English assignment

Editor’s Introduction 1Article

Luke Juran is a Ph.D. scholar in the Department of Geography, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA. E-mail: [email protected]

The Gendered Nature of Disasters: Women Survivors in Post-Tsunami Tamil Nadu

Luke Juran

Abstract

The impacts of disasters rarely reveal themselves equally across an affected population. Rather, the extent of impact is determined by social constructs, such as religion, caste, socioeconomic status and most notably, gender, which cuts across all of these spheres. This article focuses on the variable of gender and the role it played in post-tsunami Tamil Nadu, India. In particular, gender will be discussed in relation to: mortality; access to aid and rehabilitation resources; conditions at temporary shelters; violence against women; and impacts on health. This article argues that women confront human rights gaps during ‘nor- mal’ times and that such pre-existing inequalities are simply reified and magnified in times of disaster. These contentions are upheld by pro- viding a theoretical review of gender and disaster, a survey of actual accounts of gender and disaster across space, and by buttressing the literature with examples from post-tsunami Tamil Nadu. The aim of this article is to analyse salient gender-based issues in a specific post-disaster context and to add to the discourse on gender and disaster writ large.

Keywords

Gender and disaster, disaster rehabilitation, tsunami, Indian women and tsunamis

Indian Journal of Gender Studies 19(1) 1–29

© 2012 CWDS SAGE Publications

Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore,

Washington DC DOI: 10.1177/097152151101900101

http://ijg.sagepub.com

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Probably no other group is more affected by environmental hazards than poor women, the silent gender of the third world, who have the least capacity to deal with the situation.

Ahsan and Khatun (2004, p. 2)

Introduction

Despite its recent economic prowess and socioeconomic advancements, India continues to struggle with gender-based inequities. While India proudly exhibits vast cultural diversity and a cacophony of languages and religions, a binding phenomenon remains its universally ingrained patriarchy and corresponding underprivileged status of women. Whether observing disparities in economics, education, politics or health, women continue to drift in the wake of their male counterparts, which is attested by recent gender-based data: a sex ratio of 1.06 males to one female (Central Intelligence Agency [CIA], 2010);1 a male literacy rate of 73.4 per cent compared to 47.8 per cent for females (CIA, 2010); an edu- cational attainment level of nine years for females vis-à-vis 11 years for males (CIA, 2010); a Gender Development Index (GDI) ranking of 138 out of 157 countries (United Nations Development Programme [UNDP], 2008);2 and a Gender Gap Index (GGI) ranking of 113 out of 130 coun- tries (Hausmann, Tyson and Zahadi, 2008, p. 89).3

Therefore, in light of the data, this article will expand the gender lens in India to incorporate issues in periods of disaster. Post-tsunami Tamil Nadu will be examined with the aim of analysing salient issues in a spe- cific context thereby adding to the discourse on gender and disaster writ large. A theme that shall become evident is that the post-disaster period is merely an alternate sphere in which pre-existing gender inequalities are maintained and regenerated, if not magnified. Thus, while the post- disaster arena varies greatly from the ‘normal time’, the overarching parallel is that disparities that existed before the disaster are perpetuated and exacerbated both during and after the disaster. Accounts of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Tamil Nadu will prove to be no different. Lastly (in an effort to be fair to both men and women), while this article focuses on women, it is imperative to iterate that the purpose is not to victimise

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women and that this article also recognises that men encounter their own gender issues in times of disaster.

Overview of Gender and Disaster

Disasters—whether predictable or unpredictable, natural or socially constructed—do not affect people indiscriminately. Pre-existing vulner- abilities reveal themselves and submit persons to heightened impact depending on geography (for example, if the setting is near a river, coast or fault line), age (for example, children and the elderly) and socio- economic status. Supplementing such vulnerabilities, scholars of dis- aster have empirically documented the disproportional effects of disasters upon women pan-globally (Ahsan and Khatun, 2004; Enarson, 2000; Enarson and Morrow, 1998; Neumayer and Plümper, 2007; World Health Organization [WHO], 2005a). It is clear that men and women are im- pacted differently by disasters. This phenomenon has led Enarson and Morrow to claim that there exist ‘gendered disaster vulnerabilities’ and therefore, a ‘gendered terrain of disasters’ (Enarson and Morrow, 1998, p. 8). In many ways, women’s vulnerabilities in coping with disasters are a hand that has been dealt long before the disaster strikes: the fatal expos- ure of women to death and loss in disasters has been socially constructed and set in place by male-dominated societies that have established the general inequality of women throughout the globe—post-tsunami Tamil Nadu being a case in point. Across space, and thus in Tamil Nadu, women attain less education, access fewer health and food resources, endure hin- dered mobility, possess less decision-making capacity, access fewer net- works, are subject to legal, political, institutional and market inequalities and enjoy an overall lower level of human rights, broadly defined, than men (Bolin, Jackson and Crist, 1998; Enarson, 2004; Fothergill, 1998). Collectively, these socially determined deficiencies combine to form a complex web of predisposed female vulnerability to disasters, as stated by Enarson and Morrow:

Gender 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 right to vote, the right to inherit land, and generally have

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less control over income-earning opportunities and cash within their own households...in the absence of other compensations to provide safe condi- tions, [this] leads to increased vulnerability, [therefore,] we contend that in general women are more vulnerable to disasters. (Enarson and Morrow, 1998, p. 2)

Further compounding the predetermined differentials are burdensome gender roles, especially the role as ‘caretaker’ and ‘nurturer of the fam- ily’, and the overall lesser value attributed to women in society, which jointly serve to enhance women’s jeopardy in disasters (Enarson, 2000; Peek and Fothergill, 2008).

In light of these contentions, I argue that women are relatively more at risk than men to the effects of disasters from the onset. Furthermore, I contend that women lack resiliency and agency in the aftermath of dis- asters as a consequence of pre-existing burdens of gender roles, power deficits and widespread inequalities—which also have the potential to be magnified in the post-disaster arena. India is an exemplary case of gen- dered vulnerability, and this argument in relation to post-tsunami Tamil Nadu will be examined in the article. However, before focusing on Tamil Nadu, it will prove useful to establish empirical accounts of gender and disaster across space.

Gender and Disaster

The social construction of gender is a global phenomenon, although the extent of its grip varies from place to place. Taking this into consider- ation, much empirical data have been produced to demonstrate that mor- tality rates from disasters are comparatively higher for women. Neumayer and Plümper, in a meta-analysis of 4,605 disasters in 141 countries from 1981–2002, found that ‘natural disasters lower the life expectancy of women more than that of men. In other words, natural disasters (and their subsequent impact) on average kill more women than men’ (Neumayer and Plümper, 2007, p. 551). Fothergill, in a review of over 100 studies on disasters, concluded that not only are women more likely to die from disasters, but especially ‘women in developing countries’, citing that 42 per cent more females died than males in the Bangladesh

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cyclone of 1991 (Fothergill, 1998, pp. 17–18). Likewise, a study by Sommer and Mosely suggests that similar sex-based mortality patterns were observed during the devastating East Bengal cyclone of 1970 (Sommer and Mosley, 1972). Turning the focus to India, Krishnaraj, in a study of the Latur earthquake in 1993, found that while women made up only 48 per cent of the population of Latur and Osmanabad, they com- prised 55 per cent of the death toll and outnumbered male deaths in all age cohorts (Krishnaraj, 1997, p. 399). Lastly, concerning the 2004 tsunami, studies have concluded—although comprehensive statistics cannot be procured due to the lack of disaggregated data and sheer magnitude of event—that more women perished than men in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India (MacDonald, 2005; Oxfam International, 2005; Pincha, 2008b; WHO, 2005b).4

Given the disparate mortality rates, it has been theorised that biolog- ical, anatomical and physiological differences—in particular male muscle mass and physical strength—are primarily responsible for the gap. Men’s relatively greater strength allows them to run faster, swim farther, tread water longer, climb higher and hold on to steady objects for longer periods of time (Ahsan and Khatun, 2004; Ikeda, 1995; Neumayer and Plümper, 2007), while on the other hand, ‘on average, women can run less quickly and climb posts, trees, and other rescue points with greater difficulty and lower speed’ (these disadvantages are exacerbated when women are pregnant or carrying one or more infants or children) (Neumayer and Plümper, 2007, p. 553). Additionally, women generally weigh less than men and are, therefore, more easily swept away by rush- ing water or carried off by high velocity winds. However, numerous researchers have investigated such hypotheses to arrive at the conclusion that biological differences do not fully account for the disproportional mortality rates determined by sex (Ahsan and Khatun, 2004; Ikeda, 1995; Neumayer and Plümper, 2007). Furthermore, scholars have also scrutinised the gender effects of disaster on morbidity. The findings con- clude not only that ‘on the whole, there is no reason to suspect that dis- eases related to natural disasters will systematically disadvantage women’, but also that women may actually be at an advantage in dis- asters when compared to men, because ‘they can better cope with food shortages due to their lower nutritional requirements and higher body fats’ (Neumayer and Plümper, 2007, p. 553). Therefore, regarding the natural differences between women and men:

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There are few reasons why female life expectancy should be systemati- cally more adversely affected by natural disasters than that of men were it only for reasons determined by nature, such as biological and physiological differences... A systematic effect on the gender gap in life expectancy is only plausible if natural disasters exacerbate previously existing patterns of discrimination that render females more vulnerable to the fatal impact of disasters. (Neumayer and Plümper, 2007, p. 562)

Post-disaster trends simply mimic the gender imbalance in initial mortality rates, both trends representing artifacts of the pro-male bias present in the pre-disaster context. Women are more likely to die after a disaster compared to men, and the post-disaster scenario for women is often an ‘extreme version of pre-disaster obligations’ that can be observed as an exaggerated ‘role carryover’ (Fothergill, 1998, pp. 18–19). Hindered mobility (and the restrictive cultural–religious practice of purdah) ob- structs information about and access to relief centres and penalises women with fewer networks and public spheres to tap into. Interestingly enough, women sometimes encounter impediments to attaining relief assistance because they are not deemed as ‘head of household’. Further- more, female property and capital is often unjustly seized by in-laws when the male head of household has perished, leaving women with less resources for post-disaster livelihood (Enarson and Morrow, 1998; per- sonal interview with A. George, 2008; Singh, 2008).

To compound the matter, such scenarios are layered on top of already existing gaps in education, ownership of property, access to resources, decision-making capacities, domestic responsibilities and markets that are stacked against women. Women who survive disasters are also at risk for adverse reproductive health outcomes, as well as infections and men- struation problems due to the unsanitary post-disaster environment (all complicated by the paucity of feminine products and crowded conditions at relief shelters). Additionally, single-headed households suffer dispro- portionately relative to households with two guardians; this phenomenon is problematised given that the majority of single-parent households are headed by females, and that females are more economically vulnerable in both ‘normal’ and disaster scenarios (Fothergill, 1998; WHO, 2005a). Lastly, women being coerced into prostitution, human trafficking, the organ trade and other exploitative activities in the post-disaster arena,

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is of urgent concern among academics (Ahsan and Hossain, 2004; Fothergill, 1998).

Actual examples of the issues outlined thus far are unfortunately too many. Peek and Fothergill have portrayed the difficulties in parenting faced by women after Hurricane Katrina. Not only were women forced to cope with their own realities, but they simultaneously found them- selves providing additional daycare, emotional nurturance, discipline, economic support, health promotion and protection for their children (Peek and Fothergill, 2008). Domestic and sexualised violence has also been shown to increase in the cases of Hurricane Katrina (Jenkins and Phillips, 2008; Luft, 2008) floods in Bangladesh (The Daily Star, 2008), and calamities in Bangladesh in general (Ahsan and Hossain, 2004). As for access to livelihood and basic necessities after disasters, a study by Enarson on a drought in Gujarat that followed shortly after the Bhuj earthquake established that women exhibited a more acute lack of paid work, housing, water resources and access to nutritious food compared to men (Enarson, 2002). After the Latur earthquake, Krishnaraj docu- mented the economic exploitation of women, especially single women and widows, by relatives who usurped their belongings (Krishnaraj, 1997). Lastly, Ariyabandu has detailed women’s realisation of fewer resources in post-tsunami Sri Lanka due to encumbered mobility and because women were not deemed ‘head of household’ (Ariyabandu, 2006).

I shall be demonstrating similar gender issues in post-tsunami Tamil Nadu. This article will employ a social science perspective in order to document and gain a better understanding of the issues, and ultimately, to augment the literatures on gender, India and the socially determined vulnerability calculus of gender and disaster.

Gender and the Tsunami in Tamil Nadu

India is prone to disasters, whether they are annual monsoon floods, fre- quent droughts, large-scale earthquakes or cyclones that ravage the coast. Recent examples of major disasters include the Bhopal gas tragedy (1984), Latur earthquake (1993), Orissa super-cyclone (1999), Bhuj earthquake (2001), tsunami (2004) and Kashmir earthquake (2005).

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Although the disasters varied in type and area affected, a tangency is that each produced visible gendered effects. Thus, while socially defined groups based on religion, caste and socioeconomic status exhibited their own vulnerabilities, the variable of gender intersected all of these spheres to intensify such vulnerabilities. The case of the tsunami proves no dif- ferent. Women encountered gendered consequences of the tsunami in terms of mortality, access to aid and rehabilitation resources, conditions at temporary shelters, violence against women and impacts on health— all of which will be discussed in this article. Furthermore, the effects of gender protruded even deeper among several marginalised categories such as widows, female-headed households and single and elderly women. While mechanisms for preparedness, relief and rehabilitation were in place pre- and post-tsunami, more often than not, they were exe- cuted in the absence of a gender lens, only to generate cases of benevo- lent intentions falling short. The end result is that while men undoubtedly suffered extreme hardships and losses, women bore a disproportional brunt of the tsunami’s impact.

Disproportions in Mortality

While this article focuses on the post-disaster context, it is useful to briefly note the incongruency of the tsunami’s initial impact. As cited earlier, it is common for more women to die in disasters compared to men, a finding confirmed in the case of the tsunami in Tamil Nadu. While comprehensive data are limited, available statistics reveal that the tsu- nami killed more women than men in the worst affected areas. For exam- ple, data for Tamil Nadu, based on government statistics, state that 2,406 women lost their lives compared to 1,883 men in Nagapattinam district; 391 women perished compared to 146 men in Cuddalore district; the only deaths recorded in Pachaankuppam village (Cuddalore) were those of women; and the fatalities of women accounted for nearly 75 per cent of deaths in many affected areas (Oxfam International, 2005, p. 6; Pincha, 2008b, p. 20; WHO, 2005b, p. 2).

There are numerous reasons why more women perished from the tsunami in Tamil Nadu. The first rationale is that women lack running speed, muscle mass and are disadvantaged by other biological factors

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compared to men. However, it has already been posited that such differ- entials account for only a portion of the gendered mortality gap, with social variables encompassing the bulk of determinants (Neumayer and Plümper, 2007). Thus, turning the analysis to social bases, an evident cause of excessive female deaths was the gendered division of labour. While many men were fishing out at sea (where waves are able to pass safely under the boats), women (fatally) were waiting at home and near the shore for their husbands to return with the catch, which they planned to collect and carry to the market. As for gender roles, when the waves struck, women lost precious minutes by first attempting to gather the children and elderly (a task reserved for women) before fleeing to safety (consequently, many women were left with only one or no hands to fight the waves, because they were holding and/or carrying others). In terms of gendered pastimes, many women—despite living on the coast and having swum in their childhood—had not maintained their swimming skills. While coastal men are usually deft swimmers out of occupational necessity, females generally give up swimming after childhood, which helped lead to a higher death rate for women. The traditional garment known as the sari and the cultural tendency for women to keep long hair also impacted women: not only do saris impede quick movements, but saris and long hair tended to get caught on bushes, trees and debris. Furthermore, based on interviews in Cuddalore, women stated that, in some cases, waves were so violent that saris were stripped away. The following is what ensued:

Some [women] refused to climb naked into the rescue boats because of an internalised sense of shame and honour. Although many women reported that men asked them to give up their sense of shame and offered their shirts to cover their bodies, women refused the offer due to the underlying issues of gender-based violence and post-survival consequences. (Pincha, 2008b, pp. 21–22)5

Thus, based on this non-exhaustive outline of socially constructed vulnerabilities, it becomes clear why more women in Tamil Nadu per- ished from the tsunami relative to men. Moving on to the post-tsunami period, it will become apparent that gender-skewed impacts of the dis- aster persisted.

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Barriers to Attaining Aid Resources

Women encountered formidable barriers to accessing aid resources in the aftermath of the tsunami. Some of the obstructions can be considered as ‘life as usual’, while others may be reckoned as systemic, structural discrimination. One of the most blatant systemic failures was the initial governmental concept that aid was to be given only to the ‘head of household’, which was invariably defined as a man (this approach was also followed by some relief agencies) (George, 2008; MacDonald, 2005; Pincha, 2008b). The approach operated under the assumption that men are the breadwinners and that money given to a man would be used to support ‘his’ household, which served to reinforce female vulnerabil- ity and women’s already inferior status:

Instead of being able to claim an independent and equal share of humanitar- ian aid, women’s access is brokered through their husbands, fathers, or other male relatives. This is because the primary means of establishing identity and residence in India is the government issued ‘ration card’...which are all issued under the name of the male household head... Unmarried, widowed, and divorced women were often subsumed into the household units of their brothers or fathers or husband’s relatives, instead of being counted as inde- pendent. (Sarma, Sarkar, Rubina and Laurie, 2007, p. 48)

Supplementing Sarma et al. (2007), Pincha contends that the ex- clusion of women as beneficiaries was most visible in traditional panchayats.6 Relief routed through traditional panchayats often failed to reach women directly as the governmental units assumed that women are taken care of by their family and thus, do not require direct relief in their own right. Therefore, observing the governmental relief process, it was evident that not only were women as a group negatively affected by the male-centred method of delivery, but single, widowed, divorced and elderly women in particular were all but rendered invisible by the aid mechanisms.

There are further examples of gender-imbalanced policies in the dis- tribution of aid resources. One such instance was the distribution of ex gratia funds.7 The process of obtaining ex gratia funds proved dif- ficult for women given their societal position: the procedures were lengthy and intimidating; and on top of that, women exhibit gaps in legal

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awareness, educational level, mobility (not to mention that women’s domestic and caretaker roles increased after the tsunami, further curbing mobility) and in communication and bargaining skills in dealing with men, the government and in the public sphere. Therefore, individual women attempting to obtain ex gratia funds faced significant obstacles and often incurred unwarranted monetary expenses in the quest for funds that they were legally entitled to (Pincha, 2008b).

Another example of policies falling short pertained to permanent housing. While the government ordered that all permanent houses con- structed for married tsunami affectees be in the names of both the hus- band and wife—essentially challenging structural inequalities—they fell short of ensuring that women secured a long-term stake in ownership by failing to adjust property inheritance laws (Oxfam International, 2005; Pincha, 2008b). Therefore, single women residing with their parents will likely never inherit the home, and wives fear that their jointly owned homes will be seized by their son(s) or male relatives when their hus- bands pass away, creating a climate of insecurity. Furthermore, inter- views reveal that women were largely excluded from participating in the procurement of houses, and have since found the houses unsuitable and inadequate in terms of location, design, gender-sensitive amenities and access to water (field interviews, 2010; People’s Report, 2007).

Yet another illustration of gender-insensitive policies entailed cloth- ing distribution by the government. Clothing supplied by the govern- ment did not meet women’s needs:

[U]ndergarments were not included in the clothing packages, sanitary nap- kins were overlooked, and some Muslim women reported discomfort because they were not provided with burkas. In the latter case, women’s mobility was restricted to the extent that accessing toilets, water points, healthcare centers, and public space in general was diffi cult, if not next to impossible. (Pincha, 2008b)

Therefore, regarding governmental relief policies, the reparation meas- ures were prejudiced against women:

The Tsunami presented an opportunity for all social actors, including the government, to re-examine social welfare policies and their implementation

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to address gender concerns. Interventions such as simplifying application procedures, increasing awareness about various schemes, and sensitizing concerned offi cials to provide speedy, gender-sensitive implementation and sustained monitoring could have been put in place. Yet...the opportunity was missed. (Pincha, 2008b, pp. 44–45)

Thus, while the government responded quickly and sometimes in a wel- coming, unconventional manner, they fell short of re-examining existing policies through the lens of gender and implementing new, socially pro- gressive ones.

While attention has rightly been drawn to the systematic failures of the government, informal structures must also be held accountable. Many impediments to women’s access to aid resources were the result of pre-existing notions of decision making and power relations. For example, once resources were in the hands of men, women were second- arily disadvantaged by men’s control over those resources. A prime illus- tration is women’s lack of ability to choose how ex gratia monetary resources were utilised and allocated. Several studies contend that the sudden availability of untied money—ex gratia funds in particular— led to a dramatic increase in male expenditures on alcohol (People’s Report, 2007; Pincha, 2008b; Sarma et al., 2007). Thus, rather than the much needed funds being apportioned throughout the household (as was the prima facie intention), money was often first siphoned by males on alcohol, as well as gambling, at the expense of women and children in the household. It was also reported that when women received ex gratia funds for the loss of their husbands, they were approached by money- lenders and forced to pay off their husbands’ pre-tsunami debts, some- times leaving women with little money to support their household. Therefore, when obtained, women generally spent ex gratia funds on meeting livelihood needs, settling debts incurred by their husbands and fulfilling the basic needs of the family, which contrasts greatly with the expenditures of men:

Monetary payments to men very often resulted in intra-household inequalities in the access to and use of money for household sustenance, forcing women and children into secondary poverty. Despite the fact that income was osten- sibly available to the household, suffi cient funds were not directed to meet the needs of women and children. (Pincha 2008b, p. 33)

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Thus, variables such as minimal control over household finances, lack of decision making power, inequitable intra-household distribu- tion and men’s unsustainable expenditures led to a filtering of ex gratia and other funds away from women and children in the post-tsunami context.

Barriers to Livelihood Rehabilitation

With women rendered semi-invisible in the initial allocation of aid resources, it should come as no surprise that their needs were similarly unmet in terms of livelihood rehabilitation. The first issue is that wom- en’s pre-tsunami economic activities were grossly ignored, as the main focus was to reinstate ‘productive assets’, such as fishing boats and nets, which were predominantly male-owned. Thus, the loss of women’s assets and their crucial role in supporting households was marginalised, backed by the perception of males as breadwinners. However, the reality is that women contributed significant economic support to their households in the pre-disaster period: women actively ran petty shops, tea stalls, tailor- ing units, cultivated small gardens, sold dairy products and fish in the markets, etc.—yet, much of this went unnoticed and unaddressed in the rehabilitation phase (Sarma et al., 2007). In fact, many self-help groups (SHGs)8 were not aided in restoring the assets of their members; mean- while, men were able to obtain fishing equipment from several sources. Moreover, as men were allotted replacement boats and nets, the pre- tsunami female ownership of fishing equipment was off the radar:

Before the tsunami, women whose husbands were disabled or chronically sick were the de facto owners of boats, kattamarans, and nets... Post-tsunami, when their boats and nets were destroyed, the government compensation restored assets in the names of the sons rather than the mothers. (Pincha, 2008b, pp. 50–51)

Not only was there a failure to respond to the loss of women’s enterprises and female-owned fishing equipment, the value of women’s personal assets—especially gold and jewellery—was not considered in loss assessments. However, such assets form a significant part of household survival strategies as they can easily be converted into cash in times of hardship.

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The de-recognition of women’s productive capabilities was further evident in the temporary shelters. Temporary shelters lacked a common workspace for women and prevented them from resuming their home- based occupations (such as tailoring and manufacture of fans and brooms), which could have provided funds to support their households. However, while women’s means of production were ignored, men were provided with a common shed where they could mend their fishing nets and engage in social affairs. The following is a case that elucidates the situation:

Noor Jahan, a single woman, was a successful entrepreneur engaged in the home-based business of hand fans pre-tsunami in Silladi Nagar, Nagapattinam. She had a ready market for her products in Delhi, Bombay, and Chennai. Her house was destroyed by the tsunami along with all her tools of trade and huge stock of raw materials. The temporary shelter did not have enough space for her to start her business again. (Pincha, 2008b, p. 27)

Therefore, summing up women’s access to livelihood rehabilitation, there was a broad foundation upon which women were economically abandoned: there was little assessment regarding the loss of female-run businesses; attention was diverted away from microenterprises towards sectoral development (namely, fishing); female-headed households were excluded from the distribution of fishing equipment and widows were not reimbursed for their deceased husbands’ fishing equipment; and there was a lapse in providing economic space for women in the tem- porary shelters. Thus, on the whole, women’s rehabilitation was severely overlooked and ultimately, the perceived ‘reproductive’ roles of women, rather than their ‘productive’ roles, were reinforced.

Even when women’s productive capabilities were considered, the programmes were often executed in a haphazard, gender-insensitive manner. First, lack of mobility, combined with a shortage of time due to increased household and caretaking chores, rendered the availability to attend livelihood training programmes minute. Second, many of the proposed income-generating ventures were inappropriate both geo- graphically and market-wise: beaded necklace and craft production in non-tourist areas; the training of scores of women in salon services in small villages that cannot support all of the trainees; training in candle-making where there is no availability of wax; and the overarching

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concern that no support was given to (re)develop market linkages if the women actually decided to engage in one of the ventures (field inter- views in Tamil Nadu, 2007; People’s Report, 2007; personal interview with A. George, 2009). To make matters worse, women were not pro- vided logistical assistance. Beyond the skills required for productivity, women also necessitated the ‘direction and facilitation to start small scale ventures...and basic accounting techniques in order to come up with their proposals for micro-financing’ (Gauthamadas, 2008, p. 111). Hence, even when women were skilled in a trade, they often lacked the vision to evolve their skills into proposals for loans from micro-credit organisations. Therefore, in terms of the relevance of livelihood rehabili- tation for women, the programmes were executed devoid of a women’s perspective, in the absence of a geographic and market context, and were poorly planned both contextually and pragmatically.

There were other barriers impeding women’s livelihood in the after- math of the tsunami, one being the inability of women to migrate for work or in search of work. Women are primarily responsible for domes- tic duties, yet, such tasks increase and further anchor women to the home in the post-disaster realm, allowing few opportunities to work outside the household. Even when leaving the home is possible, women must find someone to manage their domestic affairs, especially childcare. This presents several problems: finding childcare is difficult since displace- ment has disrupted existing social networks; it is a burden to leave others in charge of one’s children, especially since they are likely to be in a similar position. Further, the availability of childcare may not coincide with her working hours if the mother has a job. Therefore, while men were able to migrate more freely for work after the tsunami, women gravitated to the home.9 Moreover, it must be noted that because the magnitude of tasks and time required to perform women’s gender roles dramatically increased after the tsunami (enhanced domestic care, cook- ing and cleaning in harsh conditions, and longer distances to fetch water and cooking fuel), the increased workload diminished the time available for economically productive activities to the extent that women were often presented with no chance to be ‘productive’.

However, against these odds, some women were transformed into breadwinners and sole workers in their household—a gender role reversal—which was often made necessary by incapacitating male in- juries or tsunami-induced widowhood. This left women with the double

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burden of supporting the household as well as caring for surviving fam- ily members (Lalasz, 2005). Women who had given up work in the pre- tsunami period, widows who had not worked and elderly women were forced to (re)enter the labour market as a mechanism for survival (Oxfam International, 2005). Therefore, while many women were driven out of the labour market, others were thrust in. Lastly, it is useful to mention that wages decreased markedly after the tsunami (Pincha, 2008b). The result is that not only did women still have to work more hours to earn the same amount as a man (due to the usual female–male wage gap), but that those wages were less than what would have been earned before the tsunami.

Conditions in Temporary Shelters

The tsunami devastated mainland India, damaging or destroying 126,182 homes (Gauthamadas, 2005, p. 7; Pincha, 2008b, p. 2). While pledges to construct permanent housing came quickly, the time required to secure land and build the houses meant that many displaced persons would first need to be housed in transitional shelters. It should go without saying that the conditions of most camps were extremely poor given the con- centration of people and level of sanitation, yet the conditions must be depicted, especially via a gender perspective.

The general theme regarding temporary shelters is that the privacy, security, sanitation and health needs of women were not factored into the design and construction. It has already been mentioned that women were, for the most part, prevented from resuming their home-based industries in the temporary shelters, whereas men were provided with a common shed to mend their nets and socialise. However, the issues run much deeper. Temporary shelters lacked security and adequate lighting, which made women feel vulnerable, especially given the number of unem- ployed, unoccupied male strangers loitering on the grounds. Hence, there was an extreme lack of privacy, which is ‘a major problem for women in terms of their cultural expectations in patriarchal societies [such as India]’ (Lalasz, 2005, p. 1), made evident from the drastic account of a woman in a transitional settlement in Keechankuppam, who ‘committed suicide following the unintended entry of a man who had mistaken the

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temporary shelter for his own’ (Pincha, 2008b, p. 27). The constricted space in temporary shelters also led to issues of sex-based violence. The voyeuristic circumstances made women hyper-aware of their actions, particularly when their husbands pressured them for sex:

[T]he walls literally had ears, making the inhabitants feel they were living in an open street. No activity could be conducted in privacy and every sound— rustling of clothes being changed, conversations and quarrels, clattering of vessels during mealtimes, and sounds of love making—were all audible to the neighbours. Due to this extreme lack of privacy, going about daily life’s activities became an ordeal... Despite this lack of privacy, men continued making sexual demands on their wives...having to yield to their husbands’ sexual demands, under such conditions, was enormously distressing. In add- ition, the overburden of both productive and reproductive activities on women and consequent physical fatigue led to a lessening of their sexual desires. This was cited as one of the core reasons for increased domestic violence. Failure to give in very often resulted in physical and verbal abuse and in many cases increased the consumption of alcohol by men. (Pincha, 2008b, pp. 58–59)

Similarly, widows residing in temporary complexes were extremely vulnerable to sexual abuse. Therefore, suffice it to say that temporary shelters failed to meet the privacy and security needs of the women.

The provision of toilets was also paltry. Many toilets in the temporary shelters lacked roofs, strong doors with locks, adequate lighting in and around them, sufficient water, ventilation (at sufficient height to ensure privacy from male onlookers) and were not located at an appropriate dis- tance from men’s toilets and meeting places (MacDonald, 2005; People’s Report, 2007; Sarma et al., 2007). Presented with substandard con- ditions, women were forced to cope:

The absence of community toilets and bathrooms made women feel unsafe and due to lack of privacy they generally used the toilets only at night or very early in the morning. They could not use public spaces unless it was suf- fi ciently dark and/or had a green cover providing some privacy (the tsunami also denuded the area of green cover) and with the reported discomfort and adverse health effects related to suppressing the urge to defecate/urinate with no functional community toilets or other private places, women lived in con- stant anxiety and discomfort. Men, on the other hand, were able to defecate along the seashore at any time. (Pincha, 2008b, p. 28)

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In agreement, Sarma et al. narrate an analogous scenario:

Many women and girls complained that they did not have proper, safe and private toilet and bathing facilities in relief camps and temporary shelters for the displaced. There were reports that in some temporary shelters, women and girls resorted to walking in pairs to and from community toilets and bath- ing facilities to ward off harassment from men... At the temporary relief shel- ters set up for survivors from the villages of Karaikal, T.R. Pattinam, and Vadakattalai, there were no facilities for women to bathe...In spite of all those problems, the administration turned a blind eye to them. (Sarma et al., 2007, pp. 47–48)

Paralleling the pitiable toilet situation was women’s access to basic health needs in temporary shelters. Women found the health services insensitive to their biological and gender-based needs. Although there was a shortage and lack of quality healthcare for all affectees, the impacts were more profound for women, especially regarding reproductive health. Not only was women’s basic need for sanitary napkins and under- garments not met, their ability to receive care from doctors was marginal due to the paucity of female doctors deployed at the temporary shelters. As stated by Lalasz: ‘women doctors are crucial to the relief effort, because many women in South Asia will not go to male doctors’ (Lalasz, 2005, p. 1). The tsunami-affected women in Tamil Nadu cited the short- age of female doctors, and were thus unable to seek help for agonies such as prolapsed uteruses, vaginal infections, breast injuries and heavy vaginal bleeding (People’s Report, 2007). Rather than seek help, women sometimes ‘chose not to shame themselves in front of male doctors in general medical camps’ (Pincha, 2008a, p. 28). Moreover, pregnant and lactating women particularly suffered due to lack of food, water and nutritional supplements:

When it comes to health, women need special care other than men. In the case of lactating and pregnant women, the priority ought to be the highest. Unfortunately, that had not been the case in our country [India]. The State was very insensitive to the health issues of lactating women who lost their babies to the tsunami. No treatment was given to women who suffered from breast milk clotting at the camps... In Tamil Nadu, there were no gynaecolo- gists available at the camps, only midwives from Primary Health Centres

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to treat common illnesses. There were not enough relevant medicines or doctors at IDP [internally displaced persons] camps sheltering, in average, 1,500 people each. The only available medicines were antibiotics. There were 20 pregnant women in the village of T.R. Pattinam who did not have access to gynaecological assistance. In addition, sanitary supplies were inadequate or nonexistent in many camps, causing women discomfort and embarrassment. (Sarma et al., 2007, p. 470)

Therefore, considering the status of toilets and health provision in the temporary shelters—as well as privacy, space and security—the needs of women, both absolute and cultural, were either prominently neglected or implemented in a deplorable manner.10

Gender and Health

The brief description of female health issues in transitional shelters offers segue to a more formal discussion on women’s post-tsunami health. First off, in terms of general health, increases in domestic and income-based workloads (especially among women who did not work or had stopped working prior to the tsunami) afforded women less time to recuperate from the disaster and ultimately led to higher incidences of morbidity. For example, the distance travelled to fetch water and firewood ampli- fied the difficulty of accomplishing almost all domestic tasks, and increases in income-based work supplied women with little time to relax and address their health concerns—after all, men could rest at the end of their day, whereas women still had a house to care for. Additionally, a coping strategy adopted by women in crisis situations is to decrease food consumption to better manage household food security, which is largely dictated by social norms that require women to ‘eat last and least in their households’ (Pincha, 2008b, pp. 38–39). Compounding this matter, the loss of livestock (hence, meat and sources of dairy products), agricul- tural commodities and a temporary governmental ban on fishing reduced the nutritional intake of affectees—which disparately affected women and girls as a result of the aforementioned coping strategy coupled with unequal intra-household resource distribution.

The less tangible effects of disasters, such as psychological issues, have gained attention from scholars as of late. Gauthamadas, a practising

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psychiatrist, medical doctor and head of the Academy for Disaster Management Education, Planning and Training in Chennai, worked in the field with tsunami affectees in Cuddalore district. Gauthamadas argues that ‘the combined impact of the elements of disaster and ethnic, social and gender issues has a deep influence on the psyche of the indi- vidual and the collective’, and that ‘women are the ones for whom life in this area [Cuddalore] has always been difficult, pre and post-tsunami’ (Gauthamadas, 2008, pp. 100–102). Thus, unsurprisingly, researchers have documented a disproportionate increase in post-tsunami female cases of depression, anxiety (enhanced by unfamiliar surroundings in temporary shelters), embarrassment (of their situation and of receiving ‘hand-outs’), withdrawal, insomnia and fear of institutionalisation (Gauthamadas, 2005; personal interview with Gauthamadas, 2009; Pittiway, Bartolomei and Rees, 2007).

Scholars have also identified gender dimensions in cases of post- traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In a cross-sectional survey of 314 adults in Cuddalore district, it was determined that 12.7 per cent of the respondents suffered from PTSD (Kumar et al., 2007, p. 99). However, women and individuals and households with no source of income— which are disproportionately female/female-headed—were nearly three times as likely to exhibit PTSD symptoms. For example, out of 161 women in the study, 29 were identified as having PTSD symptoms versus 11 of 158 men, resulting in a 2.83:1 ratio of female to male cases (Kumar et al., 2007, p. 100).

It has already been mentioned that incidences of emotional, physical and sex-based violence against women correlates with disasters. Follow- ing the tsunami, increases in male alcohol consumption, financial prob- lems and feelings of uncertainty escalated conflicts in the home, which in turn spurred cases of abuse against women:

A majority of the women felt that the violence resulted from men’s frustra- tion/anger, compounded by their unemployment and lack of counselling to overcome grief and frustration; their consumption of alcohol or drugs; the husband’s suspicion or mistrust; extramarital liaison by the husband; and dowry demands and poverty. For example, in India nine out of ten women attributed the increased alcoholism among men to the increased incidence of physical and emotional violence. This was related to cash payments being paid exclusively to men which was then used to buy alcohol. (People’s Report, 2007, p. 21)

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As a result, women experienced physical injuries and emotional conse- quences of fear, low self-worth and depression. To further disadvantage women, while boys started to spend more time outside the house to escape episodes of domestic abuse, wives and girls—due to domestic duties and restricted mobility—could ‘only wish to get away’ (Pincha, 2008b, p. 34).

Sexualised violence, albeit to different extents, occurs in all places and at all times, but its risk is heightened in situations of chaos and dis- placement, as conveyed by Felten-Biermann: ‘Research on gender and disaster shows that violence against women manifests itself in different ways during the different phases of a natural disaster. Sexualised vio- lence increases during the phase of instability, and breakdown of social structures immediately following a disaster’ (Felten-Biermann, 2006, p. 83). Sadly, such accounts are abundant, with estimates that one-third of female affectees in Tamil Nadu experienced sexual violence after the tsunami (People’s Report, 2007, p. 20). In addition to sex-based violence within the household, cases of rape also increased; Sarma et al. (2007) relate the account of a 15 year-old female affectee being raped in Chennai. The following is a similarly harrowing narration:

I am seventeen years old. In the relief camp when I was sleeping in the night I was raped. I did not know what had happened to me. I do not know the face of the man. I had heavy bleeding. I did not share this with anyone as I was totally affected. Now I see some disturbances in my body and when my mother took me to hospital I was told I am pregnant. (People’s Report, 2007, p. 21)

Thus, on the whole, cases of emotional, physical and sexual violence against women were common in post-tsunami Tamil Nadu. However, it must be mentioned that the abuse was sometimes co-constructed by women themselves, with many remaining passive, believing that abuse is a private matter to be expected in marriage; informing others would only serve to give the family a bad name; a husband should be granted unrestricted access to his wife’s body; and if a wife refuses to have sex, her husband will find solace with another woman.

Women’s reproductive health after the tsunami is also a primary issue. The tribulations of pregnant and lactating women lacking sufficient

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nutrition in temporary shelters and the lack of female doctors and gynae- cologists to address reproductive-specific cases have already been referred to. It is helpful to note the sheer number of pregnant women affected by the tsunami:

About 150,000 women in the countries hardest hit by the tsunami—namely, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India and the Maldives—would have been pregnant at the time of the disaster, with 50,000 in the third trimester. In India alone, 8,300 women in the tsunami region are estimated to have been pregnant, about 1,380 of whom would have been in the last three months of pregnancy. (Carballo, Hernandez, Schneider and Welle, 2006, p. 400)

To add to the difficulties, displacement imposes a heavy psychosocial and physical burden upon women. Consequently, the number of sponta- neous and induced abortions increased and babies were more likely to be born pre-term or relatively small for their gestational age (Carballo et al., 2006). The breakdown in healthcare services and the confusion that sur- rounds displacement also reduce the chances of perinatal risk factors being identified and responded to promptly and correctly. Furthermore, the initial poverty of many of the affected communities meant that their access to quality healthcare had already been precarious, which the tsu- nami served to further problematise—with all of this occurring in a place where maternal and antenatal healthcare were already nominal.11

Adding to the maleffects on reproductive health, many women were pressured into having children soon after the disaster and very close together in order to replace lost children. Such a sequence drains the female corporal system and has harmful consequences on the body, par- ticularly when it is still in a traumatised and generally unhealthy state (MacDonald, 2005). Last, after the tsunami, many women were forced into marriage at a young age. This gave rise to damaging reproductive outcomes as such women were often pressured into sex and childbirth at too early an age, not to mention detriments to their education, livelihood and mental state (MacDonald, 2005).

Some women were blamed for the death of the family’s children and some were strongly influenced—if not forced—to undergo reverse steril- isation in hopes of having children, irrespective of their age, traumatised state and physical health (Cohen, 2005; People’s Report, 2007; Pincha, 2008b). What ensued was a truly unique case of government-subsidised

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reverse sterilisation surgeries (also known as ‘recanalisation’ or ‘reverse tubectomy’) (Cohen, 2005). The order issued by the government declared that:

[T]he State would extend full assistance to those who lost their children in the tsunami and desired to undergo recanalization. It clarifi ed that for cou- ples opting for recanalization to reverse tubectomy or vasectomy, a monetary assistance of `25,000 would be offered for surgeries in private hospitals, while the government hospitals would perform them free of cost. (Pincha, 2008b, p. 40)

Quite predictably, the government order produced mixed results: on the one hand, it gave reproductive choices to women to decide whether or not to conceive again; and on the other hand, it inadvertently fed into pre-existing cultural biases against childlessness. Therefore, in a milieu where women’s primary function and value is reproduction, women had little room to make an informed choice and faced formidable pressure from their husbands, family and community to opt for reversal surgery. The following heart-wrenching story is a case in point.

‘I am 36 years old and I did not want to undergo reverse sterilisation. At this age it is risky to bear children,’ said Allirani who was living in a temporary tsunami shelter in Nagapattinam district. She lost both her children, a fi ve- year-old daughter and a three-year-old son, who were asleep when the huge waves engulfed them. ‘Their memories haunt me and I still feel at a loss thinking about my children. It is very painful, but what hurt me more is the lack of emotional support from my family....’ When the Tamil Nadu govern- ment announced they would offer women free reverse sterilization operations or 25,000 rupees to those who wanted to get it done in a private hospital, Allirani refused and was subjected to physical torture by her mother-in-law and sister-in-law. Her husband was a silent spectator to the entire event. He too wanted Allirani to get the operation done. Instead, Allirani wanted to adopt a tsunami orphan but did not have the courage to tell the family. One of the ritualistic beatings by her sister-in-law was so harsh that Allirani ran out of the house screaming, much to the shock of other residents in the tempo- rary shelters. This was when she made up her mind to fi ght the physical and emotional trauma and start enquiring about adoption. But with no one to sup- port her, she fi nally gave up and submitted to the demands of her husband’s family. Allirani had the operation in a private clinic and then faced another

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problem—getting the promised 25,000 rupees from the government. Allirani was all alone as she ran from one offi ce to another trying to claim her money. Every unsuccessful day resulted in more shouting from the family. (People’s Report, 2007, p. 20)

Unfortunately, subjecting oneself to the reversal surgery against one’s will was only half the story. The subsequent struggle was to actually conceive, which proved difficult for many reasons: recanalisation sur- geries are not always successful; the woman and/or her husband may have lost their fertility since undergoing the initial operation for sterilisa- tion; and the procedure and attempts to conceive occurred when the bod- ies of the women had not yet returned to biological normalcy. Thus, the preconditions for delivering a healthy baby were not in place and ceteris paribus, conception after surgery is not guaranteed in the first place. Researchers have found high levels of guilt, frustration and feelings of inadequacy among women who did not conceive after undergoing re- canalisation, an emotional condition exacerbated by the fact that the suc- cess rate of surgical intervention was not properly communicated to the patients to begin with (Gauthamadas, 2008; Pincha, 2008b). In field visits in Nagapattinam, Pincha determined the number of women who conceived and successfully delivered a baby after undergoing the sur- gery to be: four out of 16 in Akkaraipettai; zero out of 10 in New Nambiyar Nagar; and five out of 52 in Keechankuppam (Pincha, 2008b, p. 41). Hence, with such a low rate of success, cases of distress should come as no surprise.

Anbuja, aged 37, of Chandrapadi, Nagapattinam, lost all her four children in the tsunami. She underwent the reversal surgery in Chennai, which cost her `150,000 (USD 3,750) but has not conceived. Her entire focus is on how to conceive again and have at least one child. Her depression becomes severe when she hears that other women have become pregnant after the surgery. (Pincha, 2008b, p. 41)

While some women were able to achieve their objective of conceiv- ing again, more often than not, women were either disempowered by being coaxed into surgery or disappointed after not obtaining the desired outcome. To compound matters, all of this occurred in a context where women are valued mainly for their reproductive roles, leading women to exert additional pressure upon themselves.

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Conclusion

The intersection of gender and disaster has been summarised, though not exhausted, in the case of post-tsunami Tamil Nadu. This article has attempted to add to the literature on gender at the interface of disaster by demonstrating gender imbalances in terms of mortality, access to aid and livelihood rehabilitation, conditions at temporary shelters and impacts on health. It has been made evident that women face both additional and heightened tribulations in times of disaster. However, it is also apparent that the origins of such disproportionate effects are not natural; rather, they are socially constructed. Discrepant gendered vulnerabilities exist from the onset of disaster and are rooted in pre-existing patriarchal norms that have indelibly shaped society’s formal and informal struc- tures. Therefore, female vulnerability in disaster is merely a carryover of vulnerabilities from ‘normal times’ into the experience of disaster. Pre-existing lack of freedom and lower social status for women are exag- gerated in times of disasters such as the tsumani. Although the tsunami represented an opportunity for relaxing and reforming embedded gen- der-based practices, efforts of social re-engineering fell substantially short. For the sake of human rights, societies and institutions must sur- vey their norms, actions and policies in the realms of both disaster and everyday life so that, hopefully, problems referred to in this article may be mitigated and erased in the future.

Notes

1. Because women empirically exhibit longer life expectancies, a de jure terri- tory possessing more men than women is generally accepted as an indicator of gender inequality and women’s rights abuses.

2. This ranking is based on life expectancy at birth, adult literacy rate and gross enrollment ratio.

3. This ranking is based on economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, political empowerment and health and survival. India held a rank- ing of 98 in 2006, only to fall to 113 in 2008.

4. As this is the first time Pincha’s Indian Ocean Tsunami through the Gender Lens: Insights from Tamil Nadu, India has been cited, it is to be noted that this text is currently the most comprehensive study on gender and the tsunami in India. Given its obvious relevance, Pincha’s text will be oft-cited; however, the other sources utilised in this article were not employed by Pincha, which is a method used to maintain a balanced, multiperspective view.

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5. The impacts of saris and long hair have also been documented in the tsunami in Sri Lanka (Oxfam International, 2005) and in cyclones in Bangladesh (Ikeda, 1995).

6. Panchayats are local units of self-governance in India. Panchayats main- tain a mandatory 33.3 per cent reservation for women. However, traditional panchayats often exclude women or provide them with minimal representa- tion (Pincha, 2008b).

7. Funds provided by the government to families who lost immediate relatives in the tsunami. The funds amount to `200,000 for each person lost.

8. The SHGs are federations of women often known as ‘cooperatives’. Women join SHGs for livelihood support, training for income-generating skills, sav- ings programmes and other services.

9. The issue of male labour migration after the tsunami must be commented upon. Interviews with female affectees in Nagapattinam revealed that men who migrated brought home much less money than was to be expected. Women attributed the meagre earnings to legitimate expenditures such as increased travel and food expenses, but also to increased spending on alcohol, gambling and the possibility that men had spent the money on sexual relations outside of marriage (Pincha, 2008b). Thus, whether for justifiable reasons or not, men who migrated for work frequently returned with a filtered income comprising less money than would be the norm, leav- ing women, children and household units to endure enhanced economic pressures.

10. Similar conditions, albeit improved, exist at the permanent housing settle- ments constructed for tsunami affectees. Women’s daily tasks continue to prove difficult and time consuming: firewood is scarce because the plots of land have been levelled and there is a shortage of water. Furthermore, the sanitation situation is abysmal in most permanent housing complexes (for example, residents of Andanapettai, Nagapattinam, are still awaiting septic tanks after one year and the sewage plant in Samanthapettai, Nagapattinam, has overflowed and been dysfunctional for 2.5 years) (field interviews, 2010).

11. Pre-tsunami statistics from the WHO state that only 65 per cent of women in India attained antenatal care in 1999, and that only 43 per cent of births were attended by skilled personnel in 2000 (Carballo et al., 2006, p. 401).

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