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analysis, individual risks for heat wave deaths were identifi ed as living alone, not
leaving home daily, lacking access to transportation, being sick or bedridden, and
not having social contacts nearby. So, given that in sheer numbers elderly women in
poor neighborhoods outnumber men, why did so many men die? Primarily because
elderly men did not sustain social relationships - they didn't have friends, nor a
community of mutual care. Gender norms of social interaction meant that men were
much more socially isolated than their female counterparts. In the heat wave, that
social isolation was deadly (Klinenberg 2003 ).
14.2
Sexual Violence: The Disaster Within the Disaster
Disasters do not stop when the waters recede or the ground stops shaking. For many
communities and individuals, the disaster aftermath lasts much longer and can be
even more catastrophic. Disasters exacerbate poverty, and usually push previously
poor people into destitution. Loss of housing, material possessions including
income-generating assets, livestock, cropland, safe water supplies, and sanitation
facilities can be catastrophic - and are all gendered. Food insecurity and hunger -
also gendered - follow in the footsteps of many disasters.
For years, feminist analyses of disasters have revealed that astonishing levels of
violence against women accompany and follow most disasters. When acute disas-
ters or chronic environmental change produces social and economic disruption, and
particularly if civic order collapses entirely, violence against women and girls, espe-
cially sexual violence and sex traffi cking, increases dramatically - whether rapes in
post-Katrina New Orleans or sex traffi cking of young girls separated from their
families in post-fl oods Mozambique.
Acknowledgment of gender-based violence associated with disasters is slowly
drawing offi cial attention. A United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report on
gender-based violence in Aceh, Indonesia, following the 2004 SE Asian tsunami
found signifi cant increases in traffi cking of women and girls in the tsunami after-
math and noted that women and girls in the refugee camps were at particular risk
(UNFPA 2005 ; WHO 2005 ). The US State Department notes in its 2010 Traffi cking
in Persons Report that natural disasters exacerbate vulnerabilities and allow traf-
fi ckers to fl ourish. An NGO working to assist people caught in the 2013 Uttarakhand,
India, fl ooding warns that “Traffi cking of young girls happens here due to poverty,
and families are often coerced into accepting money from traffi ckers who marry
their daughters to older men in other states, rather than pay a large dowry for them.
After the fl oods, this is likely to worsen as people are poorer and more desperate”
(Bhalla 2013 ).
A UNFPA discussion of humanitarian relief in emergency settings includes what
has now become an almost rote warning about sexual violence associated with
disasters 1 :
1 http://www.unfpa.org/emergencies/violence.htm ; accessed August 1, 2013
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