Easy availability of water is thus important also from the security point of view. Disasters are dangerous from the health point of view - from bullet wounds and other bodily injuries to epidemics and dehydration, not to mention mental illness. The responsibility assumed by women for the immediate survival of their families and especially for their children constitutes an irreplaceable resource. This very fact should have the effect that one of the immediate goals of health projects in cases of disasters should be to help women to fulfil this undertaking. The situation of pregnant women and infants can be particularly precarious.
Housing is another important issue.
An extremely obvious and traumatic result of war and internal conflicts for the people affected is the loss of their own homes. In reconstruction programmes it is extremely important that women are given the same opportunities as men to obtain loans, to learn to make bricks, to assume responsibility for the running the house-building project etc. Issues relating to protection and security are also included as basic needs in programmes of humanitarian assistance, for example to provide support so that refugee camps can be a safe place for refugees. Women in refugee camps are in a particularly vulnerable, potentially explosive situation, completely dependent on others to meet their own and their children's most basic needs. Their physical security is often endangered and they risk rape and sexual blackmail of different types, for example when food is distributed and when fetching firewood and water.