How the Asian Tsunami led to rapes and forced marriages

CNN:

Three times more women were killed on average in some tsunami-devastated countries than men and the scarcity of females has led to reports of forced marriages and rape, the British-based charity Oxfam International said Saturday.

Although official statistics do not provide the gender of victims, partial data indicates that many more women than men were among the 300,000 dead and missing especially in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and India.

Indonesia, the country hardest hit by the December 26 disaster, included tsunami-battered villages where men now outnumber women 10-to-1.

"The tsunami has dealt a crushing blow to women and men across the region. In some villages it now appears that up to 80 percent of those killed were women," said Becky Buel, Oxfam's policy director.

"This disproportionate impact will lead to problems for years to come unless everyone working on the aid effort addresses the issue now. We are already hearing about rapes, harassment and forced early marriages."

The report concluded that women suffered disproportionately because they had a more difficult time outrunning the surging waters or the bad luck of being at home while the men were out at sea fishing or in the fields working.

As a result, men now far outnumber women in crowded camps and scattered settlements where they are vulnerable to a range of abuses, the report said.

Sri Lankan women have reportedly been sexually assaulted in camp toilets and domestic violence is on the rise, the report found. Indian widows are now placed on the lowest rung of society where they can never remarry and must depend on their in-laws to survive.

Indonesian women, according to Oxfam and women activists, are being sexually harassed in camps, forced or rushed into marrying much older men and victimized by abusive Indonesian soldiers who reportedly have strip searched them.

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