The project titled “Earthquake and Women: Identification, Examination and Solution Recommendations for Disaster Risk Reduction and Preparedness Planning that are Sensitive to Social Vulnerabilities in Istanbul”, where Kadir Has University faculty member Prof. Lerna K. YANIK is the coordinator and Res.Asst.Dr. Sercan PEKEL from the Department of International Relations of our university is the researcher was implemented within the scope of TÜBİTAK’s 1001 project support. PEKEL will contribute to the project as the researcher responsible for the analysis of global best-practices on this subject.
The aim of the project is determined to provide knowledge accumulation to ensure that the institutional capacities of public institutions related to decision-making processes are improved in a way that is sensitive to social vulnerabilities based on gender disparities in disaster risk reduction preparation works for the possible “major” Istanbul earthquake. It was stated that this knowledge can create conditions that will minimize the effects of a possible earthquake, especially on women, and increase disaster resilience, contributing to the acceleration of the transition to normal life.
In line with the determined main objective, the subject of the project is “identifying the components and factors that will enable relevant public institutions and organizations to reduce the possible “major” Istanbul earthquake disaster risk and carry out preparation works in a way that is sensitive to gender-based social vulnerabilities, with an intersectional approach, and to address the deficiencies in this regard. To produce solution proposals for public institutions and organizations that are responsible for carrying out disaster risk reduction and preparation activities to eliminate disaster risk.” Thus, the project outputs are expected to be a reference point for public policies to be implemented and to contribute to the formation of inclusive institutions that consider gender equality in the public sector.
Within the framework of the project, the concept of “gender-sensitive disaster management” emphasizes gender injustice, where disasters affect men and women in different ways, and it is stated that the decision-making and implementation processes regarding disaster management plans and preparations should be managed by taking these differences into account. In this context, the project addresses three main social vulnerabilities that increase the negative effects of disasters. It aims to examine the phenomena of “women, socio-economic status, (external) immigration“.
In order to make inferences specific to Istanbul in the project, in the first stage, it was designed to draw inferences -through interviews and focus group studies- from disaster and post-disaster experiences of disaster victims who were affected by two earthquake disasters that occurred in different cities of Turkey in 2020 (Elazığ earthquake on January 24, 2020 and Izmir earthquake on October 30, 2020) and public institutions and organizations related to the disaster that were in the field. The other leg of this first stage was determined as the analysis of disaster risk reduction best practices focused on social vulnerability on the gender axis that are generally accepted in the world. In the second stage of the research, with the inferences obtained from the local (Izmir and Elazığ) and best-practice analyzes, it is envisaged to examine the inclusiveness of the decision-making processes regarding earthquake disaster preparedness and planning specific to the Istanbul metropolitan area and whether they coincide with the vulnerabilities in Istanbul. It was also stated that with the Vulnerability(s) analysis to be carried out simultaneously, the areas with the highest physical and social fragility in Istanbul will be identified.
First, in January 2022, focus group discussions were held with 30 participants from different socio-economic groups who experienced the Izmir earthquake on October 30, 2020. In November 2022, focus group discussions were completed with 22 participants from different socio-economic groups who experienced the Elazığ earthquake on January 24, 2020. It was stated that the outputs obtained from the interviews will be shared with the public in the final report of the project.
The outputs and the developments of the project may be found in the website: https://depremvekadin.khas.edu.tr/