ABSTRACT
Studies of disasters and gender have revealed that disasters affect men and women differently. For instance, domestic violence against women may worsen after disasters. Such human rights violations are the effect of structural injustices in society, including economic dependence on spouses or caretakers due to a male-dominated job market. In many cases, these structural injustices worsen after disasters, particularly in societies where traditional gender roles are strongly enforced, such as Japan. In Japan, approximately 90 percent of domestic violence victims are women, which adversely affects their dignity and impedes the realization of true gender equality. Women in Japan have also faced difficulties in achieving economic independence, which indicates the unjust gender order in this society. In Japan, the relation between disasters and violence against women has been increasingly recognized since the Great Hanshin–Awaji Earthquake of 1995. However, research on domestic violence as an outcome of disasters was not conducted until after the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 2011. Hence, this chapter reviews structural injustices toward women that emerged from the Great East Japan Earthquake and introduces activities of women’s shelters that try to tackle these problems.
