Gendering Space for Forcibly Displaced Women and Children: Concepts, Policies and Guidelines

Abstract

The provision of shelter and settlement is a basic need in all societies and their loss, destruction and replacement provide iconic images of conflict, forced migration and return. This chapter reviews these issues from the perspective of women and families, drawing on a wide range of published and grey literature, agency reports and the research and field experience of the authors.

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Introduction

The provision of shelter and settlement is a basic need in all societies and their loss, destruction and replacement provide iconic images of conflict, forced migration and return. This chapter reviews these issues from the perspective of women and families, drawing on a wide range of published and grey literature, agency reports and the research and field experience of the authors.

Forced displacement differentially impacts women: gender mainstreaming seeks to ensure that effective policies and programs for assistance recognise these differences, build on the diverse skills and perspectives which women provide and promote their participation and empowerment (UNHCR, 1990; UNHCR, 2005a, b). At the same time, household space is primarily the domain of women in many societies. This conjuncture provides the basis for this chapter. Yet, despite the very extensive academic, policy and practice literature on shelter and settlement, and given the material and symbolic significance of shelter and housing to these specific social groups, there has been surprisingly little systematic research or policy guidance to respond to their needs and capacities. With some exceptions coverage is diffuse and lacks a coherent frame of discussion. This chapter seeks to fill this lacuna. It aims, from the perspective of women and families under conditions of conflict, forced migration and return, to widen the understanding of shelter in terms of design, production and governance. It reviews the range of settlement options and reconstruction opportunities, focusing mainly on camps and collective shelters, in a journey from pre-displacement housing to reconstructed post-displacement settlement. The short space available compels a generic study transcending the three categories of forcibly displaced – IDPs, refugees and returnees – but specific situations are highlighted where significant. The chapter goes beyond a gender-equals-women perspective, difficult though this is in a sector more dominated by masculine norms than any other. It examines transformative practices and consequences and demonstrates that only by a systematic gender-based reconceptualization of the sector can gender empowered polices and practices be put in place.

The chapter is in two parts. The first introduces the topicality and relevance of the paper, and outlines key concepts and policy issues which shape the shelter and settlement sector. The second, and substantive, part fulfils the main objective. This is to provide strategic and practical guidelines for policy makers and practitioners in governmental, intergovernmental, humanitarian and development agencies on how to involve and empower women caught up in forced displacement in shelter and settlement planning and implementation.

However, the interplay between these two parts is a key learning point. Improvements to practice cannot be made in isolation from a clearer overall conception of the shelter and settlement sector in terms of the complex functions of housing as a physical, social and developmental asset, and the rights-based needs it highlights. In other words, there is a meta-level requirement to adopt a systematic gender perspective at each stage from initial concepts through to practical on-the-ground options and actions.

Topicality of the Study, Key Concepts and Policy Issues

This section introduces the topicality and relevance of the chapter, providing the context for a gendered discussion of policies and strategic guidelines which follows in the main part. It outlines key concepts and policy issues which shape the delivery of shelter and housing assistance as an essential commodity for livelihoods, well-being and development, located within the broader dimensions of humanitarian interventions. The section stresses the complexity and the vulnerability of this asset under conditions of forced displacement.

Shelter and Housing in Forced Displacement – Overview

From a semantic perspective, shelter and housing juxtaposed with forced migration activate contradictory meanings: one is associated with the groundedness and finitude of buildings, the constitution of places and the delimitation of territories; the other represents uprootedness, forced mobility and the transience of families and groups of people for whom “homeless and ‘placeness’ are intrinsic by definition”(Cernea and McDowell, 2000:25, italics added). This tension lies at the core of the discussion.

Loss, devastation and the replacement of housing provide compelling images of forcibly displaced populations and the evidence that houses are highly vulnerable assets in this context is beyond doubt. The data are imprecise in detail but consistent in scale and the location of impact in the global south. Gilbert contends that from 1980 to 2000, 141 million people lost their homes, in 3,559 natural hazard events, of whom 97.7% lived in developing countries (Gilbert, 2001:1). More recent disaster data show that between 1994 and 2003, over 255 million people a year, on average, were affected by natural disasters globally. (CRED, 2005:14)., No aggregate data have been found for housing loss incurred by refugees and IDPs: but specific cases, for example in Palestine, Colombia and Bosnia Herzegovina, and Sierra Leone illustrate dramatic loss.

By destroying both a significant material resource and a symbolic representation of social wellbeing (Zetter, 1995, 2005), the loss of housing seriously erodes the very meaning of life and its continuity (Skotte, 2005:3). Destruction is simultaneously a by-product and an instrument of war and conflict (Zetter, 2005:155; Skotte, 2005) – the destruction of a physical asset, but also an object to be “killed” in order to expel their inhabitants and annihilate their social worlds: this duality is captured in the current neologisms, “urbicide”, (Bogdanovic, 1993) and “domicide” (Porteous and Smith, 2001).

The Shelter and Housing Sector: The Conceptual Problematic

In response to widespread destruction, the provision of durable shelter designed to satisfactory physical standards and which is technologically and culturally appropriate, constitutes a basic need for forced migrants. Thus there is a clear humanitarian imperative to provide victims of conflict and disaster with basic shelter, in the same sense as ensuring access to water, sanitation, food and healthcare.

The widely accepted premise that camps are a last resort for displaced people has failed to be applied in practice: rather camps have become the typical starting point for emergency shelter response as recently well demonstrated in the Tsunami emergency shelter response.

The dominance of a somewhat ill-defined sectoral model (Zetter, 1995, 2005; Skotte, 2003; Saunders, 2004), predicated on short term emergency provision and a restrictive “bricks and mortar” approach, has dominated shelter policies and practice for decades (Barakat and Ellis, 1995; Zetter et al., 2001; Boano et al., 2003). This model is driven by the top-down “implementation push” of project driven solutions and is characterised by a limited array of solutions, the fragmentation of donors and agencies, and the political imperatives of managing forcibly displaced populations, notably refugees and IDPs (Hyndman, 2004). In the present context the key point is that, in common with the other hardware sectors, shelter and settlement is par excellence male-dominated in terms of concepts and personnel: the predominance of a masculinised value system exacerbates the internalised subordination of women which is characteristic in much humanitarian intervention (Clifton and Gell, 2001:17; UNHCR, 2005a:111–112).

Despite recent improvements in defining principles and practices for the sector (UN, 2005; Sphere Project 2004), arguably it is the least successful sector in terms of implementation. There is a persistent need to “raise the bar” of refugee camp shelter and settlement planning. Characteristic weaknesses are: uncoordinated agency planning; conflicting mandates; inappropriate designs; lack of beneficiary participation; the “lumpy” nature of resources; inadequate resettlement planning (ALNAP, 2002:90, 95). The HRR clustering strategy divides between IFRC designated lead in natural disasters and UNHCR in conflict situations whilst addressing some of these problems, inhibits generic learning. The neglect of gender perspectives and an embedding “gendered approach” is notable in both the practical and institutional dimensions.

Rethinking practice and concepts requires that shelter policies and programs serve not only physical needs but “higher order” objectives such as the long term development aspirations of the beneficiaries, social and civil society development, economic needs and strategies for post-conflict and post-disaster reconstruction (Zetter, 2005). Three generic dimensions are considered with discussion tailored to gender issues.

The Housing Nexus

Housing is a complex commodity with many attributes and levels of meaning; but only recently has this complexity been acknowledged in shelter policies and programmes for forced migrants. As Zetter has emphasised (Zetter, 2005), although one of the basic needs of refugees and forced migrants, it must embrace far more than a physical commodity and the product of basic standards codified in operational guides (Sphere Project, 2004; Shelter Project, 2003; UNHCR, 1999, 2005b, c; Corsellis and Vitale, 2005). Unique amongst the arenas of humanitarian intervention and post–conflict/post-disaster reconstruction, shelter and settlement has a diverse range of multi-sectoral characteristics which serve a rich nexus of needs and interest. It is a basic physical resource reflecting the narrowly defined output, “bricks and mortar” model of much current practice (Kemeny, 1992:4). Yet, it also serves a complex set of social, cultural, domestic and personal needs represented by the variety of ways in which space is identified, ordered and used (Dovey, 1985:39; Porteous and Smith, 2001; Kallus, 2004:341). Social meaning intersects with shelter as a vital economic multiplier (Rakoff, 1977:93; UN Habitat, 2003; Sheppard and Hill, 2005; Zetter, 2005:156). Housing (re-)construction is an on-going process in most societies, especially for forcibly displaced populations, not simply an end-state package delivered by humanitarian agencies (Saunders, 2004:164). Shelter interventions intersect different programme arenas (for example community strategies and livelihoods), and different spatial and operational scales (from field level projects to national recovery and development strategies).

These multi-dimensional characteristics notably impact women and families because the gendered boundaries of housing in most societies constitute an environment in which women lay claim to the house as their domain, as a locus of social and economic rights and obligations, and a space for social relations and identity: innovative research has explored these gendered dimensions in the context of forced migration (e.g. Hammond, 2004; Olwig, 1998; Hirschon, 1989; Martin, 2004), and post conflict reconstruction (Zuckerman and Greenberg, 2004:77–79). Self-evidently, therefore, a gendered perspective is essential in reconceptualising the shelter and settlement “sector” and thus improving policies and practices for these social groups.

Linking Relief, Rehabilitation and Development

An extensive literature is dedicated to discussing the links between emergency relief and the longer term development needs of forcibly displaced populations (Zetter, 1995; Macrae et al., 1997; Smillie, 1998; Harmer and Macrae, 2004; Skotte, 2005; Zetter et al., 2001; Zetter, 2005).Variously termed the relief-to-development continuum, or more recently the “relief and reconstruction complex” (Bello, 2006:281), this relationship poses complex conceptual questions, operational challenges for agencies working in the shelter sector (Saunders, 2004), and contradictory technical and political demands (Buchanan-Smith and Fabbri, 2005). Again, uniquely amongst the various sectors of humanitarian intervention, the shelter and settlement sector lies at the crux of this problematic. This is because shelter provision in humanitarian situations serves not just temporary needs. Essential though plastic sheets and tents might be in emergency phases, what is remarkable is the way in which forcibly displaced people very quickly commence the process of adapting, customizing and upgrading their shelter (Zetter, 1995:38). Structures and communities remain in place far longer than anticipated and represent durable physical assets which serve longer term recovery and development objectives, especially for returnee populations (Zetter, 2005). We are dealing, in other words with asset formation. The housing “sector” is thus a catalyst for relief and development interventions which can lead to sustainable development, particularly if the affected population is involved (Hazic and Roberts, 1999; Barakat and Chard, 2002; Barakat, 2003; El-Masri and Kellet, 2001). Relief and development occur both simultaneously and as a continuum, not as distinct and sequential phases predicated by much current practice.

There are significant gender perspectives here. Protracted exile in “temporary” camps, or return to permanent, but newly built, post-disaster or post-conflict houses and settlement inevitably mediate and transform daily patterns of life and the social fabric. Recalling the gendered attributes of the housing nexus outlined above, it is imperative that women participate as the key partners in the design of potentially permanent shelter and settlement options. Conversely, participation in the process of developing permanent physical symbols is an important vehicle for female empowerment in a forcibly reconstructed social world. Nevertheless these social transformations – some enforced by displacement, some an inevitable corollary to it – need to be handled in ways which alienate neither the displaced populations nor their hosts.

A rights-Based Approach to Shelter and Settlement

Disaster and conflict situations are periods of rapid social transformation not least in gender relations. But as noted above, “how the shelter job gets done” in emergency conditions reveals the dissonance between organizational rhetoric of gender equity and the deeper culture of humanitarian agencies. Still dominated by a highly masculinized environment which internalizes the subordination of women’s needs and values in agency cultures, the “sector” has a long way to go.

In order to pursue a social transformation agenda, humanitarian agencies need to address the underlying assumptions and values which inhibit gender equality. The growth of rights-base approach to humanitarian intervention (Slim, 2000) has specific resonance for the shelter and settlement sector.

A rights-based approach to humanitarian assistance involves the equal protection of the rights of women and men, special attention to the violation of human rights of women, and the equal and active representation of women and men at all levels of decision making (UNHCR, 2005a:111–112; IASC, 2005). Involving women in shelter and settlement policies and projects ensures that they will be able to cope better with enforced displacement: equally, the experience of participating on an equal footing with men can be a very empowering one for women as discussion of practical guidelines in the next part demonstrates. Crucially, accountability mechanisms must put in place and monitored (Clifton and Gell, 2001:14).

These prevailing conditions have been recognized for the shelter and settlement sector in the Sphere Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards (2004) which represent a comprehensive baseline of a rights-based approach to humanitarian intervention in this sector.

In disaster and conflict/post-conflict situations, protection and reducing vulnerability must be the key drivers of gender sensitive interventions, alongside the utilitarian requirements of meeting basic needs and ensuring that housing and infrastructure are convenient to use and preserve dignity and privacy. Accordingly, gendered responses in this sector require detailed attention in two interlinked respects: first, governance structures and processes which embrace the roles and resources and the participation and empowerment of women; second, their practical contribution at all stages of intervention – principles for design and layout at different spatial scales, the production and construction of space and place both in displaced and return settings, land rights (especially in repatriation or resettlement). If these principles are appropriately addressed, the coping capacity of communities will be strengthened in both the short and long term (Clifton and Gell, 2001:8). The paper now elaborates these requirements.

Shelter and Settlement Inteventions for Women and Families: Experiences, Policies, Practices and Options

This section draws on a wide range of published and grey literature, agency reports, research and the field experience of the authors. The objective is to outline strategic guidelines for policy makers and practitioners in governmental, intergovernmental, humanitarian and development agencies which will better address the needs and resources of women and families in shelter and settlement interventions. Building on the previous section, this part captures the multiple dimensions of shelter and settlements, and their role in serving not only physical needs but “higher order” objectives for women and families under conditions of conflict, forced migration and return.

Risk Factors

Well documented in the literature is the evidence that, for most women, the experience of forced migration demands a stressful and continuous process of coping with new and frequently traumatic circumstances (Benjamin and Fancy, 1998; UNICEF, 1998; Indra, 1999; Sweetman, 2001; Khogali and Takhar, 2001; UNHCR, 2003; Martin, 2004; Bagshaw and Paul, 2004; WCRWC, 2006a). The development of sound shelter and settlement guidelines and policies must be rooted in a thorough diagnosis of these risks.

The vulnerability of women caused by their subordinate position in many pre-displacement societies, increases substantially in forced displacement (UNHCR, 2005), as a result of widespread human rights abuses, protection failures during flight, during displacement and during the return and reintegration processes (Matlou, 1999:133–136; UNHCR, 2005:112; Martin, 2004:25–59; WCRWC, 2006a). Forced displacement thus accentuates existing, and creates specific new, conditions for gender-based violence (GBV): women’s vulnerability to sexual exploitation, domestic violence, abuse of power, abduction and rape dramatically increases (Benjamin and Fancy, 1998:14; UNHCR, 2003; Pittaway and Bartolomei, 2004; Olson and Scharffscher, 2004; WCRWC, 2006a). Inadequate shelter and settlement provision immeasurably increases this vulnerability and lack of protection. Failure to account for women’s security and health needs can make refugee and IDP settlements dangerous for women, even when they are intended to provide refuge and safety as per definition. These conditions are accentuated by “the high level of poverty among refugees, limited monitoring of camp situations by international relief workers, and cultural attitudes on the part of some relief workers and refugee-led camp management” (United States General Accounting Office, 2003:6).

Alongside gender-specific physical risks are the stresses of enforced social transformation. Differentially affecting women and families, again there are specific shelter and settlement issues which need to be addressed. Forcibly displaced populations live in unfamiliar and mostly temporary circumstances. They may find it hard to maintain social structures and coping strategies in new, artificial and densely overcrowded environments which lack privacy. These physical constraints impose stress on families and make more difficult the mediating role which women play. Traditional cultural roles may be challenged and may have to be adjusted: for example, female headed households frequently predominate, perhaps requiring women to take an unfamiliar lead in house construction. New functional and economic constraints add to these pressures. For example, household tasks of water and firewood collection and food preparation, traditionally undertaken by women and/or children, are much more time consuming in refugee and IDP camps where queuing or long travel distances are familiar experiences.

These demands are exacerbated by women and children taking on additional household tasks such as income generation. Less time is available for participation in family activities, education for children, participation in camp committees and other activities. These outcomes all highlight the importance of ensuring that the location, design and layout of shelter and settlements fully address the needs of women and children. The additional burden of social and economic transformation may ironically re-enforce the subordination of women by preventing their empowerment in precisely the arena which could most positively affect their lives – active participation in the site planning, design and management of shelter and settlement policies and practices.

Thus for forcibly displaced women and families, camps and temporary settlements frequently present a physical environment which is not conducive to their personal safety and which enforces a lifestyle alien to their cultural norms. Ensuring physical security and ensuring that space and place are appropriately designed, constructed and managed for their needs, while taking steps to prevent their safety from being jeopardized by negligent management, is a major challenge in policy making and humanitarian practice. The production of the living environment for forcibly displaced populations should ensure that it is peaceful, free of violence and criminal activity, and conducive to the realisation of human dignity (Durieux, 2000).

Nevertheless, whilst shelter and settlement policies, programmes and projects may significantly accentuate or ameliorate these needs, it is important to recognise that reducing vulnerability requires much more than just physical improvements to housing design and settlement planning. A multi-sectoral approach is needed.

The Heart of Protection: The Policy of Providing Safe Places and Spaces

Protection is at the heart of responsibility towards refugees, IDPs and returnees. As Weiss Fagen (2003:77) notes, the specific qualities of protection and security for women and families depend on factors ranging from their family situations, their physical surroundings, their survival mechanisms, and whether legal and normative rules of conduct are enforced.

The UNHCR (1999) reinforces this contention by emphasizing that refugee protection must encompass measures to ensure physical security, social security (delivery of minimum standards of material assistance) and legal security (restoring and safeguarding legal rights in the search for durable solutions). It is important to note that these three dimensions of protection should interact in a “comprehensive approach that integrates protection with assistance and includes steps to defend the physical safety and rights of displaced” (Cohen, 2006:108). As a keynote, the UNHCR Handbook of Emergency (UNHCR, 2000) stresses the importance of preserving the original family and community structures.

Despite the limitations of the shelter and settlement sector already noted, policies and practices relating to the specific protection needs of women and families (OCHA, 2000; IASC, 2005; Kälin, 2005) are elaborated in many manuals (UNHCR, 1999; Sphere Project, 2004; Camp Management Project, 2004; Corsellis and Vitale, 2005). In the past decade there has been commendable progress in the degree to which physical protection needs have been incorporated into assistance projects and technical areas such as the physical layout of shelter and settlements and water and sanitation facilities.

Shelter

In terms of shelter provision and security, and in accordance with Sphere Guidelines (2004), UNHCR endorsed as standard the concept of “adequate dwelling” in camps and settlements. In terms of practice guidance, UNHCR (2005b:53) advocates that shelters should: provide a covered area that affords dignified living space with a degree of privacy; have sufficient thermal comfort with ventilation for air circulation; provide protection from the elements and natural hazards; ensure that inhabitants, especially women or groups with special needs, are not disadvantaged due to poor accommodation design and physical safety. The need for privacy in the dwelling (and beyond), for women, is also widely stressed: lack of privacy was noted as the biggest deprivation experienced by encamped Afghan women refugees (Dupree, 1998). Shelter density is also an important practical consideration both in this context and in relation to proximity to services such as water and food distribution points and latrines (discussed below). Barakat and Wardell (2004) note that Afghan women refugees from rural areas, who had relative freedom of movement pre-displacement, found the overcrowded and confined nature of high density camps dramatically and adversely affected their daily lives and social wellbeing.

The construction of shelter, whether temporary and permanent, poses particular issues for women. Owing to cultural constraints in many societies, women may be excluded from construction projects, which are not typically deemed “the work of women”. Under conditions of enforced displacement, traditional roles may be forcibly changed. Thus female headed households may need to build their own shelters, or will certainly have to improve and consolidate temporary shelters provided by agencies.

In these circumstances, ICRC (2004:70) and Shelterproject (Corsellis and Vitale, 2005) stress that this particular phase may demand physical strength often exceeding the capacity of women and technical skills not taught to women. Shelter projects may exclude women for reasons as simple as lacking appropriate clothing to climb ladders (ICRC, 2004:70). Practice guidelines should advocate the provision of support, for example by small artisanal teams with relevant trade skills in order to carry out the construction or specific parts of the construction (e.g. to build the roof). As we shall see later, it is crucial to ensure that women are empowered by, not excluded from shelter projects where labour is rewarded in food-for-work programmes typically given to men.

Of course notions of physical weakness of women, compared to men, are socialised into hierarchies of social status too. Thus the challenge is not merely one of rethinking technology but of transforming social stereotypes as well. These observations emphasise the significance of proactive training policies and practices in relation to women in respect of key aspects of the construction task: shelter form and design using technologies appropriate to the needs and skills available to women; the procurement and distribution of building materials which recognise the unfamiliar role of women in these processes; construction materials and technologies appropriate for/adapted to female needs and capabilities, and the provision of construction assistance where necessary. Equally important is the need to address generic factors to ensure female participation and empowerment – which are discussed in the last sub-section of this part. Notwithstanding the physical challenges, it is important to recognise that the task of building one’s own shelter, either through self-help practices or through commissioning construction, can in itself be an empowering process for women. It offers opportunities for greater personal autonomy and choice in design and development as well as the autonomy that comes from exchange transactions – money, labour, bartering for house construction. Given the physical and symbolic role of housing, this practical guidelines to enhance the participation of women in shelter construction, may have far reaching consequences far beyond the construction activity and the sector itself.

Layout, Site Planning and Services

Progressing from the micro scale of the house to layout and site planning considerations, IASC (2005) has developed guidelines stressing the importance of “safe planning of sites” ensuring security-focused and gender-sensitive shelter arrangements during an emergency (IASC, 2005:54). Given the permanency of many apparently short term decisions about settlement and shelter, these principles are particularly significant.

In this context, practice guidance should promote the neighbourhood planning concept in the design and layout of camps and settlements to promote a sense of community and reinforce community-based protection (IASC, 2005:54), while also preserving the privacy of the family unit. Physical design considerations such as these can improve safety by enabling the residents to be more aware of their neighbours and by reinforcing the community through increased social interaction (Olson and Scharffscher, 2004). More specifically, Chalinder (1998:38) suggests attention be paid to clustering of female-headed households. However, this grouping may reinforce vulnerability by isolating individuals. A more viable approach to ensuring security is to re-group pre-displaced communities in camps and settlements. In this way former social bonds and trust can be “reconstructed” and safety promoted (UNHCR, 2005a).

Infrastructure, Services and Facilities

Chalinder (1998) and others (IASC, 2005:47–48), emphasise the need to provide close and visible access to facilities such as water points and latrines where women are particularly vulnerable to abuse or attack. IASC (2005:47) advices locating “water points in areas that are accessible and safe for all, with special attention to the needs of women and children”, although prescribed standards vary from 200 m (Sphere, 2004; UNHCR, 2000) to 500 m (IASC, 2005:47). Apart from walk distance, experience varies in terms of the location of water and sanitation facilities such as tap-stands and latrines. Situated away from main camp roads, they are less likely to be used by passers-by, and more likely to be used (and maintained) by the community in which they are located, thereby reducing the likelihood of attacks on women. Conversely, if they are too secluded, vulnerability might be accentuated. Where water is pumped or distributed at given times, particular consideration must be given to the convenience and safety for women and children who usually have the main responsibility for water collection.

Oxfam experience in Sri Lanka is relevant here. Because water tanks and water points are crowded places where a lot of harassment takes place, Oxfam used the water distribution points for public notices promoting messages to end violence against women in the camps (Oxfam, 2006).

For sanitation stations, IASC (2005:48) and other technical literature (UNHCR, 2000; Harvey et al., 2002) point out that whilst the location and design of latrines should adhere to cultural preferences, particular consideration is needed to ensure that location and design ensure safety, privacy, and dignity for women and girls. Communal latrines should be provided with lighting and closed doors. Matlou (1999:137), cites evidence that refugees in the Ivory Coast risked attack by using unplanned sites outside settlements rather than using facilities which were near to male toilets. Cultural taboos exist against washing sanitary cloths in public and women need to be comfortable while caring for their basic needs in the camp environment which affords dignity and privacy (IASC, 2005). In Rhino camp in Uganda, construction of special shelters for girls and the provision/distribution of sanitary materials was assured in order to implement a comprehensive system of gender based violence (GBV) prevention and response (UNHCR, 2004:63).

A number of reports stress the importance of lighting to improve safety conditions for women in all public areas and facilities not just latrines (Chalinder, 1998; IASC, 2005:54; Olson and Scharffscher, 2004). Thus Matlou reports (1999:137), that in Botswana’s main refugee camp, the location of administrative and other facilities for education, recreation and shopping in the centre of a large camp without lighting intensified risks to women who only had time to use these facilities at night.

Whether lit or not, this observation raises more general issue about the location of public facilities for women and children, as much in camps for refugees and IDPs as in settlements for returnees. Endorsing Matlou’s comment, the IASC report (2005:54–55) emphasises the need to designate space for community centres for women and children, child friendly and gender-sensitive play spaces, and other facilities such as schools, day centres, recreation centres and especially safe houses for victims of GBV, which provide women with localised facilities which are convenient and safely accessible.

These principles similarly apply to the location and design of food distribution stations: women should be empowered to design and control their use. Food distribution points should be conveniently local, “safe spaces” which avoid the presence of large groups of men, allow “safe access” along well signed routes, are frequented by other members of the community (IASC, 2005:51), and designed to ensure that the distribution process is visible and transparent. Physical separation of men and women is recommended if distribution is not made exclusively to women.

Health centres are a vital facility for women and children serving as a “neutral” environment to provide information, counselling and health services. Their needs must be prioritised in design and layout guidelines, following the same security/safety criteria already noted. The UNHCR recommend a standard of one health post or clinic per section of the camp (approximately 5,000 persons) (UNHCR, 1999). Corsellis and Vitale (2005) recommend at least one comprehensive health centre, capable of providing primary care, for every 20,000 displaced persons.

The Women’s Commission emphasizes the problems of providing educational facilities for displaced populations. The task is vital in itself but also because schools are a symbol stability and hope for conflict affected populations (WCRWC, 2000:24). Adhering to the same location safety criteria already discussed for other services, and building on WCRWC’s critique, basic guidelines must ensure: adequate numbers of classrooms for the school age population; satisfactory sizes of classrooms – large classrooms make it impossible for teachers to teach effectively; convenient access to water and latrines (WCRWC, 2000:24–25). The same reports notes the challenge of encouraging donors to invest in semi-permanent or permanent structures because of their susceptibility to military action and looting.

Site Selection and Location

Widening the scale further, decisions on the location of camps pay insufficient attention to gender considerations. In this respect IASC emphasises that appropriate site selection should “allow sufficient shelter space for the population and… not pose additional security and protection risks” (IASC, 2005:54).

It is important to select sites where there is sufficient flat land. Poorly chosen sites with hostile topography may result in exceedingly high densities on the small amounts of flat land, causing difficulties for women already noted above. Furthermore, displacement results in potentially dangerous modifications to normal domestic activities for women, for example in relation to water and firewood collection which are frequently female tasks (CASA Consulting, 2001; UNIFEM, 2005; WCRWC, 2006b). Because collection may involve protracted distances, these activities directly and indirectly expose women to numerous protection concerns in addition to potential gender-based violence (WCRWC, 2006a). In this respect Matlou (1999:137) notes that the high incidence of rape in Somali refugee camps in Kenya in the mid-1990s was attributed to the location of camps in isolated areas dominated by bandits and Somali militia. Risk prevention guidelines are advocated by WCRWC (2006b) stressing, as preventive measures, alternative fuel options, firewood collection techniques (biogas and solar energy) and the development of income-generation activities in order to give women and opportunity to earn a living in ways other than collecting or selling firewood.

In the same way, safe and convenient access for women to employment must also be considered in relation to settlement location and transport infrastructure. Here, settlement issues underpin wider considerations of livelihood strategies and the empowerment of women. Under conditions of forced displacement and return, gender roles may alter dramatically with women finding access to outside labour markets or income generating activities provided by humanitarian agencies. But problems of safe and convenient access to employment and services must be addressed. This challenge is exemplified in the much lauded gender-focused, post-conflict programmes in Rwanda. Unfortunately, women had long walk distances which mitigated their wider participation in gender development activities (Zuckerman and Greenberg, 2004:73): similarly in West Africa where women are traditionally traders, insecurity because of the location of camps, impeded travel for work (ibid:78).

In terms of transport infrastructure, gender-sensitive policies and practices should take account of the fact that women may prioritise improvements to rural transport networks to improve access to local markets, schools, water and health facilities, whereas men may stress improving transport networks to access more distant large towns and cities for work (Zuckerman and Greenberg, 2004:78).

Despite the emphasis given to protection in layout and location planning, reality is a different matter. As noted by Olsen and Sharffscher (2004) in a detailed study on camp environments, rape and GBV are still prevalent experiences for women. Well over a decade after the publication of the UNHCR Guidelines (UNHCR, 1990, 1995), “refugee camps are still set up and run in negligence of these guidelines” (Olsen and Sharffscher, 2004:378).

Communal Shelters

In extreme emergency conditions, communal shelters such as schools, churches, barracks and halls are sometimes used – a temporary measure which is often a protracted “solution”. Emergency guidelines (e.g. IASC, 2005) stress the importance of providing adequate material for partitions between families in order to increase security and privacy; appropriate lighting and security are also basic requirements. But recent reports on tsunami-affected villages in Aceh document threats to women’s security in communal temporary shelters with incidents of sexual assault reported, for example, in poorly lit toilets (Oxfam, 2005), because the guidelines have not being followed by local authorities and NGOs. The report indicates that almost 90% of women interviewed were dissatisfied with their accommodation because of inadequate facilities, poor access to public services, insufficient sanitation, and lack of designated washing areas for sanitary cloths used during menstruation. Moreover, each family was provided a single room without internal partitions, decreasing privacy.

Land and Property Rights

Shelter and settlement projects for forcibly displaced populations frequently introduce complex issues of access to land for residential as well as agricultural use. In addition disputed property rights are an endemic feature in permanent resettlement sites and especially for returnees. Ownership disputes and the effective restitution of property rights are major constraints in post-conflict return programs (Zetter, 2005; Fitzpatrick, 2001; Leckie 2005). The emergence of the rights-based agenda for those displaced in conflicts and natural disasters to repossess and return to their homes is, as noted by Hurwits et al. (2005:8), one of the most important developments in recent peace-building efforts. Even so, restitution processes have often been incomplete, generating additional frustration and grievance for the victims of involuntary displacement and often silent on gender needs. But, there are significant gender implications, as Zuckerman and Greenberg highlight (2004), because land rights inequitably affect women.

The flurry of law-making around property rights for returnees must include gender equal laws for property, other assets and inheritance. Policies and guidelines must pay special attention to these questions for female heads of household. Particular issues of equity arise in relation to inheritance, property rights and access to family land and homes where the displaced or returning women are widows, divorced or separated (WCRWC, 2006).

But once new gender equal laws are promulgated, as they have been in post-conflict countries like Namibia, Rwanda and Uganda, customary law usually continues to prevail, often impeding women’s enjoyment of their newly established statutory rights. Thus other reforms are necessary that develop women’s legal literacy and access to justice through the courts and legal professionals. The main impediments women confront are the lack of information about their legal rights, and the lack the capacity and resources to pursue their rights (such as literacy, money, and power within their families).

Self-Settled and Urban Settled Populations

The paper has concentrated on camps and communal shelters since these are the main focus of international humanitarian intervention. However the majority of forcibly displaced populations – certainly mass exodus refugees and IDPs – prefer to self-settle either in rural locations or increasingly in urban locations, despite host government resistance to both these processes. Ignored (Human Rights Watch, 2002) and outside the assistance “loop”, the lessons which might be learned from these self help responses and the practice guidance which might be needed, are poorly documented or ignored: gender perspectives are notable by their absence. Data almost certainly underestimate, by large margins, the numbers of self settled refugees and IDPs. For example, most authorities indicate that the number of urban refugees far exceeds the UNHCR figure of c.18% of persons of concern (Jacobsen, 2006:275), although the demographic profile is more likely to be representative of the population as a whole (UNHCR, 1997).

In general, it has been assumed that, because they have exercised choice, self-settled populations must a priori enjoy better conditions than encamped populations – for example in terms of social networks, autonomous life styles rather than control and dependency, better livelihood opportunities, shelter conditions and access to food. In principle, these conditions might be more conducive to sustaining or replicating pre-displacement norms and structures and so, from many perspectives, including gender, less likely to impose traumatic or stressful change.

In practice we need to look more specifically at the two alternatives, but there is an important caveat. With respect to self settled refugees, there is a major lacuna in documentary evidence, research and practice guidance on settlement conditions and processes in general and gender perspectives in particular, and so only tentative conclusions are provided. Certainly with regard to rural self-settlement there is a lack of contemporary research, whilst urban self-settlement has recently begun to rise up the agenda of researchers and agencies.

Rural self-settlement of refugees and IDPs displaced by civil war, notably in Africa, has been widely noted although there is a dearth of contemporary research. Typically, family or extended kinship links facilitate a process whereby displaced households are settled on land in, or close to, the settlements of host populations. In so far as social order breaks down under conditions of forced displacement, self settlement may largely help to replicate and reconstruct pre-existing social norms and practices. This may or may not provide a gender empowering environment. Indeed, the opportunities to promote transformative social conditions are self-evidently much more limited, with these hard to reach groups, than in organised settlements. However, we have no rigorous evidence to substantiate these processes of social agency. In any case, conditions will vary enormously even within a small locality.

The process of urban settlement by forcibly displaced populations has recently been the subject of growing research interest (Jacobsen, 2006; Jacobsen and Landau, 2005), although the phenomenon is certainly not new (UNHCR, 1997; Sommers, 1999). UNHCR policy statements (UNHCR, 1997, 2003) draw attention to the phenomenon but largely focus on protection issues. The scope for extending policy guidelines to other needs, including housing has been outlined (Jacobsen and Landau, 2005), but remains undeveloped. The evidence from many locations, for example IDPs in Bogota and Medellin in Colombia (Project Counselling Service, 2002; IDMC, 2007), and refugees in Cairo (Grabska, 2006; Kampala Macchiavello, 2004; Dryden-Petersen, 2006) Nairobi (Campbell, 2006), confirms that urban-settled displaced populations endure a high degree of marginality, severe impoverishment, degraded housing conditions and limited access to social and community infrastructure such as schools and medical assistance. These experiences are compounded by insecure or unrecognised legal status. Reflecting the process of rural to urban economic migration, the displaced typically settle on the urban periphery or marginal land in informal squatter settlements or, much more rarely, in extremely basic camp-like settlements are constructed by relief agencies. Again, at the margins of survival, the scope for gender aware and gender-orientated policies and practices are severely limited, since host governments and humanitarian agencies have, for different reasons, chosen to ignore these populations.

Despite these adverse conditions, some evidence suggests that urban refugees do, in time develop well organised coping structures and livelihood strategies, for example Somali refugees in Nairobi (Campbell, 2006; Lindley, 2007). In Cairo, family and community support structures are crucial and women are the major household income earners in the emerging network of micro enterprises (Grabska, 2006). This evidence of gender-empowerment should not detract from the fact that much of the emerging research focuses on urban livelihoods and social needs, rather than shelter and settlement conditions and options. In so far as gendering space is concerned, the paradoxical outcome may be that forcibly displaced populations that self-settle will exercise greater autonomy, but, on the margins of survival, are probably less likely to experience gender-sensitive shelter and settlement opportunities.

The Challenge of Return and Reconstruction

Enloe emphasizes that the end of a war is crowded with gendered decisions (1993:561), but concerns about post-conflict reconstruction override the promotion of women’s equal status and opportunities within a society. The policies and programmes of international funding agencies typically concentrate upon the 4Rs—repatriation, rehabilitation, reconstruction and resettlement (UNHCR, 2003), and the reconstruction of physical, political, educational, and economic infrastructures, not people’s lives, nor gendered needs.

While rebuilding infrastructure is crucial, these initiatives must occur in tandem with developing community capacity, and enhancing collective human security (Commission on Human Security, 2003; McKay, 2004; UN, 2002). This is because in the post-conflict period, and indeed in post-disaster situations, communities play key roles in social and cultural reconstruction: thus community support is a crucial vehicle for ensuring and promoting women’s human rights and security. Unfortunately, communities are typically low on the priority lists of governments and donors when they are planning reconstruction: too often they are left having to rely on their own meagre resources to cope with changes wrought by war (McKay and Mazurana, 2004).

For returnee and post-disaster affected populations, despite the heavy incidence of agency and contractor supplied shelter and reconstruction, field experience advocates the adoption of self-help approaches alongside technical assistance (Sørensen, 1998, Spees, 2004). It is ironic that such an approach needs to be emphasized, since it merely follows the pre-displacement housebuilding traditions found in many societies where people are used to building their own homes with the help of family and friends, and accustomed to hiring skilled labour to complete technically difficult aspects of the construction. But in such conditions of dramatic social change, self-help technology requires gender-aware policies and process to ensure that women have equality of access to decision making processes and the practical tasks. Thus, much of the portfolio of practical interventions discussed in earlier sections (related to conditions of displacement) applies here and reference back should be made. Nonetheless, a major gap in our knowledge is in knowing what women “take back” home in terms of new roles, skills, capacities and assets in this, and indeed other sectors.

More research is needed in this respect, although there are some examples of good practice. During the re-construction stage following the earthquake affected Indian state of Maharashtra, homeowners took on the responsibility of repairing, retrofitting and strengthening their houses, with materials, financial and technical assistance provided by the government. In most villages, these committees consisted of women’s self-help groups for whom training and facilitation was externally provided (Barakat, 2003:34). The adoption of self help approaches to housing reconstruction has also been widely adopted in the Balkans. Even vulnerable members of the community, including households headed by women, have managed to participate in self-build projects by securing help from relatives and friends, thereby increasing women’s participation and social benefits (Barakat, 2003:35; Boano, 2004:15; Čucur et al., 2005). In post-hurricane Mitch Nicaragua, some organisations attempted to include more “strategic” as well as practical gender needs via consciousness-raising activities. Entry to the projects may have been at a “practical” level, but this served as a gateway to strengthen training, participation and credit schemes in addition to gender awareness activities (Bagshaw, 2001:83).

Experience in Kosovo shows that despite lack of participation in planning, some women from both Albanian and Serbian women’s groups were proactively involved in project activities supported through the Kosovo Women Initiative but with marginal results (Kalungu-Banda, 2004; Baker and Haug, 2002). Minervini, in a review of housing reconstruction in Kosovo, found that a gender balance imposed on Village Reconstruction Committees produced fruitful results despite the stable male-dominated Kosovar society (2002:581).

Participation, Empowerment and Governance

As the preceding subsections have stressed, the role of shelter and settlement as a developmental resource, and its scope in embracing multiple issues and options, clearly offers substantial potential to empower displaced women. This is a consistent theme running through the chapter. As we have seen, women prioritise different needs for shelter settlement and infrastructure due to different gender roles in the division of labour and conceptions of well-being. However, empowerment depends on effective participation and the representation of gendered needs: but for this to be embedded in praxis for the sector, the male dominated characteristics must be reversed.

The positive rhetoric is poorly borne out in practice which, most usually, offers consultation rather than participation. There is a systemic failure to confront the double exclusion of displaced women: pre-displacement subordination can be further compounded by the experience of forced displacement. This is because many of their traditional and new tasks are inordinately time consuming – for example firewood and water collection – and thus they are further excluded from participation in vital activities such as attending school, skills training and income generation programs (WCRWC, 2006) and participating in leadership and decision-making bodies.

Some successful practice-based interventions in the technical tasks of construction have been discussed above. The principal reports and evaluations already cited also provide guidelines for enhancing women’s participation in wider processes of planning and decision making in this sector. Thus, the UNHCR (2005:112) emphasises the need for targeted action and on-going support if effective participation by women is to be mobilised in the development of collective design and spatial strategies. In practical terms UNHCR suggests the target of 50% female participation in management and leadership committees. Key here is participation in committees and other management structures with responsibility in two fields of policy and practice: first, situation analysis in the early stages of identifying needs since even emergency infrastructure and shelter and settlement decisions have long term and developmental implications; second, housing design and settlement layout including provision of/access to infrastructure such as water points, sanitation, food distribution points and other core services (IASC, 2005:54; UNHCR, 2005a:111–112), and public works contracts. Their involvement in these decisions is vital so as not to expose them to additional risks and to maximise locational convenience. Zuckerman and Greenberg (2004:78) make the same point with regard to post-conflict reconstruction.

Recently, cash transfers and food-for-work infrastructure projects have gained attention in emergency responses (Creti and Jaspars, 2006; Adams and Winahyu, 2006). Examples here are in Gujarat, Sri Lanka and Pakistan (Causton and Saunders, 2006; IRIN, 2005; Save the Children USA, 2005; Sewalanka Foundation, 2005) and post-tsunami programs which mobilised those displaced by disaster and encouraged them to return to their villages and, significantly, paid women and men equal wages (Gore and Patel, 2006:19; Adams and Winahyu, 2006).

A key advantage is that, unlike in-kind aid, cash allows households the flexibility to decide their spending needs, with some evidence that this may have beneficial results for children through impacts on nutrition, health and education. It is often a more empowering and dignified form of support: it can help generate local market activity and restart livelihoods whilst simultaneously giving women more decision-making power over resources (Gore and Patel, 2006). However the main challenge is the overt and embedded discrimination against women’s participation. Often, (re-)construction programmes constitute so called “men’s work” (Zuckerman and Greenberg, 2004:78) and women may in any case be excluded because of other demands on their time.

Oxfam experience is relevant here. Post tsunami reconstruction illustrates the importance of targeting women in an equal manner engaging them as a crucial catalyst in mobilizing the whole community in small scale rehabilitation and in cleaning works (Adams and Winahyu, 2006:54–60). A cash-for-work program developed by Oxfam in response to devastation caused by the cyclone in Orissa, India, produced similar positive outcomes (Khogali and Takhar, 2001:44–45). These and other field experience stress the importance of challenging the gender division of labor, and prejudices about women’s capabilities, at both community and household levels.

Conclusions

Despite the profound changes in the characteristics of forced displacement in the last decade or so – the rapid growth in IDPs, the growing complexity of conflict and repatriation, the use of “domicide” and “urbicide” as weapons of war, the militarisation of humanitarian intervention, the incidence of massive natural disasters, increasing use of resettlement options to serve political ends, greater reliance on host governments than before, the emergence of new types of humanitarian actors – the needs of forcibly displaced populations remain as they always have been. These are for shelter and settlement which provides protection, privacy, the space for personal and emotional security, and the capacity to provide for “human dignity and to sustain family and community life as far as possible in difficult circumstances” (Sphere, 2004:208).

These dynamic circumstances and the basic needs of forcibly displaced people have not, however, substantially advanced the cause of gender equality. This remains largely subverted to the programmatic, masculinized project driven ends of donors and implementing partners. Yet as this paper has demonstrated, the design, production and governance of spaces and places provides immense opportunities for empowerment of women and the transformation of gender roles. Indeed it is because the shelter and sector integrates and intersects with so many other sectors that these opportunities exist. It remains for all the actors in the humanitarian field, and above all women themselves, to realize these opportunities.

Notes

¹ e.g. IASC 2005, WCRWC 2006a

² Almost 80,000 houses were destroyed or damaged by Hurricane Mitch in 1998, leaving some 300,000 Central Americans homeless. The Gujarat earthquake in India in January 2001 left almost a million families without homes. The tsunami of 26 December 2004 hit coastal communities facing the Indian Ocean left some 231,000 people dead or missing, and more than one million displaced, across 12 affected countries. In Sumatra almost one thousand villages and towns, 127,000 homes and 1,488 schools were destroyed. Estimates of the numbers made homeless range between 500,000 and over 600,000. Over 100,000 homes were destroyed or badly damaged, leaving over half a million people homeless (Oxfam, 2005; OCHA, 2005; Rice, 2005). Approximately 3.5 million people were affected by the earthquake in northern areas of Pakistan and India in October 2005, and available statistics indicate that over 297,000 displaced persons are currently living in camps or in temporary accommodation due to housing loss (Returns Task Force, 2006:2).

³ According to World Bank data losses due to natural disasters are twenty times greater in developing than in developed countries (Barakat, 2003:4).

⁴ In the case of conflict displacement, it is estimated that during war in Bosnia Herzegovina, 24% of all housing stock in Republika Srpska and 68% of all housing stock in the Croat and Muslim Federation were damaged (Talmon L’Armee, 2001:22). During the Kosovo conflict, a third of the province’s housing stock was destroyed, while war in Sierra Leone saw the destruction of an estimated 300,000 houses, leaving over a million people displaced (Barakat, 2003:5). Moreover, more then 10,000 Palestinians housing units have been destroyed in the Occupied Territories since 1967 (Halper, 2003; Graham, 2004). In the case of Colombia, whilst no data has been located on housing loss, the existence of over 2 million IDPs suggests a significant depletion of shelter assets.

⁵ Two weeks after the disaster more than 597 welfare centres, in temples, schools and in “emergency shelters” or “transitional shelters” were spread all over the affected areas in Sri Lanka.

⁶ According to Ferretti (2006) exact data are difficult to quantify given the ill-defined nature of the sector. Citing the CAPs (Consolidate Appeal Processes) source, from 2002, the sector accounted for 3% of expenditure (Babister et al., 2002). Moreover, studies such as Development Initiatives for OCHA pointed out that shelter is one of the sectors that has experienced a sharp decline in funding (see e.g. Vogel, 2001).

⁷ Whether in natural disaster or conflict situations, the urgency and scale of crisis response provoke a militarised and masculinised internal environment for agencies. Hierarchical, typically male-dominated, top-down structures tend to be adopted, where action-orientation, quick decision-making, efficiency, risk taking, and heroism are valued as important attributes of professionalism, and a significant level of internalised subordination is often accepted without question. “Soft” behaviours such as consultation, cautious shared analysis, gender-sensitivity, or empathy with those affected by the crisis, more often displayed by women, are often disregarded as unimportant and irrelevant. This reflects the predominance of a masculinised value system. It is exacerbated by the fact that the “hardware” sectors of water, shelter, food aid, and logistics which represent the backbone of humanitarian response, and command the greatest resources, are mainly staffed by men, whereas the “software” sectors of health, community mobilisation, education, and human resources tend to be staffed by women (Clifton and Gell, 2001:17).

⁸ This clustering was the outcome of the independent Humanitarian Response Review (HRR) of the global humanitarian system (UN, 2005). Shelter in emergency has achieved the “status” of a sector, at least at UN level, but still maintains the epistemological division between natural disaster and conflict.

⁹ The Humanitarian Response Review recommendations gave further impetus to the humanitarian reform process championed by the Secretary-General. UN General Assembly, World Summit Outcome, A/60/L.1, 20 September 2005.

¹⁰ Other sectors belong to UNICEF (water and sanitation, nutrition) WHO (health), WFP (logistics) and UNDP (early recovery). For a detailed review of the Humanitarian reform see ODI (2005).

¹¹ The principles of impartiality, proportionality, and a right to life with dignity are concerned with achieving equal rights for all social groups regardless of gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, age, or any other form of social identity. Equal rights for women and men are fundamental to this approach. This is reflected in the fact that among the wide range of human rights instruments that underpin the Humanitarian Charter is the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (UN, 1995, CEDAW).

¹² Although widely acknowledged as a useful practical guide and effective as an awareness-raising tool, the impact of the Sphere standards is still being assessed.

¹³ Outside the remit of this chapter, but important to note is that violence within refugee communities is frequently neglected due to poor information, notions of non-interference in the domestic realm, narrow definitions of mandate and duty of agencies, poor shelter and settlement provision and sometimes indifference (Weiss Fagen, 2003:77).

¹⁴ UNHCR Handbook for Emergencies (2000:144) states that “shelter must, at a minimum, provide protection from the elements, space to live and store belongings, privacy and emotional security”, while Sphere (2004:208) argues that “Beyond survival, shelter is necessary to provide security and personal safety, protection from the climate and enhanced resistance to ill health and disease. It is also important for human dignity and to sustain family and community life as far as possible in difficult circumstances”.

¹⁵ Corsellis and Vitale advocate staggered layouts which avoid long straight roads (which reduce privacy and flexibility), and increase the funnelling of wind which in turn increases dust and the spread of fires (2005:390).

¹⁶ Dukwe camp accommodated refugees from across the southern African region in the 1980s and 1990s.

¹⁷ For example, WCRWC (20 mm) records that 40% of primary schools were destroyed in one district alone in the civil war in Sierra Leone, whilst 1000 schools were destroyed in the war on Angola.

¹⁸ In August 2005, United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights endorsed the Principles on Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and Displaced Persons (UN, 2005n). The Principles recognize the right of all refugees and displaced persons to have restored to them any housing, land and/or property of which they were arbitrarily or unlawfully deprived, or to be compensated for any housing, land and/or property that is factually impossible to restore.

¹⁹ The issue of inheritance is a fundamental issue with regard to how wealth is transferred within a society, and directly relates to the protection of a woman’s housing: for wider discussion see COHRE 2005.

²⁰ Gender relationships in post-war contexts tend to reinforce traditional patterns, rather than new roles that girls and women may have adopted during armed conflict. At community level, at the level of the institutions which distribute resources, and at the level of national policy formulation, women and girls are usually rendered invisible or are, at best, marginalized by being perceived only as leaders and facilitators of cultural and social reconstruction (McKay, 2004:20).

²¹ This approach recognises that women tend to use resources differently from men, as they tend to spend more on their children. Empirical studies have shown that the percentage of income that a household spends on children and its allocations of food and medical care vary, based on the proportions of income earned by women and men (Visvanathan et al., 1997). Studies have shown that where women retain control over income, there is a greater positive effect on food expenditures and child well-being, compared to men retaining control (Hoddinott and Haddad, 1995). These findings suggest that it is critical to target women with cash interventions, if the objective of the project is to improve child nutritional status or food security. If it is impossible to target women in cash interventions, it may be better to distribute food rather than cash, since women are the main contributors to food preparation. In contexts where women cannot participate in cash for work programmes for some reason, men can be paid in food rather than cash to increase the likelihood that the benefits of the programme will reach women and children.

²² In the case of Lamno in Aceh, (Adams and Winahyu, 2006:54) the Oxfam program targeted people living in temporary or semi-permanent structures and local traders operating from small kiosks. People were engaged in productive activities, and were able to stay in their home communities and clean them up. Freedom to spend, save and invest, participants had cash and freedom as to how it was used. Cash was available for purchase of fresh fish, fruit and vegetables, and other food items; cash was also saved (as gold) or invested in small business. Programme managers prioritised the involvement of women in the work, although the lack of attention to addressing constraints to women’s participation (child care, for instance) resulted in some women who may have wanted to work being excluded (Adams and Winahyu, 2006:57). A similar experience in Chalang in Aceh, focused more on rehabilitation of agricultural land, shows that in terms of payment there was no difference in wages between men and women. In this experience was the first time that women received equal pay. Before the tsunami, it was not easy for women to get employment outside “traditional” work on the farm, e.g. planting, weeding and harvesting. The workers were happy with the higher wages; they also pointed out that the prices had increased since before the tsunami so the higher wages were justified. Moreover, as the work was done in a group it was not so heavy. Efforts were made to enable elderly women to participate as carers for children (Adams and Winahyu, 2006:60).