As Pakistan Floods Continue, UUSC Partner Supports Women and Children

Imagine you're a woman who's been raised to depend on your male relatives. You've been forced from your home by dangerous floodwaters that have destroyed your home, your crops, your livelihood. You don't know how to swim. You've been separated from your husband, and you have children to take care of. All the relief workers you've seen are men, who tradition says you're not to talk to. Now, imagine you meet someone who recognizes your strength and abilities, who listens to your story, who asks what you need and knows how to help.

In the midst of the devastating floods in Pakistan, this is the situation that many women find themselves in when they meet UUSC partner Bedari. Empowering women with an innovative approach to relief work, Bedari is working to ensure that women and children, among the most at-risk people in the disaster, are not overlooked in relief efforts.

Currently, more than 17.2 million people have been affected by the flooding, 1,600 people have died, over 1.2 million houses have been damaged or destroyed, and nearly 14,000 square miles — almost one and a half times the size of Massachusetts — of crops have been lost. While the floodwaters in the northern districts are reported to be receding, in southern Punjab and Sindh provinces extensive damage continues, and Anbreen Ajaib of Bedari tells UUSC that it is not over yet. "The situation is not yet under control," Ajaib says. "People still need rescue, food, and medicine. There are huge health issues — diarrhea, malaria, respiratory diseases, and other flood-related diseases."

Bedari started their relief work on August 20, establishing two support centers for women and children in Nowshera and Charsaddah. These are both in the northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a more traditional area of Pakistan where society observes purdah, the strict segregation of women from men and the world outside their homes.

Bedari is also in the process of securing funding for and setting up additional relief centers further south in other districts, including centers in Rajanpur and Muzaffarhargh. Both in the far southwest of Punjab province, these areas are still relatively underserved compared to areas in northwest Pakistan. Bedari sets up the women's centers in tent-offices within the displaced-persons camps so they can act as relief contact points for women in the camps. Women staff create a welcoming and safe atmosphere for other women.

In addition to providing food items and life-saving medicines, Bedari is collecting data on missing and separated families so as to work toward reuniting them. They also offer psychosocial support. As Ajaib describes the individual and sometimes group sessions, "We sit with them, talk to them, listen to their stories and their frustrations that are caused by this disaster, hear their problems, and link them with service providers who are available."

In the course of a recent session at a Bedari support center, a woman expressed the need for reproductive health assistance. While usually this topic might never have come up or been ignored if it did, Bedari was able to hear her needs and connect her with a nongovernmental organization (NGO) that works on reproductive health and is providing services for flood-affected people at a greatly reduced rate or for free.

Ajaib stressed the importance of the psychosocial counseling that Bedari provides. It's an invaluable approach that they have been using for years in working with survivors of violence and previous disasters like the 2005 South Asia earthquake — and one that other relief organizations fail to provide. Ajaib describes, "As opposed to feeling lost and ignored and helpless, these women can help themselves. The psychosocial support helps them understand their capability that they were taught that they don't have — but they actually do have. It helps them make their own decisions, and when they make their own decisions, they feel more confident."

A group of NGOs supporting women met in Islamabad on August 31 to talk about how to increase the visibility of women and create an action plan, since relief organizations are generally not sensitive to the needs and challenges that women face in the midst of disaster. This is an example of positive collaboration between NGOs that Ajaib is optimistic about. Bedari was also just involved in a meeting organized by UNICEF that brought together 25 NGOs to share their efforts so as to avoid duplication and to support each other's work. In the face of slow government response that has somewhat hindered rescue efforts, NGOs are delivering the bulk of relief.

As the situation in northern Pakistan gradually gets under control, Ajaib is already thinking toward the future with women and children in mind. "Relief is of course important, and it's essential to rescue people first before thinking about their future, but we also need to start looking toward the rehabilitation phase. It's very important to think about gender sensitivity in the rehabilitation period, because women and children are the most seriously vulnerable groups in these areas."

In the long term, Ajaib explains, Pakistan will be facing joblessness and a food crisis caused by the loss of standing crops and damage to agricultural land in an area that is called the "breadbasket" of Pakistan. Ajaib reflects, "The economic crisis will go on, and I think it will take years to overcome this disaster." Women, who are usually involved solely in agriculture, especially cotton picking, will be left without livelihoods. Bedari is already contemplating the need for building women's capacity to earn money in such circumstances — and throughout it all, they will continue listening carefully to the stories and needs of women and children.

The women and children of Pakistan need our support. Please consider donating to the UUSC-UUA Joint Pakistan Flood Relief Fund today.