Legal Identity Documenting in Disasters: Perpetuating Systems of Injustice

This chapter uses a review of recent studies of disaster responses to demonstrate that current disaster response frameworks that rely on legal identity are inadequate because they limit the capacity of persons lacking legal identity documentation to access emergency relief, humanitarian aid, have houses or property recognised, gain access to healthcare or social benefits and limits freedom of movement. Lack of legal identity can obfuscate the needs of immediate disaster response, can prevent affected individuals from accessing relief, and hamper post-disaster response and community rehabilitation. Ultimately these issues raise questions of the �justice� of such response frameworks, inasmuch as they entrench existing social issues, further marginalise already vulnerable people, and run the risk of maintaining a dynamic of power in which the overall development and resilience of communities is made subordinate to the specific disaster itself.