Abstract
Disaster management is a global challenge, but disasters do not affect men and women equally. In most of the world’s disasters, more females are impacted than males, and in Afghanistan the disparity between female and male victims is even greater. This study identifies and maps the relationships between the factors that make Afghan rural women more vulnerable to natural hazard-induced disasters. Data for this study were obtained through focus group discussions with rural women and men, as well as person-to-person interviews with employees of government and nongovernmental organizations at the national and local levels in Afghanistan. The study uses Grounded Theory and Interpretive Structural Modeling, not widely used before for this type of study, to analyze the data collected and to map the factors of vulnerability identified and their relationships. In agreement with previous studies, our findings show that insufficient disaster education, inadequate protection measures, and powerful cultural issues, both pre- and post-disaster, increase women’s vulnerability during and after disasters. In particular, cultural issues play a role after disasters by affecting women’s security, access to disaster aid, and health care. The study also found that perception regarding these cultural issues and how they affect women during disasters differs among men and women. Finally, by using Interpretive Structural Modeling, we show how the importance of the factors and their interrelationships change in pre-disaster and post-disaster situations. We conclude the article with some policy recommendations such as finding ways to allow women to participate in disaster planning activities and decision-making processes related to disaster risk reduction, as well as securing dedicated funds for the mainstreaming of gender in disaster risk reduction policies in Afghanistan.
Highlights
Many studies highlight the fact that disasters do not affect people (Enarson and Morrow 1998; Mileti 1999)
Because Afghanistan is subject to many kinds of natural hazards, it is important to understand what are the factors of disaster vulnerability experienced by women of the country
What makes the study unique is that we explore the disaster vulnerability of women through the voices and perceptions of the residents themselves in a rural village in Afghanistan
Summary
Many studies highlight the fact that disasters do not affect people (Enarson and Morrow 1998; Mileti 1999). Enarson and Meyreles (2004) found that exclusion of women from the disaster management and decision-making processes, especially in developing countries, has contributed to the higher rates of female victimization in disasters. A review of relevant academic literature shows that women are more vulnerable than men during disasters (Enarson and Morrow 1998; UNISDR 2009a; WHO 2011; Erikson 2014) This differential vulnerability primarily arises from the disaster itself, and is documented worldwide, for example in the Bangladesh cyclone in 1991 (Ikeda 1995), Hurricane Katrina of 2005 (Enarson et al 2007), and the Haiti Earthquake in 2010 (Horton 2012). The interplay of these factors is discussed as are research approaches that have been used in gender studies that can be applied in the study of women’s disaster vulnerability.
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