Haiti Earthquake Reconstruction Knowledge Notes from ... - GFDRR

32 | Haiti Earthquake Reconstruction
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to live in the home of a distant relative or stranger,
with the hope that they will have better access to
food and education. Two-thirds of restaveks are
girls; many are forced to work as domestic servants
and are prone to abuse. While some run away,
others are evicted by their host families because,
according to Haitian law, children must be paid for
their services when they turn 15 years old. Nongovernmental
organizations have set up centers
to work with these street children. With the destructions
of the centers, the children likely have
returned to the streets. These children will need
special support.
IN THE MEDIUM TERM:
UNDERSTANDING DIFFERENT
VULNERABILITIES AND CAPACITIES
After a disaster and during recovery, lack of
data can impede equitable distribution of assistance.
A number of factors contribute to the
particular vulnerability of women before, during,
and after a disaster: lack of information about
shelter options, limited literacy (a factor in Haiti),
culturally restricted mobility, and responsibilities
to care for the young and the elderly. Entitlement
programs have traditionally favored men, tenants
of record, bank-account holders, and perceived
heads of households, that is to say, not women.
The Damage Assessment could help ensure equity
by disaggregating mortality and morbidity by gender
and age, and take into account losses suffered
in the informal sector.
Past experience stresses the importance of
assessing women’s vulnerabilities separately
due to the potential for vulnerability differences
and the relationship between these differences
and a number of cultural and social factors. It is
helpful to set up special desks at aid distribution
centers for women, girls, and other vulnerable
groups. Special attention should be paid to children’s
inheritance rights to land and property as
well as to the administration of these rights by legal
guardians.
Reconstruction programs need to try to preserve
social networks and find ways to lower
the workload of women. Women generally provide
the care for children, the elderly, and the disabled
and carry out demanding household tasks
like the provision of water and wood for fuel.
Not only do disasters increase the intensity of this
work, they also disband informal networks among
extended family and neighbors. In times of crisis,
these very networks have proven to be important
coping mechanisms for women. Thus, the 2003
reconstruction project in Zambia allocated budget
to gainfully employ older women vis-à-vis childcare
and, significantly, to re-establish support networks.
Women constitute 75 percent of the informal
sector, which comprises 85 percent of the Haitian
economy. For women, therefore, the loss
of housing often means the loss of workplace,
tools, supplies, and markets. Agricultural production
is often produced in the garden by women
and traded in the marketplace for other essentials
not produced by the household or manufactured;
it provides the income with which women feed
and care for their children. The formal recognition
of women’s agricultural activities and compensation
for their loss of tools and agricultural inputs
would be highly significant in Haiti.
Restoring records of property rights to housing,
commercial property, and land should be
launched as soon as possible, with special assistance
to the poor, squatters, widows, and
orphans. Establishing a multi disciplinary Land
Task Force has worked in other cases to protect
land and inheritance rights, as well as land to resolve
disputes.
ESTABLISHING LONG-TERM
OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN
AND COMMUNITIES
The promotion of gender equity can often be
addressed easily and speedily in the recovery