After the tsunami, human rights of vulnerable populations

This book is based on interviews conducted by research teams in March and April 2005 with hundreds of tsunami survivors, government officials, human rights activists, and aid workers in five tsunami-affected countries-India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and Thailand. Survivors continue to suffer from inequities in aid distribution and substandard shelter throughout countries affected by the December 2004 tsunami. It also documents numerous violations of human rights in the wake of the tsunami, including arbitrary arrests, recruitment of children into fighting forces, discrimination in aid distribution, enforced relocation, and sexual and gender-based violence. Tsunami survivors reported widespread inequities in aid distribution on the part of some government agencies as a result of favoritism and political influence, bureaucratic inefficiencies, and caste affiliation. Government authorities rarely, if ever, investigated such abuses. Finally, government agencies and aid organizations often failed to consult people in affected communities about aid distribution and reconstruction.