No fair trade for women

The protest actions by Filipino domestic helpers and their counterparts from other countries against the World Trade Organization during the 6th WTO ministerial conference in Hong Kong have highlighted people’s dissatisfaction with actions that have benefited only a few, and put a good many at a disadvantage.

Ten years after the establishment of the WTO in 1994, researches have shown that trade and other forms of liberalization have done more harm than good for most developing countries; in fact, these have led to more poverty, more inequality, more displacement, and insecurity.

How women are affected by the WTO policies on trade liberalization is shown in a briefing paper prepared for the ministerial conference by Rosalinda Ofreneo, regional coordinator of Homenet Southeast Asia and professor of women in development studies at the University of the Philippines College of Social Work and Community Development.

She writes that most of the employed people in Asia are workers in the informal economy, among them home-based workers, vendors, stall sellers, waste recyclers, small transport drivers, construction workers, etc. Many of them are women who aside from having to work to earn a pittance to ensure survival also shoulder the burden of housework, childcare, and community service.

The informal economy has been growing in both North and South, due to the combined effects of liberalization, deregulation, and privatization, which have driven out millions of workers from the formal economy. (According to the International Labor Organization in East Asia alone, 24 million have been driven out, due to the Asian financial crisis). At the same time, writes Ofreneo, the informal economy, has served as "the bottom end of the production labor, providing cheap and unprotected labor vulnerable to exploitation while management saves on costs by retaining a small core of permanent and regular workers."

The informal economy is also highly gendered, consisting mostly of women who were among the first to be displaced from formal work as globalization progresses, says Ofreneo. Many women workers in the informal economy have been adversely affected by trade liberalization. In many countries in the region, cheap imports and second-hand clothing from abroad are flooding local outlets and streets, driving out or marginalizing many local producers.

Traditional weaving faces competition from imports that duplicate the same traditional patterns, but are sold for less. In many parts of Asia, were bamboo craft is a long-standing tradition, bamboo-made furniture is being sidelined by cheap monobloc chairs and other products from abroad. Those who are in food production and food processing feel the negative effects of unfair trade. Vegetable raisers and poultry and hog producers are disadvantaged by cheap smuggled vegetable items from abroad.

Informal workers have not taken the situation sitting down. They have attempted to be involved in both the macro and micro levels, issuing position papers and joining demonstrations on trade-related issues. They have been active in various forms of fair trade advocacy in collaboration with trade unions, business groups, and civil society organizations.

These informal worker leaders from several Southeast Asian countries have evolved their own conception of fair trade – taking it to mean changes in macro-economic policies (including tariff reform, stopping smuggling and dumping of cheap foreign products) to give an even chance to local producers to have their rightful share of the domestic market; enhancing sustainability of production by making use of locally available resources, catering to basic community needs, and safeguarding the environment; ensuring workers’ rights to just remuneration, job security, social protection, and safe working conditions, and promoting gender equity through recognition of women’s work, greater equality in the division of labor, and stronger participation of women in decision-making.

Informal workers have also asked for their representation and participation in decision-making bodies. They have called for a strong gender perspective to be infused in information, education, and communication materials and campaigns, given that it is the productive labor of women which brings in the most dollar earnings (through the export mainly of domestic workers and entertainers, of electronics products assembled locally, of garments, home décor, and other handicraft items), and it is their unpaid reproductive labor at home which keeps families alive and functioning.

Workers have asked for the following changes: gender analysis be employed in researches on various industries, to better understand the roles, issues, and problems of producers and workers; promotion of the concept of social enterprise, through alternative skills training of garments and embroidery workers in the making of slippers, rugs, candles, lace, Christmas balls and soap), and the development of a strong marketing network, promoting trade among themselves and other consumer groups locally, nationally, regionally, and globally.

The trade regime, which ensued after the establishment of the WTO in 1994, has led to many adverse effects on majority of the world’s women, writes Ofreneo. Yet, the developed countries, again through the WTO, are pushing for more tariff reductions in agriculture (through the AoA or Agreement on Agriculture) and industrial goods (through NAMA or Non-Agricultural Market Access), the opening up of services (through the GATS or the General Agreement on Trade and Services) as well as more control over intellectual property (through TRIPS or Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement).

The main issue, according to Ofreneo, is that rich countries protect their markets by subsidizing their agriculture by as much as US$70-80 billion, thus they are able to dump their produce on less developing countries whose unprotected and unsubsidized farm producers cannot survive the competition. Thus in the Philippines local producers cannot compete with trade liberalized items, and the smuggling of food commodities (rice, corn, chicken and onions).

A cause of consternation is the proposal to lower tariffs for a host of traditionally not classified agricultural products including natural resources (fisheries, forests, minerals) as well as industrial goods. The inclusion of fisheries has caused uproar among small fisherfolk throughout Southeast Asia for fear that they would be inundated by cheap fish imports originating from big foreign commercial interests.

Ofreneo says that in the face of the "increasingly exclusionary and undemocratic processes under which trade deals are forged, Homenet Southeast Asia countries align themselves with the global movement seeking to correct imbalances and injustices in the international trading systems." Reports coming out of the Hong Kong WTO conference will show how these imbalances will be checked.

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