The presentation Human right of women in disaster risk management. Analysis of multilateral agreement carries out a comparative documentary analysis in a double sense, on the one hand, on the incorporation of the gender perspective in the main multilateral agreements on disaster risk reduction approved in the international, Latin American and Caribbean sphere and, on the other, on the treatment of disasters in the equality agenda in the same territorial area. 

 

 

Earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, tsunamis, floods and droughts, are natural threats and have occurred throughout the history of mankind. But other factors such as demographic growth, progressive urbanization of the countries, climate variations and climate change, plus geological changes, and the indiscriminate use of natural resources in the last century, among others, have meant an increased exposure of many territories of the planet and of its corresponding population to natural threats. Hence, when analyzing disaster risks, it is advisable to take into account not only the factors of natural origin but also the social elements that affect populations’ vulnerabilities.

 

The Latin American and Caribbean region has a high incidence of catastrophic events, as evidenced by the fact that between 1997 and 2017 one in four disasters occurred in the world . The increase in risk in this area is explained by the combination of several factors closely linked to vulnerability, such as poverty and inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, the water crisis, food insecurity, political instability, crime and violence, poor poor urban planning, displacement and massive migration of people or weak governance, among others .

 

This research was part of the GENDER In project (Gender, Disasters and Risks. Comparison Studies) With de University of Oviedo, Spain, Chile University, FLACSO Dominican Republic and FLACSO Uruguay. 

 

 

To study the process of institutionalizing the gender perspective in the field of disaster risk management, two three types of multilateral agreements that make up the international and Latin American and Caribbean agenda on gender and disasters have been examined. Specifically, with regard to disaster risk management, internationally, the Yokohama Strategy and Action Plan for a Safer World (1994) has been analyzed; the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: increasing the resilience of nations and communities to disasters; and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, currently in force. In the Latin American and Caribbean context, the communications and reports emanating from the six meetings of the Regional Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in the Americas held up to the year 2020 and held in Panama (2009), Nayarit (2011), Santiago de Chile (2012), Guayaquil (2014), Montreal (2017) and Cartagena (2018). Said Platform constitutes the institutional space through which governments, international organizations and civil society coordinate actions on risk management in this region of the planet.

 

In the second group of documents analyzed are those related to gender equality, derived from the World Conferences on Women held in Mexico (1975), Copenhagen (1980), Nairobi (1985) and Beijing (1995), as well as the evaluation meetings of the latter, held in New York every five years: Beijing+5, Beijing+10, Beijing+15 and Beijing+20. In the Latin American and Caribbean context, the documents resulting from the fourteen Regional Women's Conferences have been analyzed, from the first in Havana in 1979, to the fourteenth in Santiago de Chile in 2020.

 

 

The incorporation of the gender approach in scientific research on disasters does not begin until the 1990s The initial invisibility of women in this area has been fostered by the consideration of the catastrophic phenomenon as an inevitable event, unrelated to human intervention, which bursts into daily life and must be dealt with immediately. Both the inevitability and the urgency favored the idea that incorporating gender was either not relevant or could wait until the end of the emergency. In addition, disaster management has traditionally been considered an area of militarized and technical intervention, in which the armies and the engineering industry, masculinized institutions par excellence, have a leading role , which contributes to women have not been taken into account. But this is not to say that interventions that ignore women are gender neutral. On the contrary, they tend to favor the reproduction of inequalities and reinforce stereotypes that consider them weak and passive, in need of help and protection from men.

 

Likewise, the specialized literature has highlighted the need to incorporate the focus on intersectionality when analyzing gender and disasters. In this sense, it has been found that when the gender condition intersects with other factors, such as age, poverty, ethnic origin, disability or rural residence, among others, the risk of catastrophe increases

 

This initial conception evolved around two gender perspectives on disasters. On the one hand, the vulnerability approach, which finds in gender inequalities the structural cause of the greater vulnerability of women to face disasters. And, on the other hand, the capabilities approach, which focuses on the important role that women can play during an emergency and on the changes that they can generate in future living conditions, both personal and collective, after the catastrophe (Bradshaw and Fordham 2013.

 

The physical vulnerability  is understood as the impact of the catastrophe on the physical and mental health of women. Various investigations have analyzed evidence on its higher mortality in certain disasters, Also included in physical vulnerability is evidence regarding the increase in violence against women, especially sexual violence, in the period following a disaster 

 

Material vulnerability is understood as the impacts of disasters that make women poorer as a consequence of job loss, decreased income, and increased unpaid work after a catastrophe. Social and organizational vulnerability is understood as the low social and political participation of women, or the exclusion of the groups to which they belong in the community framework. 

 

However, an approach focused solely on vulnerability favors the victimization of women, which is why it is limited and hardly transformative . In this context, capacities are not necessarily the other side of vulnerability, but rather refer to the aptitudes and abilities of each person to protect themselves and their environment, even when their conditions of vulnerability persist, including those that may arise between groups and collectives belonging to the community. The physical dimension of capacities refers to the actions of women to save their own lives and those around them during an emergency, as well as the skills they perform to heal people, care for their families, and provide emotional support. Regarding the material dimension, it is understood as the contribution of women that allows guaranteeing the subsistence of the population in adverse conditions through unpaid work. In material terms, women make an essential contribution to the reconstruction of their communities that, however, often goes unnoticed (Arenas Ferriz 2001). Finally, the social and organizational dimension is considered as the capacities that groups of women develop when they take charge of managing daily life or obtaining housing after a disaster.

 

The capabilities approach, widely accepted among international organizations, is not exempt from questioning. On the one hand, emphasizing women's agency and their capacities as agents of change can lead to a feminization of social responsibilities. And, on the other hand, developing female capabilities does not always achieve the goal of transforming power relations between men and women. 

 

 

AS you can see, number of references coded as a vulnerability and capacities approach in the World Conferences on Disaster Risk Management

 

Then, de number of references coded as a focus on vulnerability and capacities in the Regional Conferences on Disaster Risk Management for the Americas.

 

Starting with the first topic, the data analyzed has shown that the last decade marked a turning point for the inclusion of the gender perspective in disaster risk management on a global scale, as evidenced by the historical journey shown . The same cannot be said of the agreements created at the regional level, in which a lag is identified in comparison with the international framework given that, as we have seen, their implementation has not followed a homogeneous or constant evolution.

 

Apart from the undoubted advances in the latest international and regional agreements (at a disparate pace), his analysis brings to the table some identified limitations. Specifically, the importance of incorporating a gender and intersectional approach is evident, which includes both the analysis of vulnerabilities and the capacities of the diversity of women, systematically considering its three dimensions: physical, material and social. or organizational. As we show in the theoretical framework, this approach is key and should be considered throughout the entire disaster management cycle.

 

 

And you can see the number of references coded as a vulnerability and capacity approach in the Regional Conferences on Women for Latin America and the Caribbean

 

Moving on to the second of the issues addressed, the analysis of the gender agenda shows that international conferences on women have incorporated reflection on disasters before the reverse. In this sense, the field of catastrophes constitutes a field of interest for institutional frameworks on gender equality, which shows a more committed and ambitious agenda when it comes to addressing the issue compared to what has been shown on disaster management. In this way, despite the evident interdependence between the two issues, the expected dialogue between both regulatory instances has been uneven, highlighting the development of the gender agenda over the disaster agenda.

 

These findings outline the route to follow in future institutional interventions, in order to design a response that includes theoretical advances on the subject and guarantees the human rights of the diversity of women in contexts as complex as catastrophes. The result would make it possible to promote a more effective way of operating in disaster risk management both globally and in the specific case of the Latin American and Caribbean region, especially affected by this problem.