Skip to content

Republish This Story

* Please read before republishing *

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Creative Commons license as long as you follow our republishing guidelines, which require that you credit The 19th and retain our pixel. See our full guidelines for more information.

To republish, simply copy the HTML at right, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to The 19th. Have questions? Please email [email protected].

— The Editors

Loading...

Modal Gallery

/

Menu

  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships
    • From the Collection

      Changing Child Care

      Illustration of a woman feeding a baby a bottle
      • As climate change worsens hurricane season in Louisiana, doulas are ensuring parents can safely feed their babies

        Jessica Kutz · May 5
      • Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito argued abortion isn’t an economic issue. But is that true?

        Chabeli Carrazana · May 4
      • Pregnant people are at 'greater risk' in states hit hard by wildfire smoke, air pollution, new report shows

        Jessica Kutz · April 20
    • From the Collection

      Next-Gen GOP

      Illustration of a woman riding an elephant
      • A banner year for Republican women

        Amanda Becker · November 11
      • Republican women could double representation in the U.S. House

        Amanda Becker · November 4
      • U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik wants to elect more Republican women into office

        Barbara Rodriguez · August 13
    • From the Collection

      On The Rise

      Illustration of three women marching
      • Jessica Cisneros takes on the last anti-abortion U.S. House Democrat

        Amanda Becker · February 25
      • Meet J. Michelle Childs, South Carolina judge and possible Supreme Court contender

        Candice Norwood · February 18
      • ‘The bench is loaded’: A record number of Latinas are running for governor

        Barbara Rodriguez · February 11
    • From the Collection

      Pandemic Within a Pandemic

      Illustration of four people marching for Black Lives Matter with coronavirus as the backdrop
      • Some LGBTQ+ people worry that the COVID-19 vaccine will affect HIV medication. It won’t.

        Orion Rummler · November 23
      • Why are more men dying from COVID? It’s a complicated story of nature vs. nurture, researchers say

        Mariel Padilla · September 22
      • Few incarcerated women were released during COVID. The ones who remain have struggled.

        Candice Norwood · August 17
    • From the Collection

      Portraits of a Pandemic

      Illustration of a woman wearing a mask and holding up the coronavirus
      • For family caregivers, COVID is a mental health crisis in the making

        Shefali Luthra · October 8
      • A new database tracks COVID-19’s effects on sex and gender

        Shefali Luthra · September 15
      • Pregnant in a pandemic: The 'perfect storm for a crisis'

        Shefali Luthra · August 25
    • From the Collection

      The 19th Explains

      People walking from many articles to one article where they can get the context they need on an issue.
      • The 19th Explains: The governor’s races we’re watching in 2022

        Barbara Rodriguez · May 3
      • The 19th Explains: What to know about Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing

        Candice Norwood, Terri Rupar · March 21
      • The 19th Explains: Colleges are dropping the SAT in admissions. That’s a good thing for most girls.

        Nadra Nittle · March 3
    • From the Collection

      The Electability Myth

      Illustration of three women speaking at podiums
      • Do term limits help women candidates? New York could be a new testing ground

        Barbara Rodriguez · January 11
      • Girls are being socialized to lose political ambition — and it starts younger than we realized

        Barbara Rodriguez · September 23
      • Kathy Hochul’s rise in New York spotlights the barriers to women becoming governors

        Barbara Rodriguez · August 23
    • From the Collection

      The Impact of Aging

      A number of older people walking down a path of information.
      • Woman alleges that an assisted living facility denied her admission because she is transgender

        Sara Luterman · November 8
      • LGBTQ+ seniors fear having to go back in closet for the care they need

        Sara Luterman · October 12
      • The pandemic continues to strain nursing homes. What happens if a lot of them close?

        Mariel Padilla · September 9
    • From the Collection

      Voting Rights

      A series of hands reaching for ballots.
      • Florida’s redistricting fight continues. The head of the state League of Women Voters talks about what’s at stake.

        Barbara Rodriguez · April 19
      • Women have been sounding the alarm ahead of Texas’ first-in-the-nation primary

        Barbara Rodriguez · February 28
      • LGBTQ+ people of color are at risk from rising voter restrictions as federal protections falter in the Senate, advocates say

        Orion Rummler · January 19

    View all collections

  • Explore by Topic

    • Abortion
    • Business & Economy
    • Caregiving
    • Coronavirus
    • Education
    • Election 2020
    • Elections 2022
    • Environment & Climate
    • Health
    • Immigration
    • Inside The 19th
    • Justice
    • LGBTQ+
    • Politics
    • Race
    • Sports
    • Technology

    View All Topics

Home
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

The 19th News(letter)

News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

Donate to get our member newsletter

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

a search and rescue team in flooded Grand Isle, Louisiana
A search and rescue team drives through standing water on Thursdayy while checking homes in the wake of Hurricane Ida in Grand Isle, Louisiana. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Environment & Climate

Risk of gender-based violence increases during natural disasters like Hurricane Ida. Better preparation is key

Disasters like Ida increase the risk of sexual, domestic and gender-based violence, which disproportionately affects women, girls and LGBTQ+ people.

Candice Norwood

Breaking News Reporter

Candice Norwood headshot

Published

2021-09-03 10:34
10:34
September 3, 2021
am

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

The remnants of Hurricane Ida brought severe rainfall and flooding to New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania this week, after the storm earlier flattened homes and businesses and left tens of thousands without power in the Gulf Coast. And for many, the danger is compounded: Disasters like Ida that displace people and overwhelm emergency service providers also increase the risk of sexual, domestic and gender-based violence, which disproportionately affects women, girls and LGBTQ+ people.

This is true of both natural disasters and health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, which exacerbate existing societal problems such as racism, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia, said Jessie Nieblas, the director of education and prevention at the Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault (LaFASA). Violence occurs in the chaos of people fleeing their homes and living in overcrowded conditions with scarce resources. Yet little is done to circumvent it.

Data on the number of violent incidents during public emergencies is difficult to find, but news reports and research have captured some of the stories. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, a 46-year-old woman told NPR that she was raped on the day of the storm while trying to take refuge inside the hallway of an apartment building. 

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

A survey from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center collected data on sexual assaults during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which hit within a month of each other in 2005. The largest share of sexual assaults entered into an anonymous database, 30.8 percent, took place inside evacuation sites and that 93 percent of the victims were women.

Researchers from Loyola University New Orleans wrote in 2007 that in the wake of Katrina, “in a number of instances, as we have found, when a rape was reported to a first responder such as a police officer, an official statement was not taken because of other life-threatening priorities.” They recommended that sexual and gender-based violence prevention be incorporated into emergency preparedness.

A newsletter you can relate to

Storytelling that represents you, delivered to your inbox.

You have been subscribed!

Submitting…

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

But 16 years after Hurricane Katrina — and with more widely available research on the link between disasters and violence — this prevention is not a consistent part of disaster preparation. In Louisiana, efforts vary and are generally led by underfunded nonprofits and community-based groups. 

Social workers who are trained to identify and treat domestic violence and other types of trauma are stationed at Louisiana state shelters, Catherine Soileau Heitman, director of communications with the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services wrote in an email. It’s unclear what security measures are taken inside the shelters to mitigate possible assault. But currently, the state does not provide any funding specifically aimed at sexual violence prevention during disasters, Nieblas said.

With thousands displaced in the wake of Hurricane Ida, Nieblas spoke with The 19th about what can be done to protect the most vulnerable. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Candice Norwood: Can you talk about how disasters like hurricanes can affect cases of sexual and gender-based violence?

Jessie Nieblas: So the big central theme is that disasters exacerbate all existing inequalities, including vulnerability to sexual violence, but also racism, economic injustice, homophobia, transphobia. All of these things get exacerbated and sometimes brought to the surface by disasters.

Disasters can also create new vulnerabilities. For example, people might be engaging in survival sex for housing, they might stay or go back to unsafe living conditions. If they have other marginalized identities, they might not feel comfortable with mainstream services that are available like mainstream shelters or going to law enforcement authorities to report something or to seek safety.

We found that places where there are strong systems of prevention and response in place — and where the kind of regular work around partnerships and capacity building, and the ordinary operations and preparations can impact the severity and can mitigate some of the damage.

Do you think sexual violence prevention should be incorporated into disaster response? How would you assess efforts to do that throughout Louisiana?

It 100 percent should be, and how it varies from location to location. I will say that the majority of disaster planning seems to happen right after a disaster. Then we tend to cross our fingers that it won’t happen again and get back to the regular business of prevention and response. That happens with me sometimes, too. You’re never more motivated than when it is directly affecting you in your communities. Then there’s also just so much work to be done in the day to day that sometimes it does get forgotten. 

So I will say, yes, it absolutely should happen more, and also we all need to be a part of just continuous disaster planning. Our centers and LaFASA, we are always open and available to provide that training around responding to folks during a disaster, creating a disaster plan that incorporates sexual violence prevention or response.

I do think that a robustly funded program that takes into account gender-based violence, prevention and response is essential for our community. I would encourage policymakers to create that mandate. There are agencies that are doing it as an ongoing practice. The [Louisiana Alliance of Children’s Advocacy Centers], for example, has a cool disaster preparedness program.

Addressing sexual violence as a whole is important, but are there specific things that can be done from the local, state and federal levels to anticipate and better support people in the case of these disaster situations?

It’s things like understanding where another service provider will take over a hotline, for example, or having the capacity to redirect services so that there’s a seamless connection. 

It’s things like making sure law enforcement offices are equipped to take courtesy reports and that officers are trained on how to do that effectively. So if you’re [assaulted] in New Orleans, and you evacuate to Memphis and you go to the Memphis Police Department, they would be able to take the report in an effective way. 

It’s things like training first responders, including, for lack of a better word, informal first responders, churches and a lot of institutions that are not the official responders. So, trying to implement a way where all of those folks can be trained in how to respond safely to somebody who discloses that they were assaulted, how to create a safe and open and safe-feeling environment.

Then it’s making sure that organizations have flexible funding, so that they’re able to build up community trust by meeting people’s needs, even if it may not fit right within their mission. So, for example, a lot of our funding is tied up in grants, and especially federal government grants. So we’re not able to necessarily help the survivors who we serve to make rent. But that might be what they need right now.

Louisiana doesn’t give any state funding to sexual violence prevention and response. There is zero money in our state budget for sexual violence prevention or response, it’s all federal, and then individual community donations. So these organizations, they’re underfunded and under-resourced, and all of the funding is tied up.

Proper prevention is also any work that’s done around economic justice, around racial justice, around eliminating homophobia and transphobia, and around supporting women in education in the workplace. All of that work will impact sexual assault survivors in a disaster.

During Hurricane Katrina we heard stories of people being trapped inside the New Orleans Superdome and subject to attacks without any way of accessing help. Is there anything that can be done to prevent danger when people are trapped inside evacuation sites?

There are things that can be done if there ever is a situation of a mass evacuation site where their safety is a tremendous concern. I think it’s training up staff members on how to respond to a disclosure, implementing safety mechanisms around keeping children safe and not separated from the family.

Making sure that however the shelter is laid out, that volunteers are thoroughly vetted, that people have safe places where they can decompress, that the lighting is done well. There are infrastructure things that can be done to promote safety, and LaFASA is open to having discussions with places that open up their doors about best practices based on what the individuals face.

I also alluded to training staff, so making sure that staff know that sexual violence is a real issue and a real concern. And it’s not just not only about assaults that happen within that facility, it’s also being able to effectively respond to people whose trauma is brought back, perhaps from a previous assault or from a previous incident.

I think Katrina was definitely a cautionary lesson. There were horrifying things that were reported. I think that Katrina was unique in the sense of having a mass evacuation site. I also think the access to technology to be able to make a report has improved quite a bit. I think also we’re at a different point with our awareness of sexual violence than 16 years ago. We’re not perfect, definitely, but I think we have been building up people’s kind of general awareness, including the awareness of responders.

If you or a loved one are in need of services from a sexual assault center in Louisiana, you can call the statewide hotline at 888-995-7273, or visit http://lafasa.org/main/sexual_assault_centers.

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

Building stronger together.

A new model for nonprofit journalism: For our readers. For our team. For our community.

Become a member

Sign up for our newsletter

Up Next

Anti-abortion protesters outside of the Texas Capitol with a sign that reads,

Health

Inside the Republican strategy for rolling out abortion bans in more states

Abortion opponents say they expect Republican-led states to copy Texas’ six-week abortion ban, which so far has withstood legal challenges.

Read the Story

The 19th
The 19th is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Our stories are free to republish in accordance with these guidelines.

  • Donate
  • Subscribe to the Newsletter
  • Attend an Event
  • Jobs
  • Fellowships
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Community Guidelines
  • Membership
  • Membership FAQ
  • Major Gifts
  • Sponsorship
  • Privacy
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram