The Dec. 26 tsunamis that overwhelmed nations which share the Indian Ocean hit women the hardest, says a new report.

Because more women died, a gender imbalance was created in some areas. And the British-based charity Oxfam International said Saturday that there are reports of forced marriage and sexual assault as a result.

"In some villages it now appears that up to 80 percent of those killed were women," Becky Buel, Oxfam's policy director, told The Associated Press.
 
"This disproportionate impact will lead to problems for years to come unless everyone working on the aid effort addresses the issue now."

Women suffered more because they were at home, waiting for their fishermen or farmer husbands to return home, the report said.

The impact was greatest in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and India. Some Indonesian villages now have more than 10 men for every woman.

In Sri Lanka, there are reports of sexual assaults in camp toilets. Domestic violence is also on the rise, the report said.

Indonesian women also face sexual harassment, such as strip searches by soldiers. There are also claims of being forced into marriage with much older men.

"We know of at least three marriages in which women married older widowers. What we don't know is how forced it was," Ines Smyth, gender adviser for Oxfam, told AP.

"When we asked them, they say they have an obligation to their family and were frightened for the future. If you lost everything you had, including your family, it's very difficult to refuse whatever is being offered, whether it's protection or the possibility of a house."

Community development activists say the radical changes in demographic structures will likely have an impact that will last generations.

For example, while many widowers would like to remarry, they can't afford an expensive dowry.

"What we need is women but we also need money to get them," Mohammed Ali, a 50-year-old sand miner from Lamsenia, told AP.

He lost his wife and five of his six children in the tsunamis. "We also need a house. If we have a wife and no shelter, it means nothing."

In Sri Lanka, one village has the opposite problem -- most of the men were killed, leaving women behind to rebuild.

"Initially when we started off, there were not many women coming forward to do it," said Oxfam's Kavita Kasynathan.

Now women make up 75 per cent of the local workforce.

With a report from CTV's Denelle Balfour and files from The Associated Press