#new humanitarian

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Back in December, a group of UN-backed international experts warned that there was a risk of famine in Gaza, with 90% of the population facing acute levels of food insecurity. Now, young children have reportedly begun to die due to malnutrition. Last month, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance to the enclave, which has been under total Israeli siege since 7 October. Since the order, however, the already limited amount of aid entering the enclave has dropped by half. As journalist Maha Hussaini reports, the situation is worst in the north, where hundreds of thousands of people who stayed behind after Israel’s evacuation orders in October are on the brink of starvation.

‘Snapshots: Palestinian journalists capture life under bombardment in Gaza’, New Humanitarian

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Viewed by members of the other castes as “untouchables”, Dalits particularly struggle during disasters, when community members bar them from accessing shared water and sanitation facilities: Since the Hindu religious belief operates on strict lines of purity, there is a belief that a Dalit touching a common water source will “pollute it”. As climate change continues to bring worsening floods, droughts, cyclones and more to India, the government is being called upon to do more to protect against caste-based discrimination. A sweeping study released in September by the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights warned that “climate apartheid” was likely to hit Dalits and Adivasis the hardest, and outlined “systemic inadequacies and disregard in involving their participation in disaster/drought risk management.” “[Indian] society has its dysfunctionalities, and disaster or any kind of crisis just accelerates these dysfunctionalities,” Sarbjit Sarota, a disaster risk reduction specialist at UNICEF India, said.

Suprakash Majumdar, ‘How India’s caste system keeps Dalits from accessing disaster relief’, New Humanitarian

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In Narsinghpatana, a village in the Puri district of Odisha, Bijoy and fellow Dalit families managed to enter the cyclone relief shelter after they were stopped by neighbours from the dominant caste. They “allowed us to enter the shelter on the condition that we would stay in a specific part of the shelter and would not come close to them”, said Bijoy. “When we used the hand pump, [members of different castes] used to wash the hand pump with water and clean their hands before they used it,” Bijoy said, laughing. One can easily tell who was impacted most by Cyclone Fani – even three years later. A group of houses with blue roofs made of tarpaulin sits at one end of the village. At the other end, the homes are all well-built structures. Every person living under a tarpaulin roof is Dalit. The tarpaulin was meant as temporary relief, providing villagers with shelter while they waited for damage compensation from the state. But three years on, having yet to receive compensation, those have become permanent roofs. “We are the ones who have lost everything,” Bijoy said. “[The other castes] have rebuilt their homes, [they’re] back to their jobs, and here we are, living under the blue plastic.”

Suprakash Majumdar, ‘How India’s caste system keeps Dalits from accessing disaster relief’, New Humanitarian

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“Your caste determines what kind of treatment you will get during a disaster,” Sangram Mallick, an activist and co-founder of Ambedkar Lohia Vichar Manch, an NGO working on caste-based issues, said. Historically marginalised, many of the 280 million Dalits that form 20 percent of India’s population today still live on the fringes of society. About a third of the population remains impoverished, according to the UN, and they often continue to be shunned by so-called oppressor castes who hold power at both the village and federal levels.

Suprakash Majumdar, ‘How India’s caste system keeps Dalits from accessing disaster relief’, New Humanitarian

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Kandi’s house was completely blown away by the cyclone, as she lived in what is called a kutcha house with mud walls and a thatched roof. She and her family stayed in the relief camp for over three months waiting for compensation or state support. When government officials finally arrived to assess the damage, she was refused compensation because her house didn’t exist anymore and she didn’t have land records. It’s impossible to know how many like Kandi continue to live without relief or compensation because no government has ever released caste-segregated data on how natural disasters have affected Dalits. The NCDHR and RIGHTS have been advocating for the government to release such data for years. For Mallick of Ambedkar Lohia Vichar Manch, Dalit communities have been robbed of the right to a fair assessment. “Successive governments have failed to address landlessness, which is their responsibility,” he said.

Suprakash Majumdar, ‘How India’s caste system keeps Dalits from accessing disaster relief’, New Humanitarian

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“In my experience of more than 20 years, I have observed that where the road ends, Dalit settlements start,” said Ajay Kumar, executive director at RIGHTS, an organisation that serves marginalised communities, particularly Dalits and Adivasis. In another study, conducted by NCDHR and Kerala-based RIGHTS, 63% of Dalits said that quick and adequate rescue was mainly provided to areas that were more easily accessible. Policy lapses like these count as cases of discrimination by default since the areas that are most accessible are almost always occupied by dominant caste families.

Suprakash Majumdar, ‘How India’s caste system keeps Dalits from accessing disaster relief’, New Humanitarian

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Inside Look: I Am a Leader of My House - PositiveNegatives’ New Webcomic with The New Humanitarian and Fahmida Azim Tells the Stories of Two Rohingya Women in Their Fight for Equality

Inside Look: I Am a Leader of My House – PositiveNegatives’ New Webcomic with The New Humanitarian and Fahmida Azim Tells the Stories of Two Rohingya Women in Their Fight for Equality

“I am a leader of my house” — PositiveNegatives’ new webcomic with The New Humanitarian and Fahmida Azim — tells the stories of two Rohingya women in their fight for equality, the challenges they face as women in refugee camps, their longing for home – and their aspirations for the future.  This Inside Look explores the newest PositiveNegatives release, in collaboration The New Humanitarian and…

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United States | United States Announces New Humanitarian Assistance at the Launch of the Joint Response Plan for Bangladesh

United States | United States Announces New Humanitarian Assistance at the Launch of the Joint Response Plan for Bangladesh

United States – Today in Geneva, the United States announced $60 million in humanitarian assistance at the launch of the 2019 UN Joint Response Plan for Bangladesh. This funding will help address the emergency needs of more than 900,000 refugees in Bangladesh, most of whom are Rohingya women and children from Burma, and the related needs of Bangladeshi host communities. The beneficiaries include…

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