Indonesia's Aceh province has just marked 100 days since the Tsunami last December in which more than 120,000 Indonesians died. Oxfam International says of those killed, 80% were women and this has created a new gender imbalance in Aceh.

Presenter/Interviewer: Huey Fern Tay

Speakers: Ahmad Humam Hamid, sociologist, Syah Kuala University, Aceh; Ali Khan, spokesman, CARE International; Salma Safitri, aid worker, Solidaritas Perempuan

Tay: The Boxing Day tsunami struck on a Sunday when the women were at home looking after the children and their husbands either out working or running errands. Most of the women didn't know how to swim or climb trees – skills that could have helped them survive the forceful waves. As a result, four times as many died in the disaster.

So when it came to food distribution, where women were the usual recipients, it clearly became apparent to Ali Khan a worker with the international aid agency CARE, that a different approach was going to be needed.

Khan: Even when you start looking at food distribution and who is coming to the distributions and who's not, and when you asked where the women were because the preference was to distribute to women, you quickly realised that the women weren't around; and that we were going to be flexible but to also meet the needs.

Tay: So how will your agency change the way you help tsunami survivors in Aceh rebuild their lives?

Khan: The children that have been left behind do need to be socialised into society again so that burden of socialising the children is going to fall on the men, so support systems for men are going to have to increase tremendously. Another aspect of it is also the women survivors, what they have been injuring and suffering. There have been many problems surrounding the aftermath of the tsunami.

Tay: One of those problems are allegations of sexual abuse and harassment in the packed refugee camps, risks increased by the lack of privacy. Local women's group Solidaritas Perempuan says there aren't any signs conditions are improving. Aid worker Salma Safitri explains. Salma: Some refugee camps only have two or three toilets for more than 100 people in those refugee camps and only one of the toilets are closed, I mean have a door. So women can't use the toilet so they wait until dark, until night when dark then they use the toilet. So we make report to the authorities to get help to them.

Tay: Since you've informed the authorities about the conditions, have they done anything about it?

Salma: Well sometimes yes, sometimes no. Too many institutions are willing to work in Aceh but we felt there's not enough coordination between them. In some areas that our military says this is Free Aceh Movement area, the basic needs of the women are difficult to send there.

Tay: Despite aid distribution being impeded by government restrictions on movement Aceh's women are continuing with their lives, taking on the additional responsibility of caring for both the men and children in their neighbourhood. While some of the men are sharing the workload, sociologist Ahmad Humam Hamid from Aceh's Syah Kuala University, says don't count on a total role reversal.

Humam: In a traditional way all the kids might be sent to the mother of either parents, husbands or wives, but again it is the women who will take care of all of the kids. So don't expect to see a house father.

Tay: So how can this imbalance be corrected?

Humam: I did talk to the villagers whose villages were affected by the tsunami and they lost all their females. And they wanted to build their own village again. And then when I asked them when are they going to get married, you know what they said? They said "we'll ask our wives to go with us", to stay in the husband's village, whereas in the past it could go the other way.