Women's security and other human rights issues are being trampled in Asia's tsunami-hit areas, United Nations officials and experts said yesterday.

Relief operations after the earthquake and giant waves that killed more than 273,000 people and affected 1 million around the Indian Ocean must pay closer attention to women victims, who are particularly vulnerable to exploitation such as the sex trade, they said.

In a Bangkok forum to mark International Women's Day, an officer of the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development, expressed her organization's "deep concern with violations of women's human rights in the tsunami-affected countries."

"The Indian Ocean tsunami may have made no distinction between men and women in the grim death toll it reaped with its waves, but it has produced some very gender-specific aftershocks, ranging from women giving birth in unsafe conditions to increased cases of rape and abuse," Cholpon Akmatova said.

"Women, marginalized and disempowered under normal circumstances, are more at risk because of their socio-economic status, barriers to choice and lack of access to resources," Cholpon said.

The main problems facing women survivors and children in the disaster zones include access to relief support and shelter, health concerns, and loss of jobs and livelihoods, but in particular the threat to their personal safety and security.

In Sri Lanka, Cholpon said, "women were dragged out of the rushing water and raped as payment for being saved."

UN Resident Coordinator Joana Merlin-Scholtes told the forum that the "deprived status" of women leads to lack of security at times of disaster, as evidenced by a raft of abuses documented by non-government organizations and relief workers in the tsunami zone.

"Violence against women at times of disaster needs to be prevented, both in relief camps and elsewhere," she added.

The experts called on governments to allow women equal participation in disaster needs assessment, fair access to resources, special health care to address reproduction needs, and provide special attention to widowed women and those who have lost their livelihoods.

(China Daily March 9, 2005)