www.thinkglobalhealth.org Open in urlscan Pro
2606:4700::6812:d29  Public Scan

Form analysis
4 forms found in the DOM

GET /site-search

<form id="search_submit_menu" action="/site-search" method="GET">
  <label class="sr-only" for="menuSearch">Enter a search term</label>
  <input type="text" id="menuSearch" name="full_text" class="g-menu__search-input" placeholder="Search">
  <button class="g-menu__search-submit">
    <span class="sr-only">Submit</span>
    <svg class="icon--search" aria-hidden="true">
      <use xlink:href="#icon--search"></use>
    </svg>
  </button>
</form>

<form id="newsletter-small-form" data-behavior="newsletterSmall">
  <div class="g-menu__newsletter-1">
    <input type="hidden" name="st_list_id" value="ST_TGH">
    <div id="recaptcha-menu"></div>
    <label class="sr-only" for="menuNewsletter">Enter your email address</label>
    <div class="g-menu__newsletter__actions">
      <input name="email" type="email" id="menuNewsletter" class="g-menu__newsletter-input" placeholder="Email address" required="">
      <button class="g-menu__newsletter-submit">Submit</button>
    </div>
    <p id="error-message"></p>
  </div>
  <div class="g-menu__newsletter-2 s-hide">
    <p>Thanks for signing up.</p>
  </div>
</form>

<form class="m-newsletter__form" id="newsletter-article-form" data-behavior="newsletterArticleForm">
  <div class="m-newsletter__form-container">
    <input type="hidden" name="st_list_id" value="ST_TGH">
    <label class="sr-only" for="newsletterArticleEmail">Your email</label>
    <input name="email" type="email" id="newsletterArticleEmail" class="m-newsletter__form-input" placeholder="Your email" required="">
    <button class="m-newsletter__form-submit">Submit</button>
  </div>
  <div class="m-newsletter__recaptcha" id="recaptcha-article-newsletter"></div>
</form>

<form class="tgh-newsletter__form">
  <input type="hidden" name="st_list_id" value="ST_TGH">
  <div id="recaptcha-footer"></div>
  <label class="sr-only" for="footerEmail">Enter your email address</label>
  <input name="email" class="g-footer__form-input" id="footerEmail" placeholder="Email address" required="" type="email">
  <button class="g-footer__form-submit" type="submit">Submit</button>
  <p id="error-message"></p>
</form>

Text Content

Toggle side menu
Go to homepage
Share this page
 * Share on X
 * Share on Facebook
 * Share on LinkedIn
 * Share via Email

Go to homepage
Close menu
Enter a search term Submit
 * Environment
 * Poverty
 * Trade
 * Governance
 * Food
 * Urbanization
 * Aging
 * Gender
 * Migration

 * Data Visualization
 * Recommendations
 * Research & Analysis
 * Series
 * Interviews

 * About This Site
 * Submission Guidelines

Newsletter

Enter your email address
Submit



Thanks for signing up.

Visit cfr.org
Follow us on Twitter
Toggle side menu
Gender-Based Violence: The Unseen Toll of Hurricanes
 * Share on Facebook
 * Share on X
 * Share on LinkedIn
 * Copy link

Toggle side menu
Go to homepage

Environment


GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE: THE UNSEEN TOLL OF HURRICANES

The number of women killed in domestic violence incidents doubled after
Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017


A woman kneels in front of the remains of her home after the area was hit by
Hurricane Maria, in Catano municipality, Puerto Rico, on September 21, 2017.
REUTERS/Alvin Baez
by Mira Cheng December 12, 2024
 * Share on Facebook
 * Share on X
 * Share on LinkedIn
 * Copy link

Seven years after Hurricane Maria, the scars left by the disaster remain visible
across Puerto Rico: skeletal buildings without roofs, boarded-up schools, and
hospitals with peeling FEMA signs out front.  



Less visible, but more pernicious, are the scars that the Category 5 storm and
subsequent climate disasters have left on the island's women.  



"After the hurricane, domestic violence cases escalated and that was very
directly related to the crisis," said Isabelle Hernandez-Repollet, an
administrative assistant at Casa Protegida Julia de Burgos, the oldest domestic
violence shelter in Puerto Rico. 



An investigation by human rights groups, Proyecto Matria and Kilómetro 0, found
that the number of women killed in domestic violence incidents doubled after
Hurricane Maria hit the island in 2017: from 11 in the 12 months prior, to 22 in
the 12 months after—a significant increase from previous years. Organizations
offering help to gender-based violence survivors saw a 62% increase in requests
for services, according to a UN Women report. 



"When there is a big climate disrupter, the normal social and community ties
which keep women safe get destroyed," said Cecilia Sorensen, MD, director of the
Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education at Columbia University. 



According to Sorensen, economic stressors, such as the loss of employment,
shelter, and food escalate underlying behavioral health issues among members of
a household.  



> As climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather
> events, violence against women will also continue to mount

Hurricane Maria is not an isolated incident. A similar pattern linking extreme
weather events with an increase in gender-based violence has emerged worldwide.
Public health experts and community leaders are concerned that as climate change
increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, violence against
women will also continue to mount. 

"It's only going to get worse before it gets better," said Jeff Temple, PhD,
professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at UTHealth Houston, who studies
the intersection of climate events and domestic violence. 



THE LINK BETWEEN CLIMATE DISASTERS AND VIOLENCE 



Researchers have observed increased gender-based violence in both natural and
human-caused disasters globally.  

Clea Sarnquist, DrPH, associate professor of pediatrics at Stanford University,
observed that in addition to increasing household level stress, climate
disasters tax the services in place to prevent domestic violence. Health care,
security services, and domestic violence shelters become inaccessible. 



"People lose their normal support mechanisms, which might be just getting out of
the house to go see a friend or actually going to a support group," Sarnquist
said. 



Hurricanes in particular result in widespread destruction and displacement,
Temple added. Relative to more localized disasters, such as fires and
earthquakes, hurricanes are more likely to devastate entire communities and
disrupt critical services for extensive periods. 




People wait in line for aid items to be handed out, after the area was hit by
Hurricane Maria, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on September 24, 2017. REUTERS/Alvin
Baez

A study looking at the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 found that women
in storm-damaged areas were at a five to eight times higher risk of experiencing
domestic violence. Another study found that boys who remained in Galveston,
Texas, after Hurricane Ike in 2008 were more likely to engage in physical and
sexual violence against their dating partners than those who evacuated. In
Bangladesh, a UN Women survey found that 65% of respondents reported an increase
in gender-based violence in their communities following Cyclone Amphan in 2020. 



Tania Rosario-Méndez, executive director of Taller Salud, a prominent Puerto
Rican feminist organization, witnessed the disruption unfold in 2017 when
Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico.  



"One hundred percent of our social protections collapsed. That meant that police
stations were closed, 911 was not in service, the courtrooms were closed, there
was no internet, no phone service," she said. Sorensen, who participated in
rescue efforts following the hurricane, verified these assertions. 



On average, families were without cell service for nearly 6 weeks, without water
for nearly 10 weeks, and without power for almost 12 weeks. People were isolated
at home, unable to escape abusive situations. Those who had protection orders
could not ensure that they were enforced, according to Rosario-Méndez.  



Most of the courts around the island closed so people could not renew their
protection orders or seek any type of legal assistance, according to Janice
Albarrán Suárez, domestic violence lawyer and director of the Carolina office of
Servicios Legales de Puerto Rico. She recalled working more than 12 hours a day
during the months following the storm to meet the demand for domestic violence
litigation. 

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to stay up to date.
Your email Submit




Thank you for signing up!

Look for your next weekly newsletter in your inbox.

The storm damaged more than 300,000 homes—more than one-third of the total
housing stock in Puerto Rico—leaving more than 10,000 people to seek shelter in
emergency centers set up around the island. However, these shelters did not have
protocols developed to screen for protection orders so many domestic violence
and sexual abuse victims ended up in the same shelters as their abusers,
Rosario-Méndez added. 



"Puerto Rico is small . . . the possibility of victims and offenders being
sheltered in the same shelter were extremely high," Rosario-Méndez said. 



Sorensen witnessed the aftermath of Hurricane Maria as a first responder.
"Women's safety was not prioritized, and we see that happen again and again
around the world, even though we know that this is what can happen," she said. 



BUILDING A BETTER FUTURE 



In Puerto Rico, feminist organizations, such as Coordinadora Paz para las
Mujeres (CPM), have come to play a central role in calling attention to the
overlapping crises of climate change and gender-based violence as well as
innovating solutions. 



After Hurricane Maria, the coalition banded together to provide relief services
to people in need, distributing thousands of hot meals and gallons of water,
providing medical and psychological aid, and repairing houses, Rosario-Méndez
said. The organizations went door to door to check on women in the community and
established new community centers where women could access domestic violence
services. 



"The more community connectedness there is after disasters, the less people feel
alone and estranged," Sorensen said. "And that, in and of itself, can be a
buffering mechanism to mediate the impact on health and mental health within
households." 

> The more community connectedness there is after disasters, the less people
> feel alone and estranged
> 
> Cecilia Sorensen, MD

Sorensen added that women's health and safety must be prioritized in disaster
planning. For example, governments and relief organizations can develop gender
segregated evacuation shelters and hire shelter advocates to do outreach to
survivors of domestic violence. In Puerto Rico, CPM developed a new protocol to
help shelter staff prevent, identify, and deal with gender-based violence
appropriately in an emergency setting.

In addition to investing in gender-aware disaster planning, governments and
institutions should also improve how they screen for and collect data on
domestic violence in the wake of climate disasters, added Sorensen. Health
professionals must be trained on the proper screening language and build it into
their practice consistently. 



"We're not collecting data, and that's a huge problem," she said. 



Temple added that violence prevention and relief efforts should center on people
of lower socioeconomic status, who are more susceptible to the financial and
psychological toll of these disasters. By mitigating financial and emotional
stress—triggers for domestic violence—we can "inoculate" our society against
violence in the wake of storms. 



"Living wages is violence prevention. Safe and affordable housing is violence
prevention. Having employment is violence prevention," Temple said. 


A woman reacts while looking at the damage to her house after the area was hit
by Hurricane Maria, in Guayama, Puerto Rico, on September 20, 2017.
REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

Mira Cheng is a third-year medical student and the current Global Health Media
Fellow at Stanford University.

 * Hurricanes
 * Gender-Based Violence

 * Share on Facebook
 * Share on X
 * Share on LinkedIn
 * Copy link


MOST POPULAR

 * Claim Denied: U.S. Insurance and Health Equity
 * Climate Change Fuels Lightning Strikes in Kashmir
 * Safety Concerns Plague Humanitarian Aid Work


RELATED

Gender



EXTREME HEAT TAXES AFRICA'S WOMEN AND REPRODUCTION

by Mariel Ferragamo

Many women in Africa have little or no protection against extreme heat events in
their day-to-day lives

Environment



EXTREME HEAT AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN MEXICO

by Ricardo Regules-García, Jessie Pinchoff, Ana Ruth Escoto Castillo, Ana
Cristina Gómez-Ugarte

Currently, no gender or climate policy addresses the links between climate
events and risk of violence

Gender



CARING FOR SURVIVORS OF GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE IN AFGHANISTAN

by Manizha Ashna

Health workers can treat, speak up for, seek justice for, and empower survivors
of gender-based violence

Gender



BODIES INTO BATTLEFIELDS: GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE IN SUDAN

by Nahid Widaatalla

Amid Sudan's deadly war, women face a triple threat of death, displacement, and
gender-based assault


MOST POPULAR


CLAIM DENIED: U.S. INSURANCE AND HEALTH EQUITY






CLIMATE CHANGE FUELS LIGHTNING STRIKES IN KASHMIR






SAFETY CONCERNS PLAGUE HUMANITARIAN AID WORK






SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER

Stay up to date with the latest trends in global health


Enter your email address Submit




THANKS FOR SIGNING UP

Look for our next weekly newsletter in your inbox.

About This Site Submission Guidelines

Visit cfr.org
 * Follow us on Twitter

©2024 Council on Foreign Relations. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy and
Terms of Use.


This site uses cookies to improve your user experience. By continuing to browse
this site you accept the use of cookies as explained in our Privacy Policy.

Accept Decline