PESHAWAR, Dec 6: Women and children who survived in the Oct 8 earthquake and are living in camps in the NWFP and Azad Jammu and Kashmir are facing security problems. Orphaned children are vulnerable to kidnapping and single women are threatened with sexual harassment in the camps. They are not safe in the camps and should be immediately rehabilitated.

This was stated by Aurat Foundation Resident Director Rukhshinda Naz Aurat here on Tuesday at a capacity building workshop for women MPAs, politicians and civil society groups on “Disaster management: Rehabilitation of women and children’ organized by the NGO.

“Security, disability and access to relief are main problems faced by the single women,” Ms Naz pointed out.

She said that social workers who had set up tent camps in parts of the NWFP to provide shelter to displaced families could not run the camps on their own. “This has given rise to security problems as along with sincere volunteers, ‘negative elements’ are also active in the areas where the camps are located,” she added.

“We need to respond soon and ensure rehabilitation of these women and children as soon as possible,” she said.

The government should establish a special help desk for the women survivors so that those women who had lost male members of their families could easily access relief and assistance, Ms Naz said.

“There is a shortage of women doctors in the tent camps, which has added to the woes the women residing there. In many areas women are brought to a male doctor only for first aid and never brought again for further treatment due to the custom of purda,” she deplored.

Speaking at the workshop, Farah Aqil Shah, an MPA of the Awami National Party, said that the orphaned children should be given for adoption after fulfilling legal requirements.

The women could be forced into prostitution and children into beggary if not taken care of in time, she warned.

Naeema Kishwar, Sabira Shakir and Zubaida Khatoon, MPAs of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, said that lack of funds with the provincial government was main problem in the post-disaster scenario as ‘all the funds are kept by the federal government and the President Relief Fund’.

They urged the federal government to come up with a disaster management cell, saying such natural calamities could hit any place in the country anytime.

Naeem Sadiq, a consultant on health and environment, said that the Civil Defence, Flood Relief Commission and other such organizations should be abolished and replaced by a disaster management cell to seek a permanent solution of the problem.

Engineer Shaukat Sharar, talking about reconstruction and rehabilitation, said that there were many places in the quake-hit areas which were not fit for reconstruction.

He proposed merger of the local people’s expertise and modern technology to reconstruct the areas damaged by the quake.

“Borrowing money is not going to help,” Mr Sharar said and added that the government should utilise local resources and expertise in the reconstruction process.