One woman lived in fear because her husband got drunk and would punch her car and throw glass bottles.
Another woman realized her partner’s violence was getting worse when her young son suddenly told a stranger, “Your dad is really mean to your mom.”
Another woman was driving down a country road when her husband suddenly pulled the handbrake during an argument.
These stories of domestic violence following Victoria’s Black Saturday bushfires in 2009 Groundbreaking Research It shows that gender-based violence intensifies after disasters.
Subsequent research has found dramatic increases in domestic violence during the Millennium Drought, the COVID-19 lockdown and after the 2022 NSW Northern Rivers flood disaster.
A Domestic Violence New South Wales (DVNSW) report after the disaster said communications were cut off during the floods, forcing caseworkers to call women using small antennas attached to generators mounted in their cars.
“This is a war zone incident,” one worker said in a submission to a state legislative inquiry.
But despite years of mounting evidence, Australian researchers say climate and environmental policy still does not fully acknowledge the greater risks women face during and after disasters.
According to the Australian Women’s Environmental Leadership Institute, women are 14 times more likely to die in a natural disaster than men and account for 80 per cent of people displaced after a disaster.
“The impact is just not the same,” said Carla Pascoe Leahy, the organization’s research manager.
“Women are not only socially disadvantaged, they are also economically disadvantaged, meaning that in times of crisis, women have less security and fewer resources to rely on.”
The report said violence against women often escalates during disasters because traditional gender roles tend to become more deeply ingrained.
While heroic roles such as flood rescue, firefighting, cleanup and recovery are typically carried out by men, women bear a greater burden of care work.
After newsletter promotion
Emergency responder Steve O’Malley trains emergency personnel about how gendered expectations normalize violence during emergency situations.
“The investigation found that the perpetrators of violent acts were men who were responding to the disaster and therefore there was a perception that they should be forgiven,” O’Malley said.
“The causes of violence are conflated with two things: power and the choice to be violent, but the community allowed it given what these men went through.”
He believes preventing gender-based violence should be a “core activity” in emergency medical departments, which are often dominated by men.
Dr Pascoe Leahy, who led the women’s leadership study, said environmental policies should incorporate a gender perspective to better protect vulnerable groups from the disproportionate impacts of disasters.
“There is some fantastic research on the Australian situation that policymakers can use to start to address this issue,” she said.
“We need to get their attention.”
