Kerja Perawatan dan Deplesi Reproduksi Sosial Remaja Perempuan Pascabanjir Sumatra 2025

Abstract

The 2025 floods in Sumatra demonstrate that ecological crises are not gender-neutral but generate disproportionate vulnerabilities for adolescent girls through disruptions to essential services and increased care responsibilities. Drawing on findings from the Adolescent Girls in Crisis (AGiC) study, which employed a mixed-methods approach involving 110 survey respondents and 94 participants in focus group discussions, this article examines the experiences of adolescent girls through the lenses of Feminist Political Ecology (FPE) and Depletion through Social Reproduction (DSR). The findings show that disruptions to access to clean water, sanitation, education, healthcare, protection, and social spaces significantly increased the invisible care work undertaken by adolescent girls. These additional responsibilities were reinforced by gendered power relations that unequally distributed care obligations, resulting in social reproduction depletion at the individual, household, and community levels. At the individual level, depletion was reflected in deteriorating physical health and diminished feelings of safety; at the household level, it manifested as time poverty that constrained education and personal development; and at the community level, it was evident in weakened protection systems and the loss of safe social spaces. This article argues that responses to ecological crises should extend beyond the restoration of physical infrastructure to strengthen the systems of social reproduction that sustain everyday life. This includes ensuring gender-responsive basic services, recognising and redistributing care responsibilities, and meaningfully engaging adolescent girls in post-disaster recovery and decision-making processes.