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The rehabilitation and reconstruction process offers new
prospects for those affected by the tsunami. People have suffered tremendously,
but the Indian government is taking the situation seriously and there is a
global effort to help them. The resources provided should be used, wherever
possible, to improve the lives of those who survived, not merely restore them
to status quo.
Placing human rights at the center of the recovery program
is essential to effective humanitarian assistance, sustainable recovery, and
accountability. As in other rural communities in India, many of those affected
suffer daily from human rights violations, such as discrimination based on
gender or caste, and lack of adequate food and health care, which authorities
are not moving aggressively enough to address. It thus will be important to
make efforts during the rehabilitation process to introduce new approaches to
achieving basic rights. Fresh opportunities to generate livelihood and
capacity-building measures should become the norm. Empowering village
communities to participate in the decision making process is crucial.
Committees set up to ensure such participation should include representatives
of marginalized groups such as women, Dalits, other lower castes, religious
minorities, children and the disabled. It will also be critical for
tsunami-affected people to receive sufficient information to make informed
choices about their entitlements, government programs and policies.
In tsunami-affected areas, the Indian and state governments,
as well as nongovernmental organizations and aid agencies and international
donors working with these governments, should:
- Work jointly to ensure the realization of the right of
everyone to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food,
clothing and housing, and make effort towards a continuous improvement of
living conditions by immediately providing fishermen with rapid access to
financial aid and compensation as well as microfinance facilities to restore
the primary economic activity of the area. At the same time, the
government must institute mechanisms to consult with, and adequately
compensate male and female landless agricultural laborers, for instance by
implementing minimum wage standards.
- Give greater priority to helping locate alternative
livelihoods for those affected by the tsunami. Many daily wage laborers
will not be able to work on farmlands that were destroyed when seawater
penetrated inland. It is estimated that it will take two to four years for
these lands to become cultivable. In that time, daily wage laborers should
be trained and provided alternative employment in the rebuilding process.
- Ensure that women in fishing communities are recognized as
workers with equal rights to livelihood-related compensation and aid.
- Conduct a comprehensive needs assessment before
rehabilitation so that compensation received can be used for improvement
in living conditions. These can include, for instance, the proper kind of
assistive devices for the disabled, proper training for alternative
livelihoods and appropriate housing.
- Promote savings and insurance schemes to encourage
long-term well-being of local communities. Members of fishing communities,
for instance, typically do not insure their boats and nets.
- Inform communities that caste-based discrimination is
illegal and promote dialogue with the ultimate aim of allowing all caste
groups to live together when permanently resettled.
- Monitor and respond quickly to local conflicts between
caste groups, such as those between the fishing communities and others,
and promote dialogue and negotiations aimed at peacefully resolving
differences.
- Integrate overall national development plans such as universal
primary education with local needs and objectives for the fulfillment of
social and economic rights. Implement laws and policy related to the
protection of the rights of women, the disabled, children, and
marginalized communities like Dalits and religious minorities.
- Establish mechanisms for regular interaction and
consultations with members of local communities, especially the most
vulnerable so that reconstruction efforts address local needs such as
health facilities, schools and improved infrastructure.
- Ensure equal access to aid by registering men, women, and
children individually. Women should be able to collect food and other aid
independently from male heads of household.
- Vigorously investigate and take appropriate legal action
against government officials and others who violate legal prohibitions
against caste and religious discrimination.
- Integrate local development needs and overall national
development objectives such as universal education and protection of the
rights of children into rehabilitation plans.
- Continue the present policy of trying to reunite tsunami
orphans with their families before placing them for adoption. While
upholding international standards requiring that the best interests of the
child be paramount, authorities should make utmost efforts to locate other
relatives who are willing and capable of caring for orphaned children, and
provide such relatives with assistance where necessary.
- Take immediate steps to implement alternatives to
institutionalization, including foster care and other forms of
community-based care, for children whose relatives are unable to care for
them or when it is not in the childs best interest to remain with them.
- Ensure that children do not fall victim to trafficking or
are forced into labor because of economic or social hardships resulting
from the tsunami. Measures should include targeted assistance for
vulnerable families, particularly those where only one surviving parent is
struggling to cope with child-care and earning a living or where extended
families and customary care givers cannot afford to provide for their
orphaned relatives.
- Immediately provide safe toilet and bathing facilities at
temporary shelters for women and children.
- Provide health facilities and protocols that ensure
privacy, safety, and confidentiality so that women and girl children can
consult health care providers without embarrassment.
- Involve women at all levels in the planning and
distribution of food, shelter and economic assistance. Special efforts
should be made to identify and help women at risk, such as widows, single
mothers, women-headed households or pregnant women.
- Provide separate shelters for female headed households
such as divorced women and widows.
- Ensure that the government clarifies how long people will
remain in temporary shelters so that the shelters do not end up serving as
permanent, substandard facilities.
- Ensure that new permanent housing is provided within a
fixed timeframe.
- Consult the local community to ensure that permanent
housing is suited to local conditions and balance budgetary constraints
with local preferences. The former criterion is particularly important
because many of the short term shelters provided to date by government and
nongovernmental agencies have been considered inappropriate for local
climactic conditions.
- Provide adequate and fair compensation for land acquired
for permanent settlements.
- Ensure that relocation takes place only after consulting
the community and the individuals concerned, including women.
- Ensure implementation of the governments plan to issue
titles to new houses jointly to husbands and wives, especially at the
district and village levels.
- Provide displaced persons with full, free and impartial
information regarding all plans for relocation and resettlement.
Authorities should ensure the full participation of displaced persons in
the planning and management of any return, resettlement or relocation process.
- Protect local communities from forcible relocation by
vested interests attempting to obtain beach-front properties for their own
profit. In particular, the government of Tamil Nadu should prevent the
forcible relocation of families with houses within the 200-meter high-tide
zone, because they have been given the option by the Tamil Nadu government
of staying if they so wish, but without any compensation for loss or
damage of property.
- Make every effort to ensure that members of fishing
communities are close enough to the sea to be able to continue their
livelihood and to their boats and nets.
- Ensure that the permanent shelters are suitable for the
needs of disabled persons by including, for instance, ramps for
wheelchairs.
- Consult with local village councils to establish ownership
of properties, and compensate losses, of those without clear land titles.
- Strengthen governance systems ensuring transparency and
accountability at every level starting with the village councils. This is
particularly important because orders issued at the top are often not
implemented on the ground.
- Ensure implementation of government policy that encourages
participation of village committees in the reconstruction process. The government
should be responsive to proposals and reactions of the village committees
to prevent inappropriate interventions by the government, nongovernmental
organizations, and bilateral and multilateral agencies.
- Ensure that rebuilding of the local economy, villages and
homes is free of political, racial, religious, caste or gender based
discrimination.
- Provide temporary shelters that are in keeping with
humanitarian standards and uphold human rights principles.
- Protect vulnerable groups such as tribal groups, children,
women or the disabled from discrimination in the distribution of
humanitarian assistance.
- Ensure that the needs of survivors who have lost their
identity documents or proof of ownership of land and property are
addressed.
- Establish mechanisms for consultation with affected
communities to protect their rights.
- Ensure that officials recognize non-traditional forms of
ownership when reviewing claims, particularly those of secluded tribal
communities.
- Ensure that there is a comprehensive damage assessment and
that all affected individuals receive fair compensation.
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