DECADES of efforts by international institutions, including the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), to put women on an equitable footing in society have achieved very little in correcting the unjust, oppressive and often violent socio-economic realities that burden the lives of 80% of women living in rural areas.
The effort to uplift women's status continues this International Women's Day, on March 8, with UNIFEM's theme "Financing for Gender Equality" that will focus on measures to ensure that gender equality has a central place in macroeconomic policies, the mobilization of international resources, including bilateral, multilateral and new aid modalities, as well as innovative funding approaches.
The realities facing Asia's rural women tell a different story-their rights and needs are far from being met in the era of globalisation and trade liberalisation. The most pressing concerns facing rural women are the focus of a groundbreaking conference organised in conjunction with International Women's Day 2008 in Tamil Nadu, India:
- Exploited: The last 20 years has seen the highest number of women in the Asian labour market. Women make up 80% of the labour force in developing countries and have the lowest, unskilled, badly paid (earning less then $1 daily), unprotected and unstable types of employment.
- Raped and Terrorised: Women and children account for 80% of victims of armed conflict. The use of rape as a tool of war in Asia is well documented, from the on-going turmoil in Jammu and Kashmir, to Burma, to the conflict in the Philippines and beyond. Northeast Sri Lanka witnessed more than 12,500 women raped or killed. As a weapon of war, rape is systematically employed to intimidate, humiliate, for political terror, extracting information, rewarding soldiers, and "ethnic cleansing"; and is a precursor to murder.
- Invisible: Numbering half the population, Nepalese women's contribution to agricultural GDP is 61.1%, but only about 10% of women have land ownership, and many number among those suffering starvation due to unequal distribution of land and food. This injustice resounds across rural Asia.
- Poisoned: The UN estimates that 50% of women in Asia are involved in rural agriculture, this is increasing as more men migrate out for work. Those exposed to pesticides suffer dangerous acute and chronic health effects-including breast cancer, and reproductive health problems. Endocrine disruption can particularly affect unborn babies. In some countries more than 85% of women are pesticide applicators, often working whilst pregnant or breastfeeding.
- Displaced: Rural women in Burma have been forced to leave their habitats to cater for a large oil and natural gas project. The military regime in collusion with the company has forced communities to move, and women were raped and murdered to make way for development, and forced into cheap labour. Similar scenarios abound in other Asian countries.
Furthermore, in Asia alone up to 80 million people, a majority of them women, have migrated in search of work due to collapsed economies, severe poverty, debt servicing, and destruction of local agriculture and community livelihoods. Globalisation has accelerated the alienation, privatisation, commercialisation and theft of community forests, lands, waters and other resources: including traditional medicinal plants causing impoverishment and generating ill health, particularly among indigenous women and children.
Rural women in Asia are among the most disadvantaged people globally in terms of their health-particularly sexual and reproductive health-and access to accurate and appropriate health information and comprehensive, adequate and affordable health services.
Women often pay the highest price from religious fundamentalism and devastatingly discriminating cultural practises. In India, caste discrimination is rampant, and about 50% of women among the 160 million Dalit population continue to suffer from this cruel dehumanizing practice.
These issues will be the heart and soul of the RIGHTS, EMPOWERMENT AND LIBERATION: ASIAN RURAL WOMEN'S CONFERENCE to be held in Arakonam, Tamil Nadu, India from MARCH 6-8, 2008.
More than a thousand rural and indigenous women from various sectors of peasants, agricultural workers, fisherfolk, Dalits, pastoralists, informal workers, child labourers and minorities from all over Asia will gather in a vast field at the venue to strengthen the rural and indigenous women's movement and to build the leadership of women.
Hosted by the Tamil Nadu Women's Forum (TNWF), the Tamil Nadu Dalit Women's Forum (TNDWF) and the Society of Rural Development (SRED), the conference aims to build perspectives, engender unity and solidarity among women and with other movements. It will also strive to forge new visions and new thinking about feminism, liberation, emancipation and the women's perspective on national liberation and food sovereignty, leading to strategies and collective action.
The Conference is co-organised by a mix of national and regional groups, including Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Asia and the Pacific, who are strong advocates of women's rights and working with rural and indigenous women communities on issues of trade, food and agriculture, labour, reproductive health, and women's rights.
The three-day event will feature speak-outs and testimonies from rural and indigenous women sectors in Asia, symposiums and forums on rural women's issues, an organic food festival, film and other cultural presentations from various countries, and other solidarity actions.
Culminating on International Women's Day, the conference will be followed by a two-hour women's caravan led by rural and indigenous women weaving through streets and fields and a public assembly of 10,000 grassroots women leaders.
Contacts for co-organiser
Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific (PAN AP):
Jennifer Mourin, in Malaysia (up till February 28, 2008) at: email@example.com
Tel: 604-6570271 or 604-6560381 Fax: 604-6583960.
General Email: firstname.lastname@example.org
Home Page: www.panap.net
Marjo Busto Quinto, PAN AP staff in India:
Email: email@example.com / or firstname.lastname@example.org
Tel: +91 9791866484 (Arakkonam) calls only.