"Women endure special challenges during the flood calamity"…

Our country has been hit by the worst disaster of its time. It has affected almost 14million people, one-tenth of our population. The flood has bought with it difficult social challenges for the people. The survival has become very difficult. The food, clothing, shelter insecurities have been worsened by the floods. A seminar held on Monday in Islamabad’ Impact of Food Inflation on Women and Girls’ emphasized the need to make relief operations more ‘women-friendly’ and expressed concern about the negative impact of food insecurity over women and girls in particular. The seminar was organized by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) in collaboration with Women s Organization for Rights and Development (WORD). I truly believe that women suffer from gender inequality in every part of the world, but in situations where there are heavy crises they should be provided with equal amount resources. Rising floods have indeed worsened their miseries.

According to the Ministry Of Health reports 45000 women will be giving birth in the relief camps. These women should be supplied with better medical facilities, good health services and nutritious food supply. It is observed that the flood affected women lacked proper knowledge about nutrition and child birth, which resulted in their children being malnourished. I believe the government is urged at this point to offer unaccountable health services to the flood victims, especially women who are about to give birth. However I consider women in flood affected areas should be acknowledged about health securities and also be a part of revitalization of the concerned areas. Along with this the there is an increasing number of crime rate found in the relief camps, which is a major cause of concern. There should be proper and security arrangements, especially for young girls and the women. There is no doubt the floods have caused many obstacles for the people, but for women it has brought great communal challenges, in form of increase violence and household level tension accompanied by food insecurities. Being a young woman myself I can understand the pain and the tremendous difficulties that women in those areas are suffering on gender biases. It is time to wake up and realize that men and women are both afflicted; at least at this point we should forget gender differences.