While presiding over a FEMA Review Council meeting on Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem cited an eyebrow-raising statistic: 1 in 6 survivors of the deadly 2023 Lahaina wildfire on Maui exchanged sexual favors for basic supplies.

The data point was in sync with a Trump administration threat to abolish the federal agency responsible for coordinating a national response to major disasters. President Donald Trump, a vocal critic of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has said he plans to shift disaster management to states after this year’s hurricane season.

But people on Maui who lived through the Lahaina wildfire were taken aback by the way Noem spoke about Lahaina’s fire recovery and how she misrepresented this data, which is based on a recent report detailing the responses of just 70 Filipino women fire survivors to a limited survey. The report, which was conducted by the local Filipina-led advocacy group Tagnawa, was aimed at spotlighting post-disaster gender inequality and providing “constructive feedback” on the government’s disaster response. 

The study says 16% of the survey participants, or 11 people, reported that they engaged in sexual activity with a landlord, employer, family member, friend or acquaintance in the aftermath of the wildfire in exchange for food, clothing, money or shelter. That activity is defined broadly — kissing, hugging and touching as well as sexual intercourse. 

That the experiences of those 11 Filipina women became an unexpected political flash point baffled not just Lahaina wildfire survivors and those involved in the ongoing disaster relief effort on Maui, but data experts and even the organization that did the survey.

“This limited sample cannot be generalized to the entire population of wildfire survivors,” said Ruben Juarez, an economics professor at the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa and the director of a study on the health effects of wildfires on Maui. “It is inaccurate and deeply irresponsible to imply that 1 in 6 people across Lahaina experienced this form of exploitation.”

Khara Jabola-Carolus, a co-author of the report, also condemned Noem’s use of the sexual exploitation statistic as misleading. The report, published in May, was meant to shine a light on gender inequity experienced by a vulnerable group of immigrant women during the Lahaina wildfire disaster response. It was never intended to represent the experiences of all Lahaina fire survivors. 

“It’s qualitative data meant to give us an indication of what maybe are the issues being faced by women in this immigrant community after the wildfire,” said Jabola-Carolus, a community organizer and the former executive director of the Hawaiʻi State Commission on the Status of Women. “Our intent wasn’t to universalize it. It was to say that out of this population, this is what we found. And it necessitates further research.” 

Rick Nava, a Filipino community leader and Lahaina wildfire survivor, said Noem’s comments are shocking and don’t accurately reflect the reality on the ground.

There were certainly issues with FEMA’s response to the fires, he said, but the agency also played a critical role in Maui’s recovery and has provided much-needed resources — food, water, clothing, shelter — to survivors.

Nava pointed to the agency’s failure to adapt its practices to local customs and educate federal employees who responded to the disaster on local culture.

“I do think that could definitely be improved — better communication and understanding the culture wherever they go, but especially in a place like here in Hawaiʻi,” he said.

Fire survivors also have complained that government disaster aid workers encouraged them to move off of Maui to improve their chances of finding affordable housing as the disaster exacerbated the island’s longstanding housing shortage.

But Noem had no right to criticize FEMA’s handling of the situation, Nava said, when she was not there to experience the chaos post-fire.

“If these people were not here seeing it, then I don’t think they have any right to talk bad about what happened in Lahaina,” he said.

Hawaiʻi U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono also called out Noem’s comments in a social media post on Thursday.

“Noem, Trump, and the rest of this regime need to stop politicizing tragedies and start doing their jobs,” the Democratic lawmaker said on X.

Report Called For More Resources For FEMA

In addition to the 70 Filipina women surveyed, the report relied on state and county data and interviews with seven local experts on mental health, gender-based violence, criminal justice, reproductive health care and community organizing.

The report points to data from county agencies that indicates an uptick in domestic abuse, child sexual abuse and applications for restraining orders in the months after the wildfire, which displaced thousands of people and forced many to rely on FEMA-coordinated aid programs. It documents a lack of access to infant formula, clean baby bottles and diapers, contraception and menstruation supplies at shelters.  

Others have studied the impact of the 2023 Maui wildfires on immigrants including those from the Philippines. Earlier this year, the University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization and the local nonprofit Roots Reborn surveyed nearly 300 immigrant wildfire survivors, and many of them said they were still dealing with stress, depression, unstable housing and jobs that don’t pay enough for necessities, according to a blog post published in May.

Besides the trauma and stress associated with surviving the deadliest wildfire in modern American history, the authors of the Tagnawa report said FEMA’s policies may have led to increased violence against women because victims who feared losing housing or recovery benefits may have felt discouraged from reporting perpetrators who they lived with or who were their landlords. Other factors like gender stereotypes, stress, substance abuse and the premature reopening of tourism to West Maui also likely had an effect, according to the report.

Some of the women surveyed said they felt unsafe at shelters coordinated by FEMA and instead chose to sleep in cars with their children.

Noem’s comments came during the second meeting of the FEMA Review Council, formed by Trump in January to advise him and other federal officials on the agency’s performance and pitch ideas for reforms.

FEMA’s operations on Maui were so inefficient that they were unable to adequately distribute basic supplies to survivors, Noem said, and she cited the report’s findings as broad evidence that the agency’s failures had widespread negative consequences.

The Department of Homeland Security had previously cited the report in a May press release that said the findings revealed “FEMA’s horrific neglect and mismanagement” during former President Joe Biden’s administration and that the agency needed to be dismantled and rebuilt according to Trump’s vision.

“These women — our fellow American citizens — were so desperate for food that they had to resort to such extreme measures just to feed themselves in our own country. That’s unacceptable. That is unAmerican,” Tricia McLaughlin, the department’s assistant secretary, said in the press release. “While American citizens from Hawaii to North Carolina suffered, Biden and Mayorkas used FEMA as a piggy bank.”

Tagnawa is a Filipino feminist disaster response organization on Maui and Oʻahu. Although its report is critical of FEMA and other federal agencies, the authors noted that many of the inequalities they observed are long-simmering issues that predate the wildfire and may have continued to fly under the radar had the fire not brought them to light. They acknowledged that it’s difficult to compare gender inequality before and after a disaster because baseline data is not always immediately available.

The report called for FEMA to be provided with increased resources and made numerous recommendations for how to better respond to disasters like the Lahaina fire including: establishing a joint federal and local “gender violence-fighting headquarters” immediately after a disaster where FEMA and the American Red Cross can coordinate with state and local entities and anti-violence specialists; longer-term assignments for staff and volunteers; revising FEMA’s weekly check-in practice to include all adult household members so that women and gender minorities have equal opportunities to disclose violence and seek help; requiring FEMA and Red Cross personnel to be trained on the “demographics, cultural protocol, and languages of the local area.”

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.