Sri Lankan Women’s Small but Significant Gains in the Post Tsunami Reconstruction Process

The gendered nature of changed social and economic relations in the post-tsunami context

The devastation of the tsunami which struck the coastal areas of Sri Lanka on December 26, 2004 was further exacerbated by the fact that these areas had been affected by two decades of armed conflict.

The Suriya Women’s Development Centre based in the Batticaloa District carried out a rapid household survey in March 2005 to assess the changed household relations after the tsunami. The survey sample included 200 households selected representatively from the affected communities.

According to the January 2005 data of District Secretariat of Batticaloa, the disaggregated statistics of the dead in the tsunami indicate that 60% of the deaths were women. However, the survey conducted by Suriya Women’s Development Centre found 80% of the dead in the sample were women and girls. The fact that the families lost their socially sanctioned care giver has greatly impacted households. In most cases, men have not been able to successfully take on the caring role for their own children, and have been depending on female relatives. There is also a tendency for the fathers to marry young women to look after the children. The state and other organisations are still unclear about their response to this new phenomenon.

In the Batticaloa sample, 25 households had new comers of whom 30 were female and 34 were male (children and adults)
On average, there were 2-3 new members in these households, with one case of 7 new members being taken care of in one household.
There are also households taking care of children who have lost both parents. According to the UNICEF and District Child Protection Committee statistics there were 700 such children in the district.

A member of a women’s group from a tsunami affected area, putting forward her land rights problems at a public hearing on human rights issues – Eastern Province

It can be assumed that with the changing household structures and support systems there have been additional caring roles that women and children (especially girl children) have had to take on. In the survey there were instances (8% of the households) where older children, both male and female, had dropped out of school after the tsunami, having to take on additional household responsibilities.

District statistics show that 146 widows have been registered after the tsunami (District Secretariat, Batticaloa). This is apart from the war-related widows. It is interesting that 15% of the interviewed women identified themselves as head of households. They had taken on these roles due to various factors. Some women have become the head of household due to the tsunami, others due to the war and the fact that their men had gone to the Middle Eastern countries as migrant workers, or left the communities due to death threats related to the war, or had abandoned them. Some women identified themselves as heads of households because they were the main income earner (even though the man was present). It is clear that women’s lives have been influenced by many factors prior to the tsunami, and it is important not to isolate impacts of the tsunami from the other social realities of women’s lives. The tsunami has only sharpened the complexity and fluidity of women’s social roles.

A rapid assessment made by women’s groups after the tsunami showed that 60% of land in Batticaloa was owned by women. This is due to the customary laws practiced in the Eastern Province where land ownership went from mother to daughter. However, the State policy on land allocation only recognises the male head of household as the legitimate owner of land. There is a risk that women can lose their rights to land.

The survey indicated that women in the camps found a lack of space and privacy, a major concern for them. They were unhappy about not being able to perform cultural rites related to puberty, marriage and death. Muslim women are expected to mourn the death of their husbands by practicing Itha - exclusion from society for four months -which is difficult to follow in congested camp settings. Women, who left the camps to stay at relatives’ houses to perform the mourning rites, have been excluded from government assistance.

Another issue mentioned by women in the survey was the prevalence of violence. Incidents of domestic violence have been common along with increased rates of alcohol consumption. Men spend cash from compensation, sale of government assistance items and non food relief items distributed by aid agencies on alcohol. In informal discussions women living in the camps mentioned the enormous pressure by their men to have sex even if there is no privacy with children in the tents and more than one family sharing a tent.

One of most important outcomes of the tsunami has been the creation of small but significant space for women to articulate their opinions. 24.8% of the women in the survey mentioned that learning to negotiate with government and NGO officials, participating in decision making, participating in public life and accessing information had been a positive experience for them after the tsunami. Women have been supported by women’s groups to take on decision-making positions in camp committees and village committees. Though this has not been in anyway an unchallenged phenomenon, it is definitely a positive step.

Networks have been established amongst women’s organisations to respond more effectively to challenges facing women in the reconstruction process. The national level Coalition for Assisting Tsunami Affected Women (CATAW) and the District level Women’s Coalition for Disaster Management – Batticaloa (WCDM) are two such examples. The WCDM is a network of local women’s organisations, international organisations and community women’s groups. It has been advocating for women’s land rights, access to compensation and loans, recognition of women’s livelihoods, violence against women and addressing women’s specific needs in camps, such as providing separate covered bathing places for women. It has been lobbying for the inclusion of women in decision making processes and has had some success, where camp committees, local level bodies and district level bodies have included women. For instance, the livelihoods taskforce for the district has three women’s organisations on it. WCDM has been involved in sharing of experiences and strategies with women’s organisations from the tsunami affected countries: India , Maldives , Bangladesh and Indonesia . Our members also participated in the Asian Women’s Consultation on Post-Tsunami Challenges in Aceh , Indonesia which was very useful in building regional networks of solidarity.

This survey was part of a national survey carried out by the Centre for Women’s Research (CENWOR), Colombo , in 8 districts affected by the tsunami, and was financially supported by UNIFEM.