APWLD WEN TF STATEMENT ON THE ASIAN WOMEN'S SOLIDARITY VISIT TO KASHMIR

ASIAN WOMEN's SOLIDARITY VISIT to Earthquake-Affected areas in Kashmir
24-26 MAY 2006

LET THE SEEDS OF JUSTICE AND GENUINE DEVELOPMENT SPRING FROM THE RUBBLES of KASHMIR

camp al mustafa

We, women activists, lawyers, development workers and human rights defenders coming from Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Cambodia, Burma, Korea, Mongolia and Pakistan call for the immediate reconstruction of the communities and the lives of the women and men who were ravaged by the October 8, 2005 earthquake.

As we visited a few devastated areas in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) or the Pakistan-Occupied Territory of Kashmir, we were appalled to see that the lives of the communities are still in precarious situation, eight months after the disaster. The Hatian Bala village tent has 130 tents housing 141 joint families. Living in most of these 4-person tents are families of 8-10 women, men and children. Within these eight months, they have lived in extreme weather conditions: from bitter winter nights to scorching heat of summer. As the international aid came at the peak of the preparation for the winter, most of the clothes and materials given were thick warm stuff, which are the only things they wear and have now, under 43 Celsius heat. Come July, it will be rainy season, with life threatening landslides are not mere possibilities but are certainties.

The World Food Programme, international health workers and other aid agencies were pulled out in March 30, 2006 by the government. Now, there is simply no regular source of food, nor any source of income. In March too, the communities were asked to leave the camps and tents and go back to their communities. The families in Hatian Bala have no where to go. They are from the villages in Neelum Valley, where the mountain on which they lived totally collapsed burying 700 inhabitants. This area is classified as "red zone" which means highly vulnerable to more earthquakes. Some critical water channels were blocked, thus creating two lakes: one quite small, and the other big enough to be of interest to investors for the building of a dam. No concrete information is yet available as to who will be investing, but post signs of construction are already visible. So, even the families who dared to return to their village in this area were forced to leave by the military because of the dam construction. Where then these families are supposed to go back to? The government body Earthquake Relief and Reconstruction Authority (ERRA) has yet to fulfill its mandate. No settlement plan has been finalized. And even when it happens, we are seriously concerned that the women survivors will not be able to benefit from this, as they have been and are now being marginalized from most of the relief packages and operations. As there were very few women social workers, it was difficult for the women to articulate their needs: water source in a safe and accessible place as the women and girl-children are the ones who fetch water for the family; personal needs such as fabric for their clothes, and related needs for lactating mothers, menstruating women, and other reproductive health needs.

kids at work

Most of these families have no bank accounts, and even for those who had, these accounts are in the names of the men of the house. For those who have lost their husbands and fathers, they have no means to access relief money and compensation; only male heads of the household are recognized. This is the same issue with land ownership: lands are only named to men. With these structural impediments, how then the surviving women can actually take the steps to recovery and reconstruction of their lives and the other lives which were put in their care: ailing father-in-law, injured mother, children? Women and their role in the joint family care must be recognized and supported. Their rights to have access to resources that would improve their lives must be upheld. This is the moment to take this long over-due step to effect genuine and just changes in the land of Kashmir and Pakistan.

It is in this light that we call for the governments of AJK and Pakistan to:

• immediately implement a settlement plan for the landless communities;
• register lands in the name of women;
• facilitate the opening of bank accounts in the name of women who have been affected by the earthquake; and
• prioritize the development and reconstruction of the communities over the interest of commercial investors, particularly that of the Hatian Bala dam.