Seminar hosted during the World Social Forum, 2004, Mumbai, India
18th January, 9 am-12 pm

International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs) hosted a series of seminars around the theme of 'Resisting Imperialism' during the World Social Forum. This series was meant to draw attention to the problems faced by different sections of our society, and the wide range of impact that the current neo-liberal policies are having on our world today. The first of these was the session focusing on women and their economic rights in the current context. This sought to bring to the fore the problems faced by a relatively ignored section of society. In this initiative, its partner organizations were the 'All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA)' and the 'International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE)'.

The central issue of the session concerned the economic rights of women which encompass the right to food, right to livelihood, right to housing, right to basic necessities such as safe water, fuel etc. These have been eroded by privatisation, reduced quantity and quality of public provision and increased user charges and other prices. The seminar intended to examine coping strategies as well as the possibilities of alternative policies to ensure the economic rights of women and girls.

The panel intended to discuss the issue with inputs from academics as well as from activists. The speakers at the session were Radhika Balakrishnan from the Marymount Manhattan college, New York, US, Hemlata, Sudha and Mariam Dhawale from the 'All India Democratic Womens' Association, Anita Nayar from the University of Sussex, UK and Diane Elson from the University of Essex, United Kingdom who is also a member of the IAFFE.

Radhika Balakrishnan, as the first speaker, focused on the question of new changes – specifically, on what lines or on what considerations they should be proposed. The first is obviously the consideration of human rights violations. This implied that changes must be such that can ensure no violation of human rights. While this was quite clear-cut there were problems with other goals that tries to ensure the right of poor people and this includes the oft-quoted goal of full employment. In the modern world, the right of property was given much more importance than the right of people. All kinds of entitlements including that to food were being cut.

For the activists who campaign for human rights, it is easier to ask for people's rights. But the problem is that there is no overall macroeconomic structure that can provide for these rights. There is, therefore, a great need for leftist economists to investigate what kind of macroeconomic framework could provide for these rights.

The macroeconomic policies of today often miss the reality, argued Prof Balakrishnan. This is reflected in the fact that macroeconomic policies look towards an increase in growth and employment to make the poor people better off. However, there is no provision of any ethical basis for people's rights. For example, there is no stipulation or recognition of the fact that all human beings should have the right to be employed. So while the intention to provide jobs is there, there is no ethical basis or a rights based approach. There is, therefore a need to combine these two approaches.

In this regard, Prof. Balakrishnan made some specific points that needed to be noted. First, it was important for human rights framework not to get co-opted given the fact that now the international institutions are coming out with documents on human rights and had apparently adopted a human rights approach to their programmes. But the speaker strongly stated that we should not be satisfied with these documents since they still do not point towards the correct policies.

Second, there was also a need to figure out how to work within a legal framework that was structured for a capitalist economy. There was bound to be conflict here, argued the speaker, since a capitalist economy by its very nature cannot provide for a human rights framework.

Third, the question of food security was of great importance here. The idea today was that this will automatically be taken care of by international trade but there was a need to ascribe responsibility to national governments.

Fourth, another important area was of labour rights, especially for the unpaid workers. The growing informal sectors and the increasing 'informalisation' of work was a key area that had to be looked at by national governments especially for women who form the major components in these sectors.

Fifth, in this context it was also necessary that the macroeconomic framework take care of marginalized communities in terms of their entitlements. Women again formed a large section here.

Sixth, the macroeconomic framework also needed to have a democratic structure which at present it does not have. It needs to really reflect what the people feel.

Finally, the question of sovereignty from international standards was also very important. While many wanted to strengthen national governments, the international standards are still being maintained when it came to setting human rights standards.

The next speaker, Hemlata, who has been an activist working on women's issues for a long time described the effects of globalisation on working women in different sectors like agriculture, industry within India.

The situation was particularly disastrous for agriculture, the speaker argued, because of export promotion in this sector that resulted in many women losing their jobs. This followed from the fact that while traditional paddy cultivation required a lot of women's participation, the newer export friendly systems of cash crop cultivation and especially aquaculture required much less input from women. This resulted in employment for less than 60 days per year for rural women workers in India. Earlier, women were required for harvesting of paddy crops but now in the aquaculture belts, they have to collect snails for feeding fish. This was not only a hazardous and more dangerous task but also meant much lower pay.

Even urban women are badly hit by the forces of globalisation. Because of increasing unemployment, many of them have been forced to turn to prostitution. Many of them have also been working in the informal sectors like construction where a growing number of women have been sexually exploited by construction contractors and others. The belief by many that there will be large-scale feminisation of labour in a post-globalisation situation has also been found to be completely false in the case of India.

In a scenario where the government wants to reduce the workforce, their first target are women workers since there is the traditional attitude that men have to provide for their families. This has been reflected in the way the voluntary retirement schemes target women, and also in the way the first target of retrenchment moves are also women. All kinds of pressures are now being imposed on women so that they are forced to retire early.

Many sectors that do not employ so many women have been provided boosts by the new economic structure. For example, the export sector gets a lot of tax concessions and is allowed flexibility in labour laws so that they can employ less women or employ women at lower pay.

Again, in sectors like health, where many women are employed as nurses, the withdrawal of the government as well as its increasing use of contractual work has meant major loss of employment for women employees.

In addition to this, the number of unorganised home-based women in India is increased and presently stood at 70% of all women. In this context, the government of India has not implemented the UN convention.

The increase in user fees, or contributions for services like education is another trend that has proved harmful to women. In addition, the state has been cutting down the size of its services. The recent contraction of the Anganvadi system (a system of providing free primary education in Indian villages) where the number of vacancies has kept growing is an example of this.

However, pointed out the speaker, the positive phenomenon is that there is growing opposition from women, both from urban middle class as well as rural women. Even in the export processing zones, women are forming trade unions and getting organised. Such organised women are now articulating their demands for better salaries and improved work conditions. Only with such increased level of organisation could women counter some of the adverse effects of globalisation on their lives.

The third speaker, Sudha, drew on her long experience of working with dalit (a term for denoting people of lower caste) women in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and described the impact of globalisation on their lives. The first of these had a cultural manifestation. She described how tea served to the dalits, even in shops, were always served in two separate sets of glasses, under a kind of 'two-glass system'. After protests by AIDWA, plastic glasses were now introduced which need not be re-used. However, this meant a circumvention of the old system but not a solution to it.

The second effect related to cultural issues. Dalits in this region were forced to beat drums after a death in their village. After they refused to do that, here were widespread attacks on them, on women and on their property. AIDWA had again taken up the matter. Again, with more and more education, Dalits had begun to assert their identity and protested against the traditional ways of separation in public spheres. This however, had invited large-scale retaliation from the upper caste communities. However, in this case, the dalits also got united and managed to get the administration to take action against the culprits.

Despite occasions of protest from the dalits, the problem remains that any attempt by to assert their individual identities resulted in severe punishment and withdrawal of basic services and facilities like water, electricity. The biggest threat, however, was in the form of loss of employment. The crucial need for economic independence and self-sustenance was underlined here. However this prospect was crucially undermined by globalisation. In this scenario, the exploitation of women was even more real. Even if attempts were made to improve the condition of women by providing them with education, work opportunities as well as other support services, the traditional systems of caste-hierarchy and patriarchy strongly thwarted or attempted to thwart these efforts. Here organisations like AIDWA that organised and mobilised dalits, especially dalit women, had a major role to play.

The government also had a major role to play here. In West Bengal, where government had implanted re-distributive and reforms, the class and caste differences are much less acute. So land was a major tool of empowerment and only governments could use this tool effectively. To be able to solve many of the social problems, the government needed to play a bigger role rather than a smaller role as dictated by the forces of globalisation.

Finally, government and its administrative efforts as well as direct intervention by activist organisations had to be used for building together a better alternative for the future.

The next speaker was Mariam Dhawale, who described the impact of globalisation, which had been at work since 1994, on tribal women in India. She discussed broadly four issues. First, the issue of land and forests, second, that of food, third, of water, and finally, the issue of work.

As an aftermath of globalisation and the triumph of private capital, land held by tribal communities that could previously not be occupied by others, were now freely being given to non-tribals including large multinationals like Coca Cola. The struggle for land has become, therefore, the most primary struggle for the tribals since without land they had very few other means of livelihood. Droughts, family divisions aggravated this problem of loss of land. Women were particularly affected by this loss of land rights, since they were heavily involved in harvesting and were now facing a loss of work opportunity and also a loss of security as a whole. The struggle for land, therefore, had also seen a dramatic participation by tribal women despite the fact that women actually do not hold any land rights.

With this is also related the question of environment. Now, tribals were prevented from going into the forests in the name of prevention of forest degradation. However, tribals have been closely linked to the forests for centuries and do not bring on environmental degradation. It is brought on by exploitation of forests by private contractors for profit maximisation - a phenomenon that is actively encouraged by the forces of globalisation.

Second, on the issue of food, an increasing number of tribals have been dependent on the Public Distribution System (PDS) since land has been unable to provide food any more,. However, the present system of targeting has often excluded them, and has resulted in widespread malnutrition and starvation deaths. The search for food and fuel has proved to be more dangerous, more laborious and burdensome for women, who have to now go far and into the depth of forests for gathering food not provided by the government. Women also take loans for meeting food needs, but this eventually leads them into the hands of moneylenders.

Third, water availability has gone down in these areas since companies like Coca Cola have been given large-scale rights to water. The tribals are forced to go far and now need much more time to be able to meet their water needs. Women, who are responsible for getting water, obviously suffer more because of this.

Finally, all these problems combined have meant that women's labour input has been steadily increasing. They are also exploited by contractors in the new fields of work they are forced to move to. The governments decreasing budget on different employment generation schemes, has meant that only men get work. But organisations like AIDWA have demanded that deserted women, wife of drunkard husband etc must be given work at par with men.

The forces of globalisation have now meant that every village must struggle for their basic rights. A very low 4% of education in many villages, because of lack of schools, has not helped matters. And these are the sectors that have witnessed major withdrawal of state activity. Tribal women and girls, the speaker strongly stated, have been pushed out of society, more so in the last ten years.

The next speaker was Anita Nayar, from the University of Sussex, UK, who talked about her experiences with regard to Adivasis (tribals) in Kerala who had been left out of much of the achievements of the state with regard to education, land re-distribution and local government reforms. Despite living in resource rich areas like the forests, roughly one third of the Adivasis in Kerala are landless who live on common forest-land, two-third own less than 5 acres and the rest live on mostly infertile land.

A major source of exploitation, argued the speaker, lay ironically in the tremendous potential of Kerala in its medicinal plants and traditional Medicine systems of Ayurveda, which had gained so much popularity among the urban elite and in the west recently. This high demand has resulted in the private sector moving into this area in a big way. Now, this raised serious concerns about the rights to collection, pricing and use of these plants. These relate to 3 kinds of rights: land rights, right to control the resource, and intellectual property rights.

The struggle for land rights had been going on for some time in Kerala now. In the late 1990s, a law was passed that that would have given more land to settlers, but widespread protests following that made the government promise land to the adivasis. However, this was not implemented properly. Interestingly, the struggle for land rights for the adivasis is being led by a woman. So at present, land rights have been given to the adivasis in law, but not implemented properly.

As far as right to control resources is concerned, the speaker pointed out that the Adivasis are the only ones who have the legal right to collect resources from the forests. However, the problem here is that the terms of trade at which these products can be sold are not within the control of the Adivasis. The price of these products is still very low and the other benefits promised by the government are very meagre. In addition, as soon as they leave the forest, the right over the use of the resource disappears.

The third is the question of intellectual property rights. Now, with the patent or Sui Generis system in place, the value of traditional knowledge is getting known across the globe. However, the tribals are only just becoming aware and are not in a position to take advantage of this kind of knowledge. There are also problems regarding 'benefit-sharing'. This system involves the conferring of benefits to the communities that hold and practice this kind of knowledge by the party who makes use of this knowledge commercially. For example, one community went into a benefit sharing arrangement with a private company and received Rs. 10,00,000. But as a result, there were major problems within that community regarding the distribution of this amount. In addition, there were other communities that also had the same knowledge but did not get any benefit. So systems like this sometimes cause major strife within communities and encourage a race for gains between and within communities.

The speaker emphasised the need to understand the economic structures that govern these systems and to tackle underlying systems so that communities can benefit and progress from them. However, under the existing scenario led by profit maximising private companies moving into traditional sectors, this was a very difficult and complicated task.

The last speaker on the panel was Diane Elson, from the University of Essex, United Kingdom. At the very beginning, she called upon progressive economists to take note of gender inequality and asked non-economists to become acquainted with economists so that everyone together could think about alternative ways to look at the global and national economies.

In the present scenario, women have the responsibility to see that the family meets its daily needs. The woman has to place the food on the table, get water for the household. Though both men and women have suffered as a result of the current economic policies being pushed around the world, it is women who have to take an additional burden because whatever the condition, they must keep the family going.

However, this period has also seen growing resistance and struggle by women and an increasing articulation of their needs. As a result, women were now being seen as people with rights though they were not enjoying al these rights at present. Their struggle had laid a powerful basis for the acknowledgement of women's rights on moral and ethical grounds.

The biggest problem facing women today is the violation of their basic human rights. Eve though some laws exist, their lack of implementation has made many of them ineffective. In addition, the surrounding economic and macro policies must be such that they could support such implementation. So there is an urgent need for 1)the right laws, 2) mobilisation for implementing those rights and 3) economic and macro policies that could support those laws. Consequently, there is the need to make links and to come together for bringing these three points together, and to take it forward.

In order to do this, one must also understand the limitations and ambiguities of a rights based approach. There is a need to understand the kind of rights that are needed and how these could be used in terms of policies to benefit women. For example, how fiscal policy can be framed so that it offers benefits to women.

Prof. Elson drew attention to the phenomenon of user fees for basic services, which are now increasing after globalisation. The speaker underlined the need to think of ways of providing 'universal services' without increasing user fees. This of course requires that revenues should come in from elsewhere. Therefore, the provision of such universal services required a better and more efficient tax system and other ways of raising revenue.

Finally, the speaker pointed out that there is also an urgent need to democratise those systems and organise it in ways more participatory, much more in sync with wider opinion among the people. The way to move forward was the way through a more democratic process.

At the end of the session, many questions were asked from the floor. Many of these, interestingly, were enquiries about the condition of workers and especially of women in the US. There were questions on wage differentials between men and women, dowry that had to be paid by women, property rights for women and sex ratio between men and women in the US. The answers, mainly by Radhika Balakrishnan, showed that even in the US women were worse off compared to men according to many indicators though the difference was not as widespread as in countries like India. Women on an average get lower wages (79 cents compared to a dollar for men), and this was also race related. There were increasing number of cases of dowry though largely among immigrant communities. However the sex ratio was much better compared to countries like India, about 105 women to 100 men. As to questions regarding education for all in the US, the speakers answered that education was technically meant for all, however richer families could send their children to better schools. As to healthcare, one-third of US population had no access to state healthcare. There was also a growing unemployment that stood at around 6% in the US economy.

February 7, 2004.