By Brenda Berkman, cross-posted from MAKERS.com People are the
same the world over. We see a disaster happening and we want to
help. Often that impulse to help is short-term and a Band-Aid
approach – we hold a bake sale to raise donations; we load a
vehicle with canned goods and deliver it to a church for
distribution to people displaced from their homes; we collect
blankets and warm clothing for those who are suffering. All are
worthy efforts in the early days after a disaster when the need
to provide food and shelter for disaster survivors is immediate
and paramount. But how many of us know of other kinds of
disaster responses? Of the spike in domestic abuse, rape and
other incidents of male violence occurring in the Gulf region
post-Katrina? That sex traffickers target Filipino children in
areas affected by natural disasters? That Japanese families were
split up when wives moved themselves and their children out of
radiation-impacted areas near Fukushima, leaving their husbands
behind? It remains to be see