Essay Sample on Effects of Disasters on Women, Children, and Elders

Introduction

In most cases, it is realized that women, children, and elders are vulnerable to any disaster that strikes society since many of them become victims of the disaster. Most of these people sustain injuries if not death. The vulnerability of these members of the society caters across globally whenever there is a disaster. Therefore, this paper seeks to investigate the effects of the disaster on them and the reasons why they are disadvantaged with the aim of eradicating this predicament.

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Women

During the Hurricane Katrina disaster, women experienced unfair distribution and allocation of resources because they are marginalized members of society. The society never values women hence the reason for their suffering during this disaster. This discrimination is facilitated where specific women needs can be overlooked as the disaster unfolds. Moreover, women are more likely to be injured or demise in case of the disaster. This was observed in the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami in Asia since in some cultures women are more likely to put on clothing that is heavy and oversize restraining. They also have long hair that might make them tangled in debris (Thornton, & Voigt, 2007). Women also lack knowledge on how to swim in case of a flooding disaster. Unfortunately, in some incident, when a disaster strikes a community, men can be saved at the expense of the women due to discrimination particularly during the tsunami disaster in 2004.

Unfortunately, women are offered necessary healthcare and specific care like for pregnant women. They are often not considered during the relief effort, which is usually offered to the victims of disasters due to negligence and discrimination. The effect might be the risk of miscarriage or other health complications due to poor sanitation and a lack of obstetric care. Nevertheless, most pregnant women will lose their lives during the disaster since only a few doctors will attend to them. Women become displaced during the crash as they seek refuge in safer places resulting in lack of food and proper shelter in the new areas (Tierney, 2006).

Eventually, Women face the danger of being exposed to sexual harassment increasing their chances of attracting sexually transmitted infections such as HIV/AIDS. A woman may bear unwanted pregnancy in case of the rape during the disaster as well as damage may because at the vagina for the case of a rape involving multiple men. Women tend to be more impoverished relative to men and therefore might lack the necessary resources to respond to any disasters. This issue is rampant in single mothers, whose poverty rates cannot enable them to protect themselves and their offsprings (Thornton, & Voigt, 2007).

Children

Children suffer most during any disaster due to their tender age. A tragedy that involves the displacement of their parents leaves them without a resulting to lack of caretaker of basic needs like shelter, food, and water. Thus, they can starve to death. Notably, these children will lack parental care and love which is crucial for the proper development of any child. The ultimate effect will be children feeling lonely and neglected hence lose the moral of living in their community. Moreover, lonely children could be sold through human trafficking in exchange money and other material benefits because they lack a person to take care of them (Peek, 2008).

Nevertheless, during a disaster involving a flood where every member of a family is swimming to save his or her life, children will die because they cannot swim by themselves. During the emergency response, the operators will tend to keep men at the expense of children because children are considered less important as compared to men particularly in terms of responsibility delegation within the community. Children are poor to plan for any strategies that will help them respond accordingly when a strike by any disaster likes that of Hurricane Katrina because they still depend on the guidance of the parents. Moreover, they are not yet educated; hence, they lack the idea to apply in case of a disaster incident. Thus, they suffer most (Tierney, 2006).

Children are most vulnerable to any disaster since they risk facing disruptions caused by the catastrophe resulting in their separation from their friends, schools, and hospitals. In disaster planning, it is assumed that their parents should protect children during any threat without acknowledging that parents also seek refuge leaving their children to be the most exposed to danger. Eventually, children do not have resources and thus not independent to prepare for disasters since they often rely on their parents. Hence, they suffer most (Peek, 2008).

Elders

Most elderly people suffer mentally whenever there is an incident of a disaster because their family members neglect them. The community and the families consider them less critical hence ignored during the emergence of the disaster. They mostly depend on energetic members of society to save them during the disaster. However, these members are also busy protecting themselves from the threat hence the elders end up sustaining severe injuries and even death. Elderly people do not have the energy to swim to save them particularly from the flooding that resulted from the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Since the emergency response team will be busy saving younger people, most of them end up drowning because they are thought of later and their old age put them at high risk. Eventually, the older people have not insured hence their suffering extend even after an end of the disaster. Moreover, they lack the resources that they could use to prepare and respond to an emergency since they depend on working members of the community (Jia et al., 2010).

References

Jia, Z., Tian, W., Liu, W., Cao, Y., Yan, J., & Shun, Z. (2010). Are the elderly more vulnerable to the psychological impact of a natural disaster? A population-based survey of adult survivors of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. BMC public health, 10(1), 172.

Peek, L. (2008). Children and disasters: Understanding vulnerability, developing capacities, and promoting resilience-an introduction. Children Youth and Environments, 18(1), 1-29.

Thornton, W. E., & Voigt, L. (2007). Disaster rape: Vulnerability of women to sexual assaults during Hurricane Katrina. Journal of Public Management and Social Policy, 13(2), 23-49.

Tierney, K. (2006). Social inequality, hazards, and disasters. On risk and disaster: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina, 109-128.