Involuntary disaster relocation and its impact on children: a case study in Galle, Sri Lanka

The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami prompted a relocation process of an unprecedented scale in Sri Lanka, relocating thousands beyond the government imposed coastal buffer zone. Amidst the relocatees were thousands of children whom were exposed to multiple risks and stresses. These impacts caused by relocation remain largely unexplored. This paper investigates the impact of involuntary relocation, experienced by children relocated to Cinnamon Garden settlement and Tea Garden settlement of Galle district, Sri Lake. The paper focuses on (a) what are the impacts children experienced due to forced relocation?, (b) What is the nature of those impacts?, (c) What is the possibility of using a risk model to identify these impacts? Case studies were conducted with a purposively selected sample of individuals whom were relocated as children. The findings suggests that children suffered from social impacts such as disruption of social relationships failing to develop new social networks, decline in education levels and victimized to bullying and discrimination. The study successfully employed the Michael Cernea’s (2000) impoverishments risks and reconstruction to identify key negative and positive impacts of forced relocation, initiating the development of a risk model that can specifically identify the impact of relocation on children.