestic violence increasing
during the massive 1998 ice storm in Quebec and Ontario. A
Montreal Urban Community Police Chief reported that one in four
calls he had received the past week came from women about abuse.
Crisis calls were not up at the local shelter but the hot line had
been closed by the storm for two days. v
*
The director of a Santa Cruz battered women’s shelter reported
requests for temporary restraining orders rose 50% after the Loma
Prieta quake. Observing that housing shortages were restricting
women’s ability to leave violent relationships, she urged that
“when the community considers replacement housing issues, battered
women should not be overlooked.” vi Five months after the
earthquake, a United Way survey of over 300 service providers
ranked “protective services for women, children, and elderly”
sixth among 41 community services most unavailable to residents.vii
Reported sexual assault also rose by 300%. viii
*
A quarter (25%) of all community leaders responding to an
open-ended question about the effects of the Exxon Valdez oil
spill on family problems cited “increase in domestic violence”
first, in contrast to increased child neglect (4%) and elder abuse
(4 %). Asked if spouse abuse increased after the spill, 64%
agreed; they also reported increased child physical abuse (39 %),
child sexual abuse (31%), elder abuse (11%), and rape (21%). ix
*
Following the Missouri floods of 1993, the average state turn-away
rate at shelters rose 111% over the preceding year. An existing
federal grant was modified to increase funding to 35
flood-affected programs in an innovative disaster recovery grant
targeting both substance abuse and domestic violence. The final
report notes that these programs eventually sheltered 400% more
flood-impacted women and children than anticipated. x
*
After Hurricane Andrew in Miami, spousal abuse calls to the local
community helpline increased by 50% xi and over one-third of 1400
surveyed residents reported that someone in their home had lost
verbal or physical control in the two months since the hurricane.xii
*
A survey of US and Canadian domestic violence programs reported
increased service demand as long as six months to a year later in
the 13 most severely impacted programs. In Grand Forks, ND,
requests for temporary protection orders rose by 18% over the
preceding year and counseling with on-going clients rose 59% (July
1996-July 1997). xiii
*
Police reports of domestic violence in the 7 months after Mt. St.
Helens erupted increased by 46% over the same period the year
earlier. xiv
*
After Hurricane Mitch, 27% of female survivors (and 21% of male
survivors) in Nicaragua told surveyers that woman battering had
“increased in the wake of the hurricane in the families of the
community.” Among community leaders (68% of whom were men), 30%
interviewed reported increased battery as did 42% of the mayors
(46 men and 2 women) who were interviewed. xv
*
Conflicting data are reported by journalists contacting selected
shelters about the possible impacts of September 11, 2001.In some
communities very far from Ground Zero physically, shelters
reported receiving increased calls for help, while in other cases
shelters reported reduced case loads as families reunited.
National Public Radio reported that increased calls for help were
made to the Loveland, Colorado crisis center in the weeks
immediately following.xvi
*
Both domestic violence and sexual assault were widely reported to
increase in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
Examples from Sri Lanka cited by researchers include women
battered because they resist their husbands’ sale of their jewelry
or disputed their use of tsunami relief funds and mothers blamed
by fathers for the deaths of their children. One NGO reported a
three-fold increase in cases brought to them following the
tsunami.xvii
*
Four New Orleans shelters and 2 nonresidential programs were
closed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and advocates reporting “women
are being battered by their partners in the emergency shelters.”
In the first four months after the US Gulf Coast hurricanes, 38
rape cases were reported to women’s services that initiated
documentation projects to capture sexual assaults of
disaster-displaced women.xviii
Compiled by E. Enarson, last revised 4/06. Feedback to:
[email protected]
i United Nations Social Statistics and Indicators. The World’s Women:
1995 Trends. New York: United Nations.
ii League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. 1991. Working With
Women in Emergency Relief and Rehabilitation Programmes. Field Studies
Paper #2. Geneva Switzerland
iii Dobson, Narelle. 1994. “From Under the Mud-Pack: Women and the
Charleville Floods.” Australian Journal of Emergency Management 9 (2):
11-13.
iv Delica, Zenaida. 1998. “Women and Children During Disaster:
Vulnerabilities and Capacities,” The Gendered Terrain of Disaster,
edited by Elaine Enarson and Betty Hearn Morrow. Westport, CT:
Greenwood.
v Globe and Mail January 14, 1998: A6.
vi United Way of Santa Cruz County 1990. A Post-Earthquake Community
Needs Assessment for Santa Cruz County. Aptos, California: United Way
of Santa Cruz County: 201. See also Wilson, Jennifer, Brenda Phillips
and David Neal. 1998. “Domestic Violence After Disaster,” in Enarson
and Morrow, op.cit.
vii Ibid, 25.
viii Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women. 1989.
Violence Against Women in the Aftermath of the October 17, l989
Earthquake: A Report to the Mayor and City Council of the City of
Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz CA.
ix Araji, Sharon. 1992. “The Exxon-Valdez Oil Spill: Social, Economic,
and Psychological Impacts on Homer.” Unpublished final report to the
community of Homer. Anchorage, Alaska: University of Alaska,
Department of Sociology.
x Godina, Victoria and Colleen Coble. 1995. The Missouri Model: The
Efficacy of Funding Domestic Violence Programs as Long-Term Disaster
Recovery. Final Evaluation Report, December 1995. Jefferson City,
Missouri: The Missouri Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
xi Laudisio, Gigi. 1993. “Disaster Aftermath: Redefining
Response—Hurricane Andrew’s Impact on I & R.” Alliance of Information
and Referral Systems 15: 13-32.
xii Centers for Disease Control. 1992. Post-Hurricane Andrew
Assessment of Health Care Needs and Access to Health Care in Dade
County, Florida. EPI-AID 93-09. Miami: Florida Deparatment of Health
and Rehabilitative Services.
xiii Enarson, Elaine. 1997. Responding to Domestic Violence and
Disaster: Guidelines for Women’s Services and Disaster Practitioners.
Available from BC Institute Against Family Violence. 409 Granville,
Ste. 551, Vancouver BC. Canada V6C 1T2.
xiv Adams, Paul and Gerald Adams. 1984. “Mount Saint Helen’s Ashfall:
Evidence for a Disaster Streee Reaction.” American Psychologist 39:
252-60.
xv CIETinternational (www.ccer-nic.org/doc/htm). 1999. “Social Audit
for Emergency and Reconstruction, Phase 1—April. Study conducted by
the Coordinadora Civil para la Emergencia y la Reconstrucción (CCER),
Managua, Nicaragua.
xvi See “Shelters have empty beds: abused women stay home,” New York
Times, 10/21/01.
xvii Chapter 4, Sarah Fischer, 2005, “Gender Based Violence in Sri
Lanka in the Aftermath of the 2004 Tsunami Crisis,” on-line through
the GDN:
http://www.gdnonline.org/resources/fisher-post-tsuami-gbv-srilanka.doc
xviii Reported by Lin Chew and Kavita Ramdas in the Global Fund For
Women report “Caught in the Storm: The Impact of Natural Disasters on
Women,” December 2005:
http://www.globalfundforwomen.org/work/programs/natural-disasters.html

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