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Essay Question: Effective humanitarian and emergency workers ensure that they take into account gender issues. Critically evaluate this statement. For the promotion of a comprehensive disaster reduction policy, lot of elements and strategic components needs to be taken into consideration and almost all of them must be looked through a gender perspective. As the equal participation of both men and women in formulating policies will lead to optimum utilization of all the talent available, moreover it will also help in identifying varied needs and perceptions of different strata’s of the society which in turn will help in facilitating those policies which will promote more accurate and balanced disaster reduction strategies and programmes (Briceno 2002). In the human rights documents there are explicit equal rights for both men and women which also form the basis of the Humanitarian Charter. All people are entitled to humanitarian assistance, human dignity, there capacity to make choices and then act on those choices (Sphere Handbook, 2011). But disaster and gender relations are socially considered to be on very different platforms, geographically, culturally and economically and both men and women have to undergo complex social consequences due to this, but over the years it has been observed that the gender aspect in disasters has affected women’s lives more than men. In spite of this impact neither any NGO nor the government has considered gender as a factor in vulnerable situations. Women and children have been identified as keys to prevention of a disaster and when seeing disasters from women’s point of view planners are amazed to find critical gaps in their systems and they realise that gender issues are central to the development and growth of humanitarian work and intervention (Enarson, 2000). According to Victoria J. Barnett, 2003, Humanitarian Intervention is using the Military force to protect the human rights violation victims. Whereas Jerry M’bartee Locula, 2011, argues that Humanitarian Intervention is not about military mediation but it is the ability of governments and states to intervene at the earliest in both social and economic aspects, so as to be proactive rather than reactive, as the ultimate intention of humanitarian intervention is to protect the humanity from persistent and immediate crisis (Locula, 2011). On 1 July 2010, International Criminal Court (ICC). came into force. In order to safeguard the human rights and advocate justice for the victims of war against crime and humanity, there was an overwhelming response to this development in the Global Arena and they accepted the intervention of humanitarian principle. Humanitarian intervention inculcates a sense of moral responsibility amongst global communities, in case of violation of human rights. According to the secretary General of ICC, It is a one in a million opportunity for communities to come together and take action against global threats which require global solutions (Barnett 2003). Women are the pillars of the society but they are also the largest group in need for assistance at the time of crises. Women most often stay behind for taking care of their family, children, elderly and vulnerable members of the community, so women also are strong, intelligent and capable of handling tasks even in crisis. Traditionally, women were not a part of decision making but were expected to preserve social order amidst it. Also, earlier the humanitarian organizations were not equipped and lacked education in order to take the role of women in consideration. So the women were left with no assistance (Passigli 1997). Example: For example in a Peruvian Village, there had been a major strategic disaster due to involvement of a singular gender and the other female side of disaster was not analysed which led a major strategic failure. As, after a careful climatic analysis all male fishermen were warned of the upcoming disaster and were made aware that they will remain unemployed for next several months. But the women at homes in the villages did not receive this warning, as the forecasters only informed those who were directly impacted by the disaster. As a result of this failure in strategy, the village faced poverty, unemployment and major economic setbacks, because the women in the village used to manage al household budget and expenses, if they knew about the upcoming disaster they would have saved more. Moreover the men in the families for some reason never informed their families as well and continued to spend their money. Due to this male dominant series of planning and events the actual caretakers who are responsible for gardening, agriculture, savings, food resources, budget and household consumption, were left unaware (Briceno 2002). In order to evolve from this situation the humanitarian organizations were required to minimize gender bias within the organizations. For achieving such standards humanitarian organizations were required to promote women amongst all ranks, including senior as well as medium levels, as decision makers and then creating awareness at all levels in order to build capacity and enhance policy making for strengthening women’s status in humanitarian organizations as well as women who need assistance. Revival of gender issues began with the introduction of a new culture (Passigli 1997). Mainstreaming Gender is an important strategy for promoting gender equality at a national level scenario. It was established in Beijing Conference in the year 1995 as a major strategy and it emphasised on mainstreaming Gender in all important areas of concern. The concept was reinforced by the UN general assembly in its session of June 2000. According to ECOSOC, Economic and Social Council, gender mainstreaming is a strategy of making the concerns of both men and women as an important dimension of designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating policies at varied spheres of political, social and economic platforms, so that both the genders can equally benefit. For effectively achieving gender equality Women Empowerment is essential to achieve, as this concept is not an end in itself but an initiation to lead to gender equality and influencing policies, strategies and plans in all areas of development. For effective disaster management gender analysis a gender informed policy is extremely essential. Also, capacity building for gender mainstreaming is equally essential, as gender analysis helps in understanding the working of communities in normal and circumstances of crisis and ten also helps in monitoring the various effects of disasters on men and women in varied social groups and cultures. Moreover it is very essential for targeting those aspects which are often missed like actual roles and capabilities, along with improves accountability for effects and impacts of intervention (Briceno 2002). Individuals trained to help during these emergencies; situations like accidents, fire, floods, earthquakes and explosions, which occur suddenly and destroy many lives and families, are the emergency workers. Emergency workers are prepared to act quickly in unexpected and crisis situations and are a part of the community (Kalman, 2005: 4). According to Gender, Equity and Rural Employment (2011), Roles and responsibilities of Humanitarian actors during humanitarian crisis and intervention are: • Raising awareness of gender issues amongst policy and decision makers along with capacity building of emergency officers and local partners during the analysis of socio-economic and gender issues. And also adopting participatory approaches for designing gender –sensitive livelihood rehabilitation interventions. • Formulating rehabilitation strategies and laying down action plans for poor households in disaster stricken areas • Ensuring equal representation of women and their issues during planning sessions, consultations, community meetings, awareness sessions, trainings, workshops and project activities so as to enhance their economic contribution further. • Incorporation and integration of food security and livelihood restoration assessment issues and finding small scale projects opportunities. Along with focusing on women specific issues relating to post-conflict reintegration. • Organising educational programs targeting HIV/AIDS vulnerable individuals and households and improved access to agricultural inputs for the youth to enhance their livelihood. • Introduction of small scale income generation activities so as to target the vulnerable household groups, particularly female headed households who have absolutely no access to land, so that they have food security and poverty is not alleviated. Households which are headed by females are also provided with training tools and equipment to start with food processing activities. • Structural barriers to land reforms must be addressed in order to formulate a strategy to assist government in evaluating its land policy. This action is performed by building national capacities in gender issues and participation and also by organizing campaigns for land right claims. • A gender and livelihood specialist must be included in the evaluation team of affected areas in order to mainstream gender issues in small scale enterprises and community based crisis. • The humanitarian workers must adopt various important activities during the preparedness phase; a). Implementation of minimum preventive and response procedures in the early stages of emergency, b). Taking an Overview of actions which need to be taken in future more stabilised phases and during recovery and rehabilitation (IASC Task Force on Gender in Humanitarian Assistance, 2005). In humanitarian assistance, gender perspective has been given extreme importance and these are many resolutions and standards created in this respect Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security - October 2000—This resolution calls for giving recognition to the special needs of all girls and women during the crucial phases of repatriation, rehabilitation, reconstruction after conflicts and resettlement (United Nations Security Council, 2000). ECOSOC 2003 Resolution on “strengthening of the coordination of emergency humanitarian assistance of the United Nations”– This resolution emphasized on the continuous relevance of integrating gender perspective in the planning, programming and implementation phases if humanitarian activities by implementing existing guidelines on gender mainstreaming (Office for Coordination of humanitarian affairs 2005). Outcomes Document – Beijing +5 (New York, 2000) –An international; action as to be taken by the UN and all international and regional organizations to assist governments on their request to develop gender sensitive strategies in order to give them assistance wherever necessary and responding to humanitarian crisis arising from natural disasters and conflict appropriate, responses to humanitarian crises resulting from armed conflict and natural disasters (United Nations General Assembly 2000). Commission on the Status of Women, March 2004- This commission calls for promoting and protecting the complete use of the human rights and fundamental freedom by all females at all times and stages of conflict; prevention, management, resolution and peace building. Moreover it also calls for the protection of women under the threat of violence and their freedom to participate in social, political and economic activities (United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women 2010). |IASC Policy Statement on Gender Equality in Humanitarian Action (Humanitarian Reform 2010). | | | | | | | | | |In 2008 IASC revised its policy statement on the issue of gender in humanitarian action, wherein the responsibility of humanitarian | |workers is highlighted which is to be highlighted at all levels in or to make the humanitarian response more effective, as the | |services would be designed according to the needs of everyone in a society and these standards set also increases the accountability | |of humanitarian workers towards their respective organizations. | |The policy highlights 5 revised ways under the Sub Working Group on Gender and humanitarian action, whose work is structured under an | |annual work plan. | |Implementing standards for gender equality and Gender Based Violence | |Capacity building of humanitarian actors on GBV (Gender Based Violence). issues and employing experts for such emergencies | |Encouraging emergency workers to collect and use the sex and age data for making effective decisions | |Building relationships with various NGO’s, to have more consistent gender equality programmes in crisis. | |Strong accountability system for humanitarian actors during the situation of GBV and internal gender issues during humanitarian | |action. | ECOSOC’s 1998 humanitarian affairs segment- This segment requests the Emergency relief co-ordinators to ensure full integration of gender perspective into the humanitarian activities and policies (Office for Coordination of humanitarian affairs 2005). Example: The Indian government has formulated a National policy for the empowerment of women in 2001, it was prepared by the department of Women and Child Development, in order to foster Gender Equity in all areas of life by providing equal access of education, health care and employment benefits. The major aim of this policy was to make the existing judicial system of the country more gender sensitive. Women were to now represent in all bodies to make decisions may it be Judicial, Executive or Corporate. And all other major economic development was gender-mainstreamed and gender responsive. This policy highlights the importance of gender sensitivity in policies and programs important for country’s growth and development (Menon et al 2004). To achieve these standards humanitarian workers have to undergo various managerial and operational challenges Managerial (Murison 2004). • Sufficient time must be dedicated to the participatory exploration of the beliefs and experiences of participants and also under pinning their interpretation of data. This will allow the participants of humanitarian relief to reflect on their own roles and responsibilities. • While performing gender equality analysis more explicit methods must be adopted to identify the ways in how gender equality can be produced and maintained in order to link it to specific strategies for a change • Focus should not be solely on the gender roles and responsibility education • Training provisions must be made in participatory approaches to avoid any kinds of conflict Operational (Noorani 2010). There have been many operational challenges which have come across to promote gender equality during humanitarian crises, which are; • Overall Instability and Insecurity • Forced Displacement • Restricted access to population • Increasing number of non-state armed actors • Diminishing National capacity • Widening range and extent of human rights abuses So when both formal and informal mechanisms of protection break down and human rights abuses are on an increase, addressing gender based violence becomes particularly essential along with other protection challenges. Case Study (Disaster Learning Seminar Series 2011). Women are not helpless victims as it is widely agreed and they can play a major part in providing meaningful contributions in varied stages of disaster management. For example during the earthquake in Yogyakarta, Indonesia on 27 May 2006, women were involved as humanitarian workers and few as survivors who later joined the emergency workers. They played the roles of caregivers for kids and aged, they were also involved in taking care of the assets and valuable of disaster stricken families. Moreover during the time of house reconstructions they were involved as supervisors and budget managers, played a major role in the interior designing of house so as to take into consideration all safety instructions to avoid any future crisis. During the Mt Merapi volcanic eruption, women acted like logistic volunteers by helping in distribution of medical supply and organizing evacuation shelters. Also they were continuously involved in organizing educational activities for women and children and farming lessons for community. And now Community Based Settlement Rehabilitation and Reconstruction (REKOMPAK). is Indonesia’s very few programmes which have used a community empowerment approach. All these activities clearly prove that women have both the competencies and willingness to actively participate as emergency or humanitarian workers and if given an opportunity they can perform multi-functional tasks both as managers and decision makers and participants. At the end this will lead to utilization of combined efforts of both men and women which in turn will result in effective Disaster Management (Disaster Learning Seminar Series 2011). According to, One Response (2006) ADAPT and ACT is a framework tool to be adopted by the humanitarian workers in order to ensure that all groups in the population get the support they need. All emergency workers must use these steps in designing and implementing these programmes, as this will help them to provide services in times of crisis which addresses the needs of men and women in equal manner. A - Analysing gender differences D - Designing services to meet the needs of all A - Access of equal services to all men, women, boys and girls P - Participation of men and women in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of humanitarian response T-Training men and women equally, so that they have equal opportunities for work and employment ACT A - Addressing GBV in sector programmes, to save lives and maximise protection, following IASC guidelines C-Collecting, analysing, and reporting sex and age disaggregated data, to find out who is affected and who amongst all most at risk is T- Targeting actions based on gender analysis, Specific groups should be targeted with special actions when necessary C - Coordinating actions with partners, all activities must be integrated by all partners Adapting and Acting Collectively to ensure gender equality It is essential that all emergency actors must keep on addressing the varied needs of men, women, girls and boys, as they coordinate, assess, prioritize and implement plans during emergencies. They must include women in decision making and build on their capacities. This practice must be followed by all the humanitarian workers amongst health services, water and sanitation services, human rights observers or any other staff, as it is the secret to an effective response. There is no single individual who can completely address the diverse needs of men and women alone, especially when all the other entities on field is not supportive to the tasks, so in order to be effective all humanitarian and emergency workers must: • Assess all the needs and situations together: Gender issues are persistent in all areas of work, so it is very essential to analyse all social, political, economical and military environment. As they all affect both men and women in completely different ways. This will also give them a detailed understanding of the impact of crisis and will also enable all practitioners at field to work together through practical ways. • Coordinating Forums must be convened: All emergency actors must meet at one place including, local and government representatives, in order to map out a response. This will help in creating awareness of various needs of men and women, along with ensuring that all sectors are equally intervened • Set Aside adequate funds for coordination: While setting a budget for intervention gender issues must be taken into consideration and equal distribution of funds must be decided amongst all groups and sectors by the humanitarian actors. (IASC Gender Handbook 2006). Conclusion Emergency and humanitarian workers will be effective, if they take into consideration the gender issues while providing humanitarian assistance. At the time of a disaster, all humanitarian actors are promptly moved to save lives and meet the basic necessities of the people. In order to provide humanitarian assistance at the earliest accurately, involving gender issues may seem to be irrelevant and ineffective use of time. But while offering aid to a society which comprises of all men, women, boys and girls, we must take into consideration that they face different challenges and their needs are different from each other. These factors are extremely essential to be taken into consideration, if not then all the assistance provided at the time of disaster will not be properly targeted which in turn might have serious implications on the protection and survival of people. At the time of crisis, the concept of mainstreaming a gender will allow a better and accurate understanding of the situation and will also enable the emergency workers to meet the priorities of the individuals in a targeted and planned approach. 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