{"id":134,"date":"2020-03-26T17:24:30","date_gmt":"2020-03-26T17:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.234.66.145\/blog\/?p=134"},"modified":"2020-03-26T17:24:31","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T17:24:31","slug":"are-natural-calamities-gender-biased","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.234.66.145\/blog\/index.php\/2020\/03\/26\/are-natural-calamities-gender-biased\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Natural Calamities gender biased?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

No, disasters see no discrimination,\nbut believe it or not, they hit women harder than men. Disasters and their\naftermaths, both are tougher for women, especially in Asian countries. Most of\nthe women reading this would be able to relate to the effects of disasters on\nwomen, as we all are in the state of lockdown and dealing with the difficulties\nof emergency situations, but you will be shocked to know that even the\nfatalities in some disasters in the past, had taken its toll on women more than\nmen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women in India and many\nother Asian countries are vulnerable because of the higher levels of existing\ngender inequality in the society they live in, especially in lower economic\ngroups. Most women are forced to follow strict socio-cultural norms which\nrestrict their movement, behaviour, occupation and even clothing. Most women\nliving under these circumstances are confined to their homes and are trained\nonly to perform household duties. They are less exposed to outdoor activities,\nare less educated and less trained for other survival skills like swimming and\nclimbing trees, walls etc. they are not involved in decision making and usually\nfollow the instructions of their male counterparts. This totally explains the\ngender disparity in the fatalities during Cyclone Gorky (1991,Bangladesh) where\n14 women lost their lives for every man, and the Indian Ocean Tsunami(2004)\nwhere 70% of the fatalities were women. Their clothing and lack of skills and\nconfidence, made it harder for them to run away, swim or climb to safer places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Indian Woman in Chennai Floods<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Life after disasters is also\ntougher for women. They have to work harder taking care of other family members\nand making up for the losses. Young girls in these situations terminate their\neducation and start working to earn money. Women ignore their own health\nconditions to serve others. Life gets tougher for women who get widowed during\ndisasters. They suffer mental trauma and become vulnerable to sexual\nexploitation. In fact the refugee camps set up for disaster relief are not safe\nfor women and girls, they are more exposed to sexual harassments in such camps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It does not mean that women\nliving in developed countries or women belonging to higher income groups do not\nface any challenges during natural calamities. The primary responsibility of\nwomen all around the world is to look after all the family members including children,\nold-aged and physically challenged people. women have to ensure their safety\nfirst, before evacuating themselves during disasters. This may be a reason why\nmore women were left behind after evacuations during cyclones in American\nstates like New Orleans. Women in USA too face   physical and sexual abuse during tough times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Surge in Domestic Violence during COVID Quarantine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The very recent mandatory\nlockdowns in USA due to Coronavirus Pandemic, have been hard for women facing\ndomestic violence. They are forced to live with their abusers, who take undue\nadvantage of the situation and exploit women. Some abusers threaten to throw\ntheir wives out in the streets if they get infected with the virus. The\nNational Domestic Violence Hotline of USA has reported escalation in number of\ncalls for help. Similar trend was observed in China, where the number of the\nnumber of domestic violence cases reported to the police, tripled in February,\ncompared to the previous year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UNDP has conducted research\nsurveys that document the gender impact of crisis in high-risk countries. UNDP\nhas been supporting the development of risk assessment software that includes\ngender-specific indicators, and has been working progressively to develop\ngender-specific Disaster Management strategies. But, there is no indicator or\ntarget for ensuring safety and well-being of Women during Disasters in  UNDP\u2019S SDG 5 which aims at achieving gender\nequality and Empowering all Women and Girls or SDG3 which aims at ensuring\nhealthy lives and promoting well being for all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s time for UNDP to review\nand add indicators supporting women during disasters to SDG5 and SDG3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    No, disasters see no discrimination, but believe it or not, they hit women harder than men. Disasters and their aftermaths, both are tougher for women, especially in Asian countries. Most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,2,3],"tags":[13,20,22,26,25,21,23],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/13.234.66.145\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/13.234.66.145\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/13.234.66.145\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/13.234.66.145\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/13.234.66.145\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/13.234.66.145\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142,"href":"http:\/\/13.234.66.145\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions\/142"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/13.234.66.145\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/13.234.66.145\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/13.234.66.145\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/13.234.66.145\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}