National Commission for Women and Tamil Nadu State Commission for Women

Tsunami has devastated the coastal communities over long stretches of Tamil Nadu, killing thousands, destroying houses, boats, fishing gear, agricultural lands, salt pans, and wiping out millions of livelihoods. Nearly a month after the killer waves hit, the National Commission for Women and Tamil Nadu State Commission for Women, on the 20th of January, 2005, held an interaction with victims of Tsunami and civil society organizations working among them to formulate recommendations for relief, rehabilitation and restoration in the affected areas. The recommendations below that emerged from the interaction were, later in the day, presented to the Govt. ot Tamil Nadu.

Recommendations:

• Title to permanent houses constructed for Tsunami victims must be in the joint names of the woman and the man of the household. The titles must be given with the proviso that any alienation of her share by the woman in favour of the man would be, ipso facto, considered invalid. Female and male heirs of beneficiaries will have equal rights of inheritance.

• Rehabilitation and restoration work in each affected community must be formulated and implemented in a participatory process, in consultation with the concerned community, including its women and not purely by bureaucratic decisions.

• A sustainable livelihood security strategy should be evolved based on the principles of gender equity and social inclusion.

• Women of the fishing communities and also other women living in the area, who were involved in selling fish, have completely lost their livelihood. They must be counted separately as Tsunami affected and special relief packages must be offered to them. Alternate livelihoods must be provided for them till they are able to resume their former economic activities.

• Separate enumeration of pregnant women and lactating mothers, who are in the Tsunami affected areas must be made. Special relief packages, including full nutritional support must be offered to them all through pregnancy / lactation period.

• The traumatic effect of the disaster on pregnant women must be assessed and special medical care, including necessary scan and psychological counseling must be, immediately, offered to them free of cost.

• TASMAC stores (Tamil Nadu Govt. run liquor shops) in the affected areas are reported to be having roaring sales due to men making a bee-line to them, with relief amount in their hands and to get over the Tsunami included gloom. The TASMAC centres in the Tsunami affected districts must be closed for at least a month.

• To ensure relief amounts fully benefiting children and families, the amounts must be paid to the woman of household.

• In many Tsunami hit shores, trees and bushes that provided toilet cover for women have been destroyed. Children, who normally went to the water edge for easing themselves, are totally scared of the sea and would not venture near it. So, toilets must be constructed on a war footing to ensure the dignity of women and also for the sanitation of the area. These must be provided even in temporary shelters.

• Protected water supply must be provided to the affected communities.

• A number of self-help groups had been functioning among women of fishing community and they have been badly hit. The loans of these self-help groups must be written off. If it is totally not feasible,then the loans must be rescheduled as per the repaying capacity of the shattered communities.

• A policy for adoption of children orphaned in the calamity must be evolved, with great care and concern and in consultation with the community. Experienced social workers and child care organizations of repute must be asked to study the specific context of each child and propose the suitable arrangement for each child. Decisions in matters of adoption should not be taken as per a blanket Government Order, however well intentioned it is.

• The children in the affected areas have suffered a complete disruption of their studies, loss of study materials, loss of family members and the resultant psychological trauma. Schools must be immediately opened and children put on the path to return to normalcy. Psychological counseling must be arranged in all the schools in the areas.

• The printing and supply of text-books and note-books and of uniforms by the Tamil Nadu Govt. is no doubt a welcome measure. However well intentioned it is, it will take time to supply study materials to children in all the classes.Priority must be given to the children in X and XII standards and study materials must be immediately supplied. Special coaching for them, free of cost, must be arranged to enable them face their examinations with confidence.

• The examinations for classes X and XII in tsunami affected areas must be postponed.

• As for children in other classes, in view of the devastation they have experienced, all of them in the affected areas must be promoted to the next higher class at the end of the year.

• Adequate supply of kerosene, free of cost, for families to resume cooking must be ensured till normalcy is restored.

• Landward housing sites for fisher and other affected families must be provided. The new houses should respect the 500 meter coastal zone regulation and should be ecologically designed. They should also be close to their earlier location to ensure the fishing community its lifeline to the sea.

• The design of the houses must be decided in consultation with the communities and experts in disaster-proof housing.

• In places like Chennai many hutments along the sea-shore had been occupied by tenants, who lost everything when the waves hit. In such cases relief and rehabilitation entitlements must be given to actual losers, after careful verification.

• Women rendered destitute by the disaster should be rehabilitated in their own community to the extent possible, providing adequate livelihood security and independent housing to them. They should not be herded in destitute homes.

• The need for counseling and trauma care for victims is being stressed. The govt. is training a large number of teachers and social workers to serve as counselors. The counselors must be allotted to specific communities for a certain length of time. They should establish a relationship with the community to generate to generate a confidence in them.

• The non-fishing, but affected communities, like agriculturists, those engaged in occupations ancillary to fishing, salt pan workers and so on must have the same entitlements as the affected fishing people.

• Massive food for work programmes must be undertaken in all the affected areas. Women must be given at least 50% of the employment generated be the programmes.

• A Special Food for Livelihood Revival and Eco-Protection programme should be initiated in all the affected areas. The programme should be sanctioned for a year and should aim at creating assets for the tsunami ravaged areas. The precise priorities can be developed for each village in consultation with local panchayats, particularly with its women.

• Most of the works can be entrusted to Self Help Groups. Priority works to be undertaken through the above schemes are:
Raising of mangrove forests, with appropriate species, to serve as speed breakers during tsunami and other coastal storms and also as carbon sinks.
Organisation of community nurseries of mangrove and other appropriate tree species
Raising artificial coral reefs
Reclamation of salinised soils for restoration of agricultural lands
Integrated capture and culture fisheries. Women of fisher families can be trained to take up the rearing of prawns and suitable salt-tolerant fish species in canals along the sea coast, using low external input sustainable aquaculture techniques.

• The tsunami calamity provides an opportunity for achieving a paradigm shift from unsustainable to sustainable fisheries. The major aim of acquarian policy must be conservation of living aquatic resources, sustainable use, equitable sharing of benefits and harmony between artesanal and mechanised fishing.

• School buildings and anganwadis in the area, that were already in a pathetic state of disrepair, have collapsed in the titanic wave. They should be rebuilt to be attractive and child-friendly, with all the necessary facilities. They should be centers for rebuilding the shattered confidence and hope of the communities. This requires well trained teachers, in adequate numbers (one per class, whatever be the class size), to be posted. Part of the funding for reconstruction must be utilized for strengthening the public school system in the area.

• A good number of persons seems to be missing. Attempts must be made to declare them dead at the earliest. The Commissions are particularly concerned about young women, who may have to wait for a long time before remarrying, if the husbands are not declared dead. It would be in the interest of victims to put their lives back on track by re-marriage or completing other legal formalities one year after the tragedy. The stipulation of 7 years as "presumption of death" period as per Hindu Succession Act and Indian Evidence Act is too long, particularly in the context of a calamity that has claimed many lives. Necessary amendments to the Acts at the Central and State levels must be considered to curtail the length of the period.

http://www.tsunami-india.org