Tsunami 'a crushing blow to women'

Indonesian activists claim it is difficult to get women to talk about the abuse or report it to authorities. The few women left in coastal settlements interviewed said they were unaware of any abuse, and they were focusing on rebuilding their lives.

The Aceh province’s hard-hit coast is dotted with the remnants of villages dominated by widowers. Lamsenia, a once-thriving fishing and farming village of 833 on the west coast, now has only 35 women among its 158 survivors, and all but one of those women have moved elsewhere. Gampong Pandee, on the edge of the provincial capital Banda Aceh, was reduced from 1,139 people to 246 — with only 20 women.

Long-lasting effects
Such radical changes in a village’s population will likely alter a community for good, activists say, with men put in a difficult position of leaving a village to restart a family or bringing newcomers into what often was a very tight-knit community.

The tsunami also could adversely impact poor widowers in places like Lamsenia. Most would like to remarry and start a new family, but they have no money for the costly dowry and no immediate prospects of resuming their jobs as rice farmers, traders or fishermen.

“What we need is women but we also need money to get them,” said Mohammed Ali, a 50-year-old sand miner from Lamsenia whose wife and five of his six children were killed in the tsunami. “We also need a house. If we have a wife and no shelter, it means nothing.”

Survivors in Lamsenia and Gampong Pandee say they mostly miss the chatter and laughter of the women. There is no one to do the cooking, the washing and, most of all, to keep them company at night.

For 26-year-old Indra Saputra, the tsunami was especially painful. A day before it hit, he and his pregnant wife had celebrated their wedding with a party for the entire village.

Now, she is gone and the prospects of doing it all over again are difficult to comprehend.

“I’ll eventually get married because it’s too traumatic to be alone,” he said. “For now, I have to get this village back to normal and rebuild my home. But it’s difficult because I’ve got no one to share things with.”

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