(Changes ActionAid spokeswoman's last name to Malik from maiden name Khan in the third paragraph)
By Katy Migiro
LONDON (AlertNet) - Women, children, the elderly, religious minorities and people with disabilities in Pakistan are in greatest need of support after the country's worst floods in living memory but they may be the last to get help due to discrimination and cultural constraints, aid experts warn.
The floods have devastated the lives of more than 3 million people, a U.N. spokeswoman said on Tuesday, and the catastrophe is likely to deepen as more rains are expected.
"There are groups that are already marginalised because of their gender, caste or social structures. Whenever there is an emergency, the specific needs of these groups are usually overlooked," said Javeria Malik, spokeswoman for ActionAid in Pakistan.
International Medical Corps (IMC) has set up a medical camp in a school in the city of Peshawar which has so far received 4,500 patients. More than 85 percent of the patients are women and children. Nutrition is a concern, particularly for pregnant women. Shelter, water and clothing are also priority needs.
Some of the children in the camp are showing signs of psychological damage, traumatised by the horrors they have witnessed.
"There are children that are very much afraid. They have hallucinations of the sound of water. When they are asleep they get up and start screaming: 'The water is going up'," said Jehangir Ali Khan, Pakistan Country Director for IMC.
For children, clean water is a priority as they are vulnerable to diseases that may erupt in the aftermath of the floods due to contaminated water.
"There are confirmed reports of diarrhoea and cholera that may spread rapidly among the hundreds of thousands who have lost their homes. In this type of environment, children - especially those under five years of age - are the most vulnerable to severe illness and even death," said Annie Foster, Save the Children's associate vice-president for humanitarian response.
Save the Children has sent mobile health teams by boat to help treat some 1,400 people in Dera Ismail Khan and Buner districts as well as in the Swat Valley. The teams had to hike to remote villages where roads had been washed away.
Providing relief to women requires particular sensitivity. They may miss out on aid distributions if external relief agencies are not aware of cultural constraints, such as the need to provide areas where women can line up to receive relief in isolation from men they don't know.
"It goes against everything in their lives to be exposed to men from outside their households and villages. This is particularly difficult for widows, especially women widowed in the floods because they don't have male members of the family who can line up for them," said Maureen Fordham, coordinator of the Gender Disaster Network.
Women who normally wear burkas have requested sheets to cover themselves. The floods hit people's homes at midnight and most escaped with nothing more than the clothes they were wearing. In addition, it is culturally taboo in many areas for women to be given assistance by male doctors. This is seen as bringing dishonour on their family.
"If aid is being brought in from outside, those doing it must be aware of the particular cultural constraints that require women aid workers to be delivering a lot of the relief. They need to be talking locally to people who know what the situation is and can advise," said Fordham, an academic who studied the disaster response following a massive 2005 earthquake in Pakistan.
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