A report cited by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in her critique of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Wednesday was subject to “gross manipulation,” according to one of the study’s authors.
During a FEMA review meeting Wednesday, Noem referenced a study from a feminist disaster response group, Tagnawa, to argue against the agency’s adequacy in disaster situations. Tagnawa’s study unpacked the gender-based discrimination Filipino women in Hawaii faced following the 2023 Lahaina wildfires that killed over 100 people. The study had been previously used in a May press release from the DHS.
“After the wildfires in Maui, residents voiced concerns that every FEMA employee that they spoke with had different answers,” Noem said. “None of them had conversations that resulted in getting assistance that was helpful or any clarity in their situations. The situation in Lahaina was so bad that one in six survivors were forced to trade sexual favors, other favors for just basic supplies.”
Tagnawa surveyed 70 Filipino women in their study to paint a portrait of what many experienced in the fallout of the fires and rescue operations. As indicated by Noem, they found that 16% of the women–approximately one in six–engaged in “survival sex or sex acts in exchange for food, clothing, money, and housing after the fire with a landlord, employer, acquaintance, friend, or family member.”
“No respondents said that any disaster recovery and relief worker or volunteer made them feel uncomfortable or unsafe by making sexual or inappropriate comments,” the report continued. “However, 21% of participants said they have felt unsafe in places where they sought shelter after the fires.”
One of the study’s authors however, has criticized Noem’s use of its finding to seemingly condemn FEMA, claiming that they hoped their report would inspire officials to better the agency instead.
“I’m more concerned about just the gross manipulation of using that statistic to do the opposite of what the report calls for,” Khara Jabola-Carolus, one of the authors of the Tagnawa report, told Politico Wednesday. “Like funding FEMA to improve their response for women’s needs.”
While Noem was seemingly suggesting that FEMA’s response to the fires, or lack thereof, pushed these women to harrowing heights, Jabola-Carolus is instead arguing that the report hopes to highlight how emergency response teams can improve to avoid situations like this to begin with.
In a statement to the Daily Beast, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said: “It is an indisputable fact that the Biden Administration grossly mishandled and mismanaged FEMA’s operations in Maui following the wildfires, which has led incalculable amounts of unnecessary human suffering.”
“As Secretary Noem said in her remarks, FEMA has been failing like this for DECADES, and just throwing more taxpayer money at the problem won’t solve it,” McLaughlin continued. “That is exactly why President Trump created the FEMA Review Council, which is aimed at addressing FEMA’s myriad failures and revolutionizing disaster management at the federal level.”
FEMA’s fate has notably been fickle since President Donald Trump reassumed office earlier this year. The president and Noem have both long suggested wanting to dismantle the agency in favor of transferring the responsibility of emergency and disaster response to state control instead.
However, the recent deathly flash floods in Texas have put into question what exactly FEMA’s future and role should be moving forward.
“The president wants to ensure American citizens always have what they need during times of need,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said of FEMA’s future Monday. “Whether that assistance comes from states or the federal government, that is a policy discussion that will continue.”
