Tsunami: Weaving New Lives with Andaman Women and Children.

"The Indian Ocean Tsunami may have made no distinction between men and women in the grim death toll it reaped with its waves but it has produced some very gender-specific after-shocks, ranging from women's traditional role in caring for the sick to increased cases of rape and abuse. (1)"

The Foundation for Women was deeply concerned by the human tragedy caused by the Tsunami and its impact on vulnerable groups of women and children. In response we developed the "Weaving New Lives with Andaman Women and Children" project, and established a coordinating centre in Phang-Nga in April 2005 to provide Tsunami affected women and children with recovery activities, counseling, support and funding to develop income generation projects. These are some of their stories:

Ann-Pregnant muslim widow, 2nd wife

Ann is a Muslim woman who was 8 months pregnant when the Tsunami struck the hotel she worked at, and the nearby area where her husband worked. Ann did not go to work on December 26th, 2004, but her husband did. He was killed in the massive waves and it took Ann over two weeks to find his dead body.

Muslim custom allows men to have up to four wives, but Thai law does not permit polygamy so only his first marriage is recognized as legal. Second and subsequent wives cannot register their marriage to their husband. As Ann was the second wife of her husband, and could not show a marriage certificate, she received no government compensation for the death of her husband. She was lucky that her husband's first wife, Bon, was sympathetic, and gave her 15% of the compensation she received for their dead husband. Some of Ann's Muslim sisters who are the second, third or fourth wife are not so fortunate; they are struggling to survive, omitted from the compensation program, with little skills to adjust to the breadwinner role thrust upon them. Ann's exclusion from the compensation is twofold because she is recognized as neither a wife nor a mother because her baby was not yet born at the time of the Tsunami, and there is no allowance or compensation for pregnancy. She is now a widowed mother with a newborn baby, but must recover and raise her child with no assistance from the government.

Satta-Widowed with 2 children, in severe psychological distress, 7 family members dead

Satta was married with two children. She and her husband were both workers employed on a daily basis at luxury hotels on the shoreline. Her husband worked a morning shift, and she an afternoon shift. Satta never went to work on the fatal day because the Tsunami demolished the Sofitel before her shift started. Including her husband, Satta lost seven family members in the disaster.

Satta was psychologically devastated by the death of her husband and family members. One year after the Tsunami neither of her elder children speaks of the event that killed their father. When Satta takes her 8 year old daughter to the temple to pay respect for her husbands death, her daughter says, "Mum, you are going crazy, why should we go to the temple? Dad is still in bed". The confused and devastated child tells strangers who ask about her father, "he's not dead; he's living in the mountains".

Because their work had been casual, the employment company gave Satta no compensation. She and her children are now staying in an abandoned house owned by her ex-employers.

Satta is one of many women in desperate need of assistance to develop career skills so she can take care of her children.

Juri--Muslim widow with a child under 3

Juri is a Muslim widow with a toddler. Because her child are under the age of three, she cannot receive any governmental assistance to cover the costs of caring for him. Juri, like many other widowed mothers with young children, cannot access the government compensation program, because there is no outreach services provided, and she is unable to leave her children in order to go and find the government office to claim her assistance entitlements.

Juri has benefited from the Weaving New Lives project through psychological counseling, participating in psycho-social healing activities, and developing an income generation plan with assistance from our outreach staff. We funded Juri's income generation project and she was able to purchase a mobile food stall. Juri could not operate the food stall by herself because she is the sole carer of her two young children, so she arranged for her brother-in-law to take the stall out and sell the food, while she made the food at home. They split the profits, but her brother-in-law was unreliable and would only sell the food when he was in a good mood.

Eventually he destroyed the business equipment and left the area.

Juri, like Satta, needs skills training for her survival. A strategic plan to assist widows with young children is needed--a plan which incorporates childcare and vocational training.

Koi--Burmese Migrant Worker 

Koi is an illegal Burmese migrant worker. She lives daily in constant fear of being arrested. She cannot go anywhere and must stay in hiding. The only assistance she is able to get is rice from aid organizations, which Weaving New Lives outreach staff must collect for her. Illegal debt--the borrowing of money at exorbitant rates through unofficial means such as personal loans from landlords--is a common problem for migrant women who have lost their means of livelihood and cannot leave their homes or access assistance programs. Koi is trapped in this cycle. She borrowed money from her landlord just to keep a roof over her head and to eat a meager meal each day, but cannot pay him back. Koi is one of numerous Burmese migrants living in the affected areas, in constant fear and struggling to survive.

Nawan--Thai Migrant Worker

Nawan is a Thai national who migrated from Bangkok, her province of birth, to Phang-Nga, for marriage and work. Before the Tsunami she was renting a house in Ban Nam Khem, the area hardest struck by the Tsunami. The whole village was destroyed, including her house. After the Tsunami Nawan moved to a rental house in Ban Hin Lad, Kuraburi district and later returned to different rental house in Ban Nam Khem after some rebuilding of destroyed properties had taken place.

People with house registration in the affected areas, whose homes were destroyed, can access government assistance to establish a new place to live. Because Nawan's house registration states Bangkok as her residence and not Phang-Nga, she cannot prove to authorities that she has been made homeless because of the Tsunami. There is no mechanism Nawan can access to receive the compensation non-migrating Thais are given. Nawan is another example of a group of women whose situation has not been catered for in the recovery process.

Aunt Kay--Stolen body of dead daughter

Aunt Kay is a 50 year old woman. As a result of the Tsunami her daughter died, her son is in serious trauma and her husband has an injured knee requiring monthly medical treatment. The family lost all their property including their house and boat.

After the event, Aunt Kay spent time searching for her daughter. She eventually found that her daughter's body had been taken by someone else who tried use the body to claim government compensation. Aunt Kay reported this to the police and supplied proof that she is the real mother. In mid June 2005, she received the result of DNA tests proving that the body was indeed her daughter's.

Karn--Health problems

Karn, her husband and their two daughters, aged 13 and 9, lived with Karn's parents while her husband was building them a house of their own. Karn's husband was the sole income earner for the family before the Tsunami.

When Karn's husband was killed by the Tsunami, she moved to the temporary shelter in Tukuapa. After two months she was asked to leave the shelter because she had a house of her own to move to--even though the house was not finished or safe to live in. Karn suffered severe psychological trauma and the stress worsened her heart disease condition.

Karn took part in Weaving New Lives counseling and psycho-social activities. She developed an income generation plan to build a grocery shop. With the assistance of her two sisters and funding from the Weaving New Lives project, Karn built her grocery shop, which increased her confidence and ability to take care of her daughters. The outreach team believes that many more women would benefit from income project funding and career building if this assistance was included the recovery plans of civil society.

"Understanding and measuring the differences [in needs between men and women] is essential for an effective response," the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a news release, stressing the need to "raise awareness on gender issues among decision- and policymakers to ensure that women's and men's different needs are reflected in policies, practices and resource distribution through the phases of relief, rehabilitation and development" (1).

There are still no gender disaggregated statistics or any other organizations responding specifically to women's needs in the Tsunami affected areas of Thailand. Through assisting marginalized women and children we have discovered many problems which are unique to women, mothers and widows; but these difficulties are not factored into the recovery plan. There are many who are forgotten and unseen by the government's compensation scheme. While some women have recovered from their trauma, they all share the need for enduring government initiated skills training, accommodation and income generation strategies.

In July 2005, one affected woman and an FFW staff member attended the Meeting "Asian Women's Consultation on Post Tsunami Challenges" in ACEH, Indonesia. 60 women together developed a declaration of women's specific needs for the government's of affected countries to heed. Some of the demands are yet to be met. The workload ahead for the Weaving New Lives project team is to see that these remaining demands of affected women are met by the government and other relief providers:

* Recognize and address gender specific and special needs of women.

* Recognize the needs and rights of children, elderly, disabled, women living with HIV/AIDS and affected women who need long-term medical and psychological treatment and assistance.

* Provide gender disaggregated data in tsunami affected regions.

* Implement relief and reconstruction activities without discrimination based on gender, caste, class, ethnicity, religion, age, migration, citizenship and other factors.

* Recognize the rights of the fishing communities to the sea and the coastal land and ensure that business interests in the rebuilding process do not negatively impact livelihoods of the seashore people.

The Tsunami has changed the face of affected communities forever. For full recovery, we must acknowledge the new situation, and support the rebuild of human life after such terrible loss. To do so effectively, women must be consulted, included in recovery plans, and supported in their new breadwinning and leadership roles. FFW will continue Weaving New Lives with Andaman Women and Children; our challenge in 2006 is to garner lasting governmental support for affected women. Our project is short term but we hope that it will have ongoing effects for affected women and children and their needs will finally be included in the recovery plan.

The Foundation for Women would like to thank the generous donors of the Weaving New Lives with Andaman Women and Children Project: Public Donators, Terr der Homes Germany and The Netherlands, ActionAID Asia International and ANESVAD Spain.

RELATED ARTICLE: Tsunami and Peace t-shirts.

These T-shirts were designed to raise funds for the Foundation for Women's "Weaving New Lives with Andaman Women and Children" and "Weaving Peace to Lives in the Southern Communities" projects. The Tsunami t-shirts, designed by affected women and children, were both an exercise in catharsis and an awareness and fundraising campaign.

(1) United Nations Website http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=13039&Cr=tsunami&Cr1