The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies just released its annual ”World Disasters Report,” available online. This year, the focus is discrimination in disaster relief programs - and a sobering report it is.

The 2007 World Disasters Report addresses widely held misconceptions and offers valuable recommendations for making disaster services more responsive to the needs of those disadvantaged by age, ethnicity, gender, religion, political opinions, national or social origin, economic conditions, and disabilities.

Among the case examples is one from Hurricane Katrina. In a post-hurricane study of FEMA trailer park residents, the International Medical Corps found “alarmingly high rates of gender-based violence” and a “rape rate” that was “53.6 times higher than the highest baseline state rate” documented by the U.S. Department of Justice . One victim, a woman raped by a former husband was given a trailer across the road from her abuser. “Inadequate security” and “understaffed social service providers” compounded the difficulties faced by women, the report found. (WDR, pp. 123-4.) 

The authors urge planners to go beyond providing better services to people with disabilities and to include them in planning and response activities. Describing his experiences as a blind volunteer with a community emergency response team, Colonel Kenneth Silberman, writes:

Blindness skills proved invaluable in the search-and-rescue phase of the training, when we had to traverse a pitch-black, multi-storey maze and apartment looking for victims. There was a lot of panic due to disorientation. However, it was business as usual for me. So, I ended up leading the operation. The instructors and students accepted me completely after that.

For all involved in disaster planning and response - whether government officials, relief agency volunteers or newspaper reporters - the 2007 World Disasters Report will be helpful in eliminating ”unacceptable pockets of human suffering” produced by discrimination.