Dignity and disasters
In countries across the Asia Pacific region, natural disasters are uprooting families, leaving women and girls most at risk. The effects of climate change are unavoidable as storms intensify and droughts leave millions vulnerable to food shocks, displacement and even violence.
This collection of photographs takes us into the communities where disasters are being most acutely felt. From Bangladesh to Samoa, women are taking an active role in preparing for emergencies. By speaking up, they’re helping governments plan ahead and ensure crucial supplies are on-hand to help women maintain their dignity, even when disasters disrupt their lives.
Solomon Islands: Mary works to help communities in the Solomon Islands prepare for climate change by involving women in the planning about what's needed when natural disasters hit. Mary is from a remote island in Temotu province that is more than three weeks away by sea from where she now works in the capital, Honiara. The model of prioritising women's perspectives has been adopted by other development projects and Mary is part of a network that is able to quickly deploy the dignity kits where they are needed most. Mary and her team have helped communities build clear evacuation routes and plan backup food supplies if storms or floods hit. The close consultation has built up trust in the communities and this will allow any future disaster response to reach women and girls more effectively because of this critical groundwork.
Myanmar: Khn Me Cho, 20, holds her son Min Lus Neing, 3, at the Sin Tet Maw camp for internally displaced persons in Rakhine State, Myanmar, © UNICEF
Papua New Guinea: Nineteen year old Sima Billy is pregnant and since her partner left her 6 months ago, she’s been on her own. She lives in Mirigini village in Port Moresby with her mother and she worries about the future of her baby. Sima got encouragement from a community health volunteer to go early to the hospital. With distances sometimes hauntingly far from informal settlements and the level of care uncertain, many women in Papua New Guinea don’t get the antenatal care that could save lives. Because Sima built that relationship with the midwives and doctors, she’s been taking iron tablets and eating fresh vegetables when she and her mother can afford them.
Plastic rubbish covers the ground in Hanuabada village in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Limited services in rapidly growing settlements has created major public health problems that make it even harder for children to stay healthy and excel in school.
Kiribati
Papua New Guinea: Dr Paula Zzefrio is an obstetrician at Port Moresby General Hospital in Papua New Guinea. She says that underfunding and understaffing of the maternity clinic means she sometimes has to do 24, or even 48 hour shifts without sleep. She says they are overwhelmed by the number of patients and sometimes they have to turn patients away. Dr Paula says they do it because delivery the care saves lives., “ When a woman receives antenatal care, it gives us an opportunity to establish a gestational age to do the necessary blood tests, like the routine blood tests that we do during pregnancy in our setting here,” Dr Paula says. “Knowing the hemoglobin level will give us an opportunity to treat anemia if she's anemic improving levels before she comes into delivery and gives us an opportunity to talk to her about family planning.”
Solomon Islands: Khadil is 17 years old and she lives in White River in the Solomon Islands. In her community on the outskirts of Honiara, gender based violence and natural disasters are tragically common so Kahdil navigates a complex set of challenges. She and her friends dance in a traditional Tambura group, but the pressures of school and family are intensified by poverty and waves of disasters that disrupt an already fragile normalcy.
Kiribati
Samoa
Kiribati: Taronga, 16, holds her two-year-old sister Teaborenga while standing in a flooded area in the village of Eita, South Tarawa, Kiribati, Thursday 28 January 2016. Eita is one of many localities on Tarawa atoll that regularly floods at high tide. Sea water cuts access to the main road and children sometimes have to swim or use floating devices to go to school.
Myanmar: Ei Ei Phyo breastfeeds her newborn son on a cot in Hlaing Thar Yar Hospital in Hlaing Thar Yar Township in the city of Yangon, capital of Yangon Region. The baby, born the evening before, is her first child.
Fiji: Like every Pacific islander, Tui carries strong memories of natural disasters and big cyclones. She was 13 when Cyclone Kina devastated her community of Levuka in Fiji in 1993. “Mum and I could feel the swaying of trees,” she recalls about the night the storm hit. “Strong wind. There was a huge tamarind tree at the back of our house. so mum and I had to move to our lounge because she said if that tree would fall down it can hit into our bedroom. So that night I can vividly remember we did not go to sleep at all.” Tui says the hardest part is always after the disaster when there is no clean water and the scale of the mess. She’s learned valuable lessons she teaches her children. “It was a huge experience for me during a natural disaster. So after that disaster we have to be aware of what might happen next.”
Indonesia.: Sinta, 19, stands near her house which collapsed during the tsunami, in Pesauran Village, Cinangka District, Serang, Banten.On 24 December 2018 in Indonesia.
Papua New Guinea: Nangei Waiema sits on a hospital bed as she recovers from a fractured leg, an injury she sustained on 26 February 2018 after a landslide triggered by a 7.5 magnitude earthquake, at a hospital in Mount Hagen, Papua New Guinea, Monday 12 March 2018. “I was the only one who survived" says Nangei, who lost all seven of her children and her husband in the landslide. With no family or home to return to, Nangei is fearful of her future.
Phillipines: Badjao sisters stand in front of their makeshift home as their mother washes clothes in Wawa, Batangas. Disparagingly labelled as "sea gypsies," Badjao follow the movements of the sea rather than the borders of the land, never quite belonging to the countries in which they live. Many Badjao families like this one settled in Wawa, a mixed community of Badjao and Tagalog peoples, after fleeing from the fighting in Mindanao. What is not visible in the background is the island that used to sit across this bay, which is where these Badjao families used to live before it was swallowed up by a typhoon a few years ago, forcing these fisherfolk to relocate once more. The Badjao here have been Christianised and want to be known as "Goodjao," to escape the prejudice and marginalization that their ethnicity has historically experienced in Southeast Asia. With the Philippines the third most vulnerable country to climate change, fisherfolk, who are the least responsible for causing the worsening climate crisis, are also the population most vulnerable to its disastrous consequences such as rising sea levels, storm surges, and coastline erosion. © Hannah Reyes
Indonesia: In April 2019, floods and landslides wiped out the town of Bangga in Indonesia. More than 700 families were left without homes. The emergency response quickly set up camps and UNFPA was there to deliver the dignity kits to women and girls.
Kingdom of Tonga: Manu works with Ma’a Fafine Moe Famili to support vulnerable mothers and children in Nuku'alofa, the capital of the Kingdom of Tonga. Manu and her team of community health workers go the extra mile to ensure people with disabilities get the support they need, from physical therapy to a ride to the hospital for health checks.. Ma’a Fafine Moe Famili uses a uniquely Tongan, community focused approach to inclusive early childhood development and women’s support, and it’s groups like this play an essential role in disaster relief planning because of their intimate knowledge of how to reach vulnerable people with disabilities.
Laos PDR: Heian, 9, arranges firewood, which she collected in the woods, by a shed at her home, in Adone Village in Ta Oi District in Saravane Province.
Bangladesh: Kameena Islam blames freak weather for the death of her infant son, Shahnawaz, in May 2018. After the baby fell ill with a fever, she wrapped him in a plastic sheet and battled through an intense downpour towards the local hospital in Umedpur, northern Bangladesh. The journey took more than an hour. When she arrived, she discovered to her horror that Shahnawaz had died in her arms. Islam and her family still donÕt know what caused the childÕs death, but they say the weather conditions were at least partly responsible.
Papua New Guinea: Helen is 90 years old and she lives in Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea. She holds a photo from when she was just 18 with flowers in her hair. Back then, Hanuabada was a fishing village and the capital felt far away. 70 years on, urbanisation has consumed her village and brought many challenges like overcrowding and plastic waste. In countries like PNG where health and sanitation services are already stretched thin, it's often the elderly who suffer most when disasters hit.
Kiribati
Papua New Guinea: Reggie was just out of high school when the Mantankio rover flooded and 29 people drowned in the Solomon Islands. Hundreds of families were displaced by the disaster, as the river swept through the informal settlements that had built up over decades. She went to an emergency shelter working with an NGO and she couldn't believe how basic needs weren't being met in the disaster response. She says the experience inspired her to work to improve the situation for women in disasters. Through her work as an activist and women's advocate, Reggie encourages more women to find their voice and make their needs heard.
Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands
Myanmar,: A girl studies for a school examination at the Phan Khar Kone IDP camp in Bhamo city, Kachin State, Myanmar, Wednesday 29 March 2017.
Solomon Islands: Brightly Maneluvu, 3 months, locks eyes with nurse Theodora Buinkoti at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands.
Papua New Guinea: Fiona, 28, stands with Silver Star, her one-year-old son, outside makeshift tent where they have been living since a 7.5 magnitude earthquake on 26 February 2018 destroyed their home in nearby Daga village, in Pimaga, Papua New Guinea, Wednesday 14 March 2018. "My house fell down in the middle of the night,” says Fiona. “Sometime after three in the morning, we woke up because the earth was shaking. We all escaped but now our house is broken.” She tells a visitor what she most needs is a private shelter, because she’s sharing floor space with about 60 other people whose homes were destroyed. “I want a private tent for my family,” she says. “We also need food and a mosquito net. I cannot go to the mountain to look for food. It is too hard. And I am still afraid to go to the higher areas, so that is why we stay down here, where it is low.”
Myanmar: Students sit in a classroom at a school at the Sin Tet Maw camp for internally displaced persons in Rakhine State, Myanmar,
Nukaloafa, the Kingdom of Tonga
The Asia-Pacific region is the most disaster prone in the world. In order to strengthen preparedness and build resilience, UNFPA’s Asia-Pacific Regional Office manages a flagship programme, the Regional Prepositioning Initiative, which targets the most disaster-prone countries in the region.
Without adequate clothing, menstrual supplies, and hygiene items, women and girls may be unable to access basic services, including humanitarian aid. That’s why UNFPA distributes dignity kits during disasters, to reduce vulnerability and connect women and girls to information, support and services. Dignity kits contain underwear, basic clothing, sanitary napkins, toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap and laundry powder.as well as information on the services that are available and how to access them.
Since 2016, the Regional Prepositioning Initiative has reached over 130,000 direct beneficiaries with more than US$1.5million worth of essential supplies to meet the sexual and reproductive health needs of women and girls and to prevent and respond to gender-based violence in 54 emergencies across 15 countries. Prepositioning has dramatically improved UNFPA’s humanitarian response in Asia and the Pacific in terms of speed, quality and efficiency. Prepositioning has also strengthened UNFPA’s reputation and reliability as a humanitarian actor, provided new opportunities to advocate for measures to address sexual and reproductive health and gender-based violence during humanitarian responses, and helped to build trust with governments and other partners. These outcomes assist UNFPA’s work in relation to the humanitarian, development and peace-building nexus. The Regional Prepositioning Initiative is supported by Australia.
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