Natural disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes do not discriminate and thus go on to affects everybody when they occur. However, human beings distinguish and anyone can experience discrimination when one is most vulnerable. For example, the vulnerability of a person is at the highest when in times of disaster or emergency. Out of concern, the government and society have been forced to create agencies and laws that help protect victims during emergencies or disasters from facing discrimination. This paper aims at discussing diversity awareness and civil rights significance during the time of emergency and disaster assistance and federal statutes that have been enacted to protect the civil rights of people.
During the time of emergency or disaster, government-financed agencies and programs have a responsibility to provide assistance to the victims. However, because of human nature, these agencies and programs have been found to engage in unethical practices of discrimination. As a result of it’s essential for officers working for these agencies and applications as well as the citizens to understand the concepts of civil rights and diversity awareness.
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Diversity awareness ensures during an emergency or a disaster. The victims are equally and fairly treated by federal agencies and programs. For example, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has the governmental authority for most activities in disaster response (FEMA). It is essential for these agencies and programs to ensure that they observe diversity in the groups and that the officers understand diversity awareness. The truth is that many people are affected by a disaster, and anyone can experience an emergency in spite of colour, race, age, sex, economic status, and so forth. Thus when attending providing any form of assistance to disaster victims, it is essential to treat all people equally.
During the time of disaster and emergency, civil rights and diversity awareness play a key role in eliminating the prospect of discrimination in the team and to the people receiving assistance. When agencies and programs understand that the people they are helping are from different backgrounds, it is hard for these individuals to discriminate. Having a diverse group helps in eliminating any possibility of discrimination of any group of individuals. For example, during Hurricane Rita and Katrina that people with auditory disabilities were not well attended to because of difficulty in understanding instructions (Rutkow, Taylor, & Gable, 2015). However, if the FEMA group had a person who had training on how to address persons with auditory disabilities, it would have been much easier to solve the problem.
During the time of disaster and emergency, civil rights and diversity awareness help improve communication and thus consideration of different viewpoints. In such ways, disaster assistance agencies and programs can give efficient services as a group. For example, FEMA is made of employees from diverse backgrounds which bring about energy and synergy in the group. Thus the team learns from each other and get a different perspective.
Diversity and civil rights awareness ensure that the involved parties will carry out their duty to their best of capacity as a result of extensive scope experience that can help elucidate problems. The diversity in the thinking among the team members helps them corporate and solve issues faster than when the officers come from similar backgrounds.
Civil rights and Diversity awareness in disaster and emergency help the teams to achieve its goal. The diversity in the group is essential in learning for the team and thus plays an indispensable role in learning about the diverse culture of the represented groups. It is vital to have volunteers working for different assistance groups in society. It is indispensable to have a diverse volunteer group because it leads to adding on skills and knowledge to the group (Meyer et al. 2016).
Diversity and civil rights awareness during the time of emergency and disaster can help build relationships that can foster community-based preparedness (FEMA). When people who provide assistance embrace diversity, it becomes easy to create connections among themselves and also the community. Relationships bring people together, which can result in comfortable working with the district. For example, in Costa Rica, the government has developed policies that will increase the relationship between disaster response teams and people with disabilities. The procedures are to increases preparedness of the intellectually disabled in the community in case of a disaster (Stough, 2015).
Federal Statutes Enacted To Protect People during Disasters
Discrimination has a devastating impact on individuals at any time. However, the effect is more devastating when discrimination is experienced in times of disaster, as there are high stakes involved. Fortunately, both the federal and state governments have enacted various laws to protect the civil rights of disaster victims during challenging moments. Here are some federal statutes enacted per safeguarding the civil rights of people affected by the disaster.
The primary source of law that is associated with emergency and disaster is the Stafford Act. All disaster response activities draw federal authority from the Stafford Act . The Act prohibits discrimination to groups of people based on age, religion, colour, disability, sex, nationality, economic status and race in the process of providing federal assistance during a major disaster (FindLaw). The Act also states that federal aid cannot be precluded from any geographical area based on population or income. The functions of the federal assistance during a disaster include supplies distribution, application processing and activities relating to relief and support.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act created in 1964 also prohibits federally financed programs including law enforcement agencies and providers of health care from discriminating disaster victims based on origin, colour or race (Matthew, 2006). The Act has a similar coverage with the Safford Act. However, the Act points out to all agencies who receive any form of financial assistance from the federal government, such as security agencies and health care providers from engaging in discrimination during a disaster.
Rehabilitation Act Section 504 prohibits all programs financially supported and operated by the federal government from discriminating persons with disabilities (FindLaw). The main focus of Section 505 of the Rehabilitation act focuses on accessibility protection for persons with disabilities who are victims of a disaster. In 2006, the federal government established the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act (PKEMRA) , that led to the establishment of a disability coordinator whose role was to make sure that needs of people with disability during a disaster are appropriately addressed (Matthew, 2006).
Recommendation
To ensure the civil rights for victims of the disaster, the federal government should also establish an office of disaster victims’ coordinator. The members of the Disaster victims’ coordinator office responsibility should follow up on any assistance provided to disaster victims by agencies and programs that are financially supported by federal and state governments.
References
FEMA - Emergency Management Institute (EMI) Course | IS-20.19: Diversity Awareness Course 2019. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://training.fema.gov/is/courseoverview.aspx?code=IS-20.19
FEMA - Emergency Management Institute (EMI) Course | IS-21.19: Civil Rights and FEMA Disaster Assistance. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://training.fema.gov/is/courseoverview.aspx?code=IS-21.19
FindLaw. Disaster Assistance and Your Civil Rights - FindLaw. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://civilrights.findlaw.com/enforcing-your-civil-rights/disaster-assistance-and-your-civil-rights.html
Matthew, D. B. (2006). Disastrous disasters: restoring civil rights protections for victims of the state in natural disasters. J. Health & Biomedical, L. , 2 , 213.
Meyer, M. A., Peek, L., Unnithan, N. P., Coşkun, R., Tobin-Gurley, J., & Hoffer, K. H. (2016). PLANNING FOR DIVERSITY: EVALUATION OF A VOLUNTEER DISASTER RESPONSE PROGRAM. Journal of cultural diversity , 23 (3).
Rutkow, L., Taylor, H. A., & Gable, L. (2015). Emergency preparedness and response for disabled individuals: implications of recent litigation. The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , 43 (s1), 91-94.
Stough, L. M. (2015). World Report on Disability, Intellectual Disabilities, and Disaster Preparedness: Costa Rica as a Case Example. Journal of Policy and Practice in Intellectual Disabilities , 12 (2), 138-146.
