Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Name has claimed that one in six survivors of the Lahaina Wildfires in Hawaii had to exchange sexual and other favors to get basic supplies.
The comments were apparently referring to a report on female Filipino survivors, who, according to one of the authors, called a “gross manipulation” of the report, according to Politics.
During an assessment meeting for the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Wednesday, NAM said: “After the forest fires in Maui, residents expressed their concern that every FEMA with whom they spoke had different answers.”
“None of them had conversations that resulted in help that was useful or some clarity in their situations,” she added. “The situation in Lahaina was so bad that one in six survivors was forced to exchange sexual favors, others for only basic supplies.”
The study on Filipino female survivors was conducted by Tagnawa, which states that it is a “Filipino feminist disaster response organization” in Hawaii. The assessment included answers from 70 female survivors of Filipino Brand and discovered that 16 percent were concerned with 'survival sex in exchange for basic needs after the disaster', with 'a landlord, an employer, family members, friends and acquaintances'.
Kristi mentioned that one in six of the survivors of the Lahaina Wildfire had held sexual favors to get basic supplies (Getty)
One of the authors of the report, Khara Jabola-Carolus, said Politics That the Trump government had misinterpreted the findings.
“I am more worried about only the gross manipulation of using that statistics to do the opposite of what the report asks,” she told the outlet. “Such as financing FEMA to improve their response to women's needs.”
In a press release from May, DHS states that the report “Fema's horrible neglect and maladministration under the Biden administration has demonstrated.”
The Maui Bos Fires killed 102 people in 2023 (Getty)
During the FEMA assessment meeting said: “This task to make this agency again is not nearly as easy as it should be.”
“Because we take on decades of gross mismanagement and negligence,” she added. “The list of fema's failures is amazing. The scale of those failures is only matched by their lifespan. Fema has sometimes been disastrous, sometimes incompetent. And not only in recent years but for decades.”
Survivors honor those who died in the blaze (getty)
President Donald Trump has been looking for the closure of the desk for some time. Last month he said he wants states to stop using the agency. The Trump administration has canceled FEMA subsidies with a value of billions intended for local projects to protect communities against natural disasters.
At the same time, the White House officials praised the work of the desk to respond to the floods in the Texas Hill Country, where more than a hundred people were killed.
