DISASTER VICTIMS

DISASTER VICTIMS

HERU SUSETYO Faculty of Law University of Indonesia

Depok – INDONESIA

11TH Asian Postgraduate Course on Victimology and Victim Assistance

Depok , Indonesia - 26 July 2011

FACULTY OF LAW UNIVERSITY OF INDONESIA

Emergency and Disaster Hazard Mapping, Indonesia (Emergency/Disaster Supermarket) –URDI/ FKM-UI

NAD2,3,4,5,6,7,13

,14

N. Sumatra3,4,7,14

W Sumatra1,2, 3,4,8,11,14Bangka Belitung

3,14

S. Sumatra3,4,14

Riau3,5,7,8,14

Kep Riau143Lampung

2,3,14

Bengkulu2,4,14

Jambi 3,14

Jakarta3,4,6,7,9, 14

W, Java2,3,4,5,6,7,11

,14

Banten2,3,5,12,14

C. Java1,2,3,4,5,9,11

,12,14

Jogyakarta1,11,14

E. java1,2, 3,5,6,7,9,11,12,13,14,

Bali2,3,4,6,7,9,14

NTB3,6,2,9,4,5,11,7,14

NTT1,3,6,9,11,2,13,4,5,14

W. Kalimantan1,3,8,4,6,10,9,5,11,

13,14

S. Kalimantan3,10,5,13,14

C. Kalimantan6.10,8,9,3,11,7,14

E. Kalimantan3,10, 8,9,5,14

N. Sulawesi1,3,8,2,4,11,13,14

S. Sulawesi3,4,6,7,13,14

C. Sulawesi2,3,6,9,7,13,14

S.E Sulawesi3,6,14

Gorontalo 3,14

Maluku2,3,6,7,9,11,13,14

N.Maluku2,4,6,7,9,13,14

Papua 2,3,4,6,7,9,11,13,1

4

Type of Emergency and Disaster1. Volcano 5. Hurricane 9. Disease outbreak 13. Tsunami

2. Earthquake 6. Conflict 10. storm 14. Transportation3. Flood 7. Terrorism 11. Drought Accident4. Landslide 8. Environment Pollution 12. Industrial Accident


ACTIVE VOLCANOES DISTRIBUTION MAP IN INDONESIA

DEPARTEMENT OF ENERGI AND MINERAL RESOURCESDIRECTORATE GENERAL OF GEOLOGY AND MINERAL RESOURCES


Tsunami and earthquake in Aceh, Indonesia December 26th, 2004 (courtesy of BSMI)

Yogyakarta Earthquake 27 May 2006

• Occurred on May 27, 2006 at 05.57• Epicentrum : 37.2km to the south of

Yogyakarta (33 km depth)• Human casualties : 5778• Affected areas : Yogyakarta province and

Central Java province• Total houses/ building collapse/ partly

destroyed : 307.000 (only in Yogyakarta province)




VICTIMS’ NEEDS Following the disaster, the victims do need some

assistances as follows:

• Food (including special food and milk for baby),• Sanitation and clean water• Clothes (Including special clothes for women• Permanent/ temporary shelter• medicine • education• Coping with psychosocial trauma (PTSD – Post

Traumatic Stress Disorder)• attention-affection-love. • etc


PROTECTION ISSUES FOR VICTIMS

(Malanczuk, 2005)1. Access to humanitarian aid.2. Discrimination3. Involuntary relocation to, or

exclusion from settlements and camps.

4. Camp security and military presence.

5. Protection of women and children

6. Family reunification

7 Family reunification8. Access to education 9. Loss of documentation10. Participation of internally

displaced persons11. Voluntary return and

resettlement12. Property issues


Rights-based Approach related to Disaster Victims

(Raj Kumar, 2005) According to UNDP, a rights-based approach

underlines :• the importance of participation• Equality• Non discrimination• Access to opportunities in society by

ensuring that the rule of law, transparency, and accountability is protected and good public management practices are followed in institutions.


LESSON LEARNED FROM INDONESIAN NATURAL DISASTERS: DAMAGES IN DISASTER

• HUMAN CASUALTIES• ANIMAL AND PLANTS• PROPERTY DAMAGES• ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGES• LIFELINES DAMAGES

• INFRASTRUCTURE DAMAGES

• ECONOMICAL DAMAGES• LEGAL-SOCIAL PROBLEMS• POLITICAL PROBLEMS

Problem in Rehabilitation and Reconstruction (housing)

• Unequal disbursement of financial assistance

• discrimination• Wrong allocation in providing

reconstruction funds• Data not available• corruption

Disaster Victimization in Indian Ocean Tsunami December 2004

• Victimizer : nature?• Victims : direct victims (people living

surrounded the affected areas) and indirect victims, the families, etc.

• Secondary victimizer : government officials, victim assistants, law enforcement authorities, local people, etc.

• Corruption, lack of transparency• Problem with Compensation



Secondary victimizer?

“…Victims are regarded as obscure or unimportant, even invisible. The suffering and plight of victims, until recently, have been neglected in the minds and actions of legislators and chief executives of government, and even by those government agencies set up to support, protect, and defend victims…

(Sank and Sank Fischein in Underwood)FACULTY OF LAW

UNIVERSITY OF INDONESIA

Natural Disaster Victims’ Plight

• Disaster survivor in Aceh : “God was angry, so he punished the people by creating disaster,”

• “Please I don’t want to talk about the disaster or about my son!”

(Kharismawan, 2005)

Personal Accounts of Thailand Tsunami Victims

• “I’ve lost all my children !”

• “I’ve lost my babies!”• “Everything will be OK”• “It won’t be OK, I lost

my children”• “Why did this happen,

Life is so cruel !”(Krauss, 2005)

• Kofi Annan (Former UNSG)

“number of deaths due to disaster 669.000 people from 1994 – 2003”

• Death in conflicts (13.000.000)• Number of refugees and internally

displaced persons in 2003 > 35.000.000(Malanczuk, 2005)


What is Disaster?

• Disaster can be defined as a serious disruption of the functioning of a society causing widespread human, material, financial, and environmental losses which exceed the ability of the society to cope using its own resource (PNDCC, 1996)

• Or a sudden or great misfortune, calamity, or a sudden calamitous event producing great material damage, loss, and distress (Dejoras, 1997).


hazard• Potentially damaging physical event,

phenomenon or human activity that may cause the loss of life or injury, property damages, social and economic disruption, or environmental degradation.

• Hazards can include latent conditions that may represent future threats and can have different origins, natural (geological, hydrometeorological, and biological) or induced by human processes (environmental degradation and technological hazards).


Natural Disaster• Natural disasters roughly fall into three broad groupings: (1).Geological events, triggered by the internal workings of our planet;(2) Meteorological events, caused by variations in global weather

patterns;(3) Biological disasters, resulting from the actions of living agents

such as diseases or insect pest. They can occur separately or together, and are generally, although

not always, unrelated. Natural disasters are also known as `acts of God` because they can strike with little or no warning and without any apparent direct human involvement (Coenraads, 2006).

Current Legal Status of Disaster Relief

• Current status of international law regarding disaster relief is considered to be highly unsatisfactory (Malanczuk, 2005)

• There is no definite, broadly accepted source of international law which spells out legal standards, procedures,rights, and duties pertaining to disaster response and assistance…no systematic attempt has been made to pull together the disparate threads to existing law to formalize customary law or to expand and develop the law in new ways….(IFRC in Malanczuk, 2005)

Current Legal Status of Disaster Relief (2)

• The principle of state sovereignty, still an ambiguos cornerstone of international law, has often been a major obstacle in the absence of bilateral or regional treaties. The experience with the Asian tsunami disaster has underlined this major deficit.

• The prevailing principles on disaster victims (in this case is IDPs) are soft law (legally non binding principles)

(Malanczuk, 2005)

International Disaster Response Law

• Initiated by Red Cross and Red Crescent societies

• Containing guiding principles and practice on international disaster response.

• SPHERE PROJECT : humanitarian charter and minimum standards common to all sectors in disaster response (initiated in 1997)

The Abandonment of Natural Disaster Victims

• The UN General Assemby, in Resolution 45/ 100 declared the abandonment of victims of natural disasters without humanitarian assistance to constitute : a threat to human life and an offence to human dignity.

• The resolution invites all states whose populations are in need of humanitarian assistance to facilitate the work of…organizations in implementing humanitarian assistance, in particular the supply of food, medicines, and health care, for which access to victims is essential

(Raj Kumar, 2005)

The Abandonment of Natural Disaster Victims(2)

• There is a lack of attention to human rights protection and that measures need to be taken to address issues such as discrimination…(this was echoed in the tsunami aftermath reports of India and Indonesia by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

• Problem with corruption and the need for transparency in the distribution of aid

(Raj Kumar, 2005)

Rights-based Approach in Disaster Management

• Focusing on rights-based approaches to disaster management ensures accountability becomes a core component. According to UNDP, a rights-based approach underlines the importance of :

1. Participation2. Equality3. Non discrimination4. Rule of law5. Transparency and accountability6. Good public management practices

VICTIMOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON DISASTER VICTIMS (1)

• Since the principal victims of disaster are the persons who are affected by the disaster, there is a need for them to receive the most immediate attentions.

• Victims of disasters include not only persons directly affected by the disaster, but also those indirectly harmed by the disaster such as a family, one of whose members has died or is otherwise adversely affected.

(Chockalingam, 2005)


• The victimological perspective on disaster centrally locates the victims in the discourse relating to disaster management.

• The victimological perspective regarding disaster management attempts to emphasize developing a framework whereby the rights of disaster victims are duly-protected, and victims receive the required assistance in the aftermath of disasters.



• Disaster victimization requires a response which places victims at the center of attention.

• The response mechanism need to be based upon the needs of victims.

• Need to recognize the unique vulnerabilities of children and women during disasters

• Extending their area focus of criminal justice system• Recognizing the rights of disaster victims expand the

scope of victimology.• This expansion requires developing inter-disciplinary

approaches to disaster management.(Chockalingam, 2005)


• A victimological account of disasters needs to be emphasize the importance of developing a viable system of disaster preparedness that ensures that countries are better prepared for disaster and is able to respond to them.

• Such measures involve planning, recognizing the plight of disaster victims, and developing strategies for addressing their needs.


MEASURES TO BE TAKEN• Theoretical victimology should takes serious note of

disaster victims• Formulates response strategies, and suggesting policies

and mechanisms for providing the necessary assistance and other forms of relief to victims of disasters.

• Identifying key actors to participate in a network for disaster management

• Establising victim-focused approach in disaster management


Three definitions of Victim

1. The crime victim2. The universal concept of victims

(Mendelsohn)3. The victim of violations of human rights

including crime

(Kirchhoff & Morosawa, 2009)


Ezzat Fattah on Victimology (1)

(Ezzat Fattah, 2002)• Victimology, the study of crime victims, their

characteristics, their relationship to, and their interactions with, their victimizers, their role and their actual contribution to the genesis of crime, offers a great promise for transforming etiological criminology from a static, one-sided study of the traits and attributes of the offender into a dynamic, situational approach that views criminal behaviour not as a unilateral action but as the outcome of dynamic processes of interaction.


Ezzat Fattah on Victimology (2)

• The study of the victims is and will always remain an integral part of criminology. Any attempt to separate victimology from criminology, or to treat it as an independent or autonomous discipline is bound to fail.


VICTIMOLOGY AND VICTIMIZATION(Shichor and Tibbets, 2002)

• Victimology focused on individual victims of violent crimes committed by individual perpetrators.

• Gradually, victimological studies expanded to organizations and corporations as victim and victimizers.

• Victimology is in the process of delineating its focus of study, defining its key concepts, theoretical approaches, refining its data-collection methods, and generally trying to establish itself as a legitimate and independent discipline.


VICTIMOLOGY & DISASTER VICTIMIZATION (2)

• Victimology is interested in the process of becoming a victim (which social, group, institutional and individual conditions lead to these processes?) > victimization.

• Victimology looks at reactions, reactions to victims and reactions to victimization.

(Kirchhoff, 2005).• What about disaster victimization?


Mendelsohn & General Victimology Victimology

• Beniamin Mendelsohn continued to develop his ideas about victims for crime until he arrived at the theory of general victimology. Its purpose was to help `victims of all kinds` -including victims of beyond human control (Hoffman, 1992 : 90).

• Mendelsohn developed the concept of victimity : “whole of the socio-bio-psychological characteristics, common to all victims in general, which society wishes to prevent and fight, no matter what their determinants are (criminal or others).

Documents

DISASTER VICTIMS