Gender in disasters

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Gender in disasters
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Natural disasters

• Hazards are natural but you and I determine if
  they become natural disasters.

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Gender blind hazardsGender discriminating
disasters

• - A hazard is gender-blind.
• -The consequences of hazards often turn out to be
  more severe for women than men.

4
Victims or superheroes?

• It is widely known and accepted that women and
  men are affected differently by disasters
• Women are neither passive victims in disasters
  nor superheroes that can protect dependents
  against disasters by themselves.

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Focus today

• The combined electricity and food crises.
• A new initiative has started to highlight gender
  aspects in natural disasters and crises in
  Tajikistan.

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Work on disasters

• Prevention
• Preparation
• Response
• Recovery

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Prevention and preparation

• To include both women and men as decision makers
  in planning, implementation and evaluation
• To see women, just like men, as providers instead
  of passive receivers of support and protection.

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Prevention and preparation in Tajikistan

• Many organisations in Tajikistan works with
  prevention and preparedness of disasters. There
  are, however, only a few that works with gender
  mainstreamed prevention and preparedness.

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Round table

• Last month UNIFEM, UNDP/DRMP and UN/ISDR
  organised a round table on this issues with
  international organisations and NGOs, local NGOs
  and Tajik authorities, such as the Committee of
  emergency situations and the State committee on
  statistics.

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Conclusions

• To create a network
• The need to improve gender-disaggregated
  statistics on disaster consequences
• To look possibilities to undertake a survey on
  gender aspects of disaster consequences, to
  support the National Disaster Risk Management
  Strategy and the Preparedness and Response Plan
• To disseminate existing good practices
• Piloting all programs on both women and men
  before implementing them

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The aim of the network should be to

• Advocate the importance of gender mainstreamed
  DRR in Tajikistan
• Share experiences and best practises
• Discuss obstacles and connect agencies with
  different competence, to find solutions
• Share news on best practices on gender
  mainstreamed DRR from other parts of the world

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Network

• The network is not up and running yet but to
  start a proto network we would like to have
  suggestions on persons from you agencies that
  could be part of this network. Preferably people
  with experience in either gender or disasters or
  both.

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Gender-mainstreamed disaster response

• Women as leaders Women may take the lead in
  response, in particular if men migrate or search
  for relief.
• Access to water If the source is far away or in
  an unprotected area, this can be time-consuming,
  physically exhausting, or even dangerous.
• Safety Because of the social disruption caused
  by disasters, gender-based violence (sexual
  assault and abuse, trafficking and forced
  prostitution) may become a problem.

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Response in Tajikistan

• As many of you know, there is a compound crisis
  in Tajikistan right now and many agencies assist
  the Tajik government committee of emergency
  situations with humanitarian aid. There have
  already been reported incidents were agencies
  seems to forget the gender perspective.

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Areas of particular concern in Tajikistan is

• The population gender imbalance
• Sole headed households seem to be extra
  vulnerable in disasters
• Many natural disasters in Tajikistan destroy
  water distribution systems and waste disposals,
  meaning that collecting water after the disaster
  adds to the burden of families.
• Women and men have different sanitary needs and
  this need to be planned for in emergency response

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We would like to use the opportunity of this
meeting to

• Discuss what possibilities there are for members
  of the GTG to influence and advocate for gender
  aspects in the response to the combined crises in
  respective agencies. Do you know about the
  checklists?
• Come up with ideas on persons that can be signed
  up for an e-mail list that will be the
  proto-network before the real network will be up
  and running.