The Personal is Political: Maternity Protection



Aponayan/Elimination, a solo exhibition of installations and drawings by Dhali Al Mamoon, a Bangladshi artist at the Bengal Art Lounge, Dhaka.



“The personal is Political” is not just a rallying cry of some feminists rather a living experience of most women, particularly, women workers in the formal and informal economy. An issue such as ‘pregnancy’ is, indeed, a personal issue of a woman. It concerns the contentious issues of her right over her body, her emotional readiness to be a mother and make a long-term material commitment to care for a child, and her physical ability to be pregnant, carry the foetus in her womb and give birth without endangering her life.

When we look at the overall environment and specific contexts in which these ‘personal’ prerogatives of the millions of women have to be exercised, we can see how bleak the situation continues to be for women.  The situation is infested with issues of control of women and their reproduction, and regards maternity protection as a financial liability. The situation, therefore, calls for ‘political’ actions such as conscientization or critical consciousness-raising, empowerment of women, affirmative action, legalization of maternity protection, mass-protests, mobilization of men for women’s rights and so on. The old feminist adage helps see the ‘political’ dimensions or the power relationships that interrupt a personal matter. 


Photo: The Daily Star, Read the Essay: Begum Rokeya, Sultana's Dream and woman power

Bangladesh is the home to Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain (1880 – 9 Dec 1932) who wrote Sultana’s Dream (1905), perhaps the first feminist novel in the world with a sci-fi story involving a Utopia where male-female roles reverse. She spent her life working tirelessly for social reform and wrote courageously against restrictions on women, for women’s emancipation, ending the gender based division of labour.

Bangladesh is also a signatory to the Convention 183 - Maternity Protection Convention, 2000 (No. 183) but it has not ratified the Convention so far. The Labour Act 2006 in the land of Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain continues to see pregnancy as an individual woman’s issue because it does not recognize men’s role in pregnancy, child-birth and in caring for a child, and it continues to treat pregnancy as a financial burden on the employer and an economic drain for the larger economy. It is far from recognizing the social returns and the economic dividend that the country gains from this individual function of women. Pregnant and lactating women and those with children who still require care are still vulnerable in the formal economy workplace and completely unprotected in the informal economy.

Discrimination against migrant Bangladeshi women workers does not make the situation look any less bleak. Most countries of destination for the migrant workers do not recruit pregnant women and the health checks within Bangladesh wean off pregnant women from the list of potential migrant workers. Countries like Singapore and Malaysia have a requirement of periodic health checks, which include pregnancy tests and as per their laws/rules they can send back women who are found to be pregnant. The stories of women being harassed and sacked after becoming pregnant in the countries of the Middle-East, or of women being made to sign pledges that they will not become pregnant, and being denied paid maternity leave are not uncommon.

One cannot even imagine the trauma that women, who have been trafficked, smuggled for forced labour or who have crossed the borders through irregular migration channels have to go through when they get pregnant.

Photo: Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights

To tie in with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on 25 Nov 2012, the ILO, in collaboration with a number of other UN agencies, has published Maternity Resource Package to help organizations, government ministries, workers and employers organizations strengthen and extend maternity protection to women at work. The Maternity Resource Package can be accessed at: http://mprp.itcilo.org/pages/en/index.html.
 
As per the ILO, the aim of such protection is to preserve the health of the mother and her new baby and to provide economic security for the women and their families. This can be achieved through maternity leave, cash and medical benefits, health protection in the workplace, employment protection and non-discrimination, and breastfeeding at work.

Since the societies and economies gain from women’s role involving pregnancy, child-birth, and child-care, maternity protection is not just a personal issue, it is a political issue that requires a concerted political action. Maternity protection and gender equality in the process of child-care help achieve a number of development goals. ILO, therefore, regards it as a collective responsibility. It suggests that the governments, employers, recruiters and workers need to work together in a social dialogue so we can find solutions that meet the rights and the needs of the women workers in both the domestic economy and in the countries of destination where migrant Bangladeshi women live and work or aspire to go.

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Disability and Violence against Women

Photo: Art for Prabhat, Disability India Network

Within the gamut of violence against women, one of the things that I find extremely intriguing, at least, in the context of India, is reluctance among organizations and activists to take up issues of sexual violence against children, especially girls by their family members and sexual violence against disabled women. Here, I want to bring attention to a general apathy, and denial around sexual lives of disabled women and sexual violence against them. References to sexual rights of this population group and their violations are rarely heard. Discussion and programmes designed to address violence against women rarely keep this group in view. These groups’ numerical under-representation in the organizations working on violence against women could be one of the reasons.

I find that the reluctance also has to do with this group being a minority – accessing information about the abuses this group goes through and reaching them with protection and care services would require some extra efforts which do not seem ‘cost effective’ to many.

The disability movement in India has focused on political ideas of universal physical access and survival. The issue of violence against them is not a priority. As a result, public and private violence against disabled women, especially intellectually challenged women, has not surfaced as an issue.

Families, most of them, somehow cannot see their intellectually challenged family members as anything other than a curse and a liability on the family. It is not surprising then that despite protests by some women’s activists, institutional violence against disabled women is sometimes carried out with the support of their family members. Examples of such collaborations include prevention of (potential) pregnancy by violent methods like vaginal hysterectomy or uterine hysterectomy.

These actions are given the name of protection measures. But protection from what – living with implications of having a sexual life or from implications of sexual violence like rape? If such measures are a protection from implications of having a sexual life, shouldn’t one treat these measures as violations of reproductive rights? And if these measures are being treated as protection from implications of sexual violence like rape, shouldn’t these measures be considered as institutional and family ‘approval’ of men’s ‘right’ to rape women?

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Protection of the Girl Child

 

Photo: Guardian

Battered baby in coma: http://ow.ly/8JASu

Two female foetuses found in CP dustbins: http://ow.ly/8JAV3

Manipur girl raped in Delhi: 48 hours on, no breakthrough
Read more at: http://ow.ly/8JCQt 

Girl jumps off roof to escape rape: http://ow.ly/8JB3u

A class X student was allegedly raped: http://ow.ly/8JBmO

The above links are just a few examples to indicate the status and extent of sexual abuse of women and girls in the city of Delhi alone. Abuse at home remains a taboo topic, rarely brought out.

Most child abuse is committed by the person a child trusts

Sexual abuse of children in any form of household setting by a family member or someone in a holding power over a child in India is among the most urgent forms of child abuse which our society must address. As per women's organizations and activists nearly ninety-five percent of the abused are girls and more than ninety-five percent abusers are males. Surveys carried out in schools and informal chats reveal that around 40% girls experience incest abuse or sexual abuse in one or the other form in India. Still it is not an issue in most child protection discussions, policies and measures. Till now majority of the Indians avoid it or deny it and ignore it. We have been an ostrich society.

 

Feminists in India have been are in the forefront among those who are ready to spell, explain, and act against incest abuse. There are lawyers and child rights activists as well who have been raising the issue. But even if we put together all such people, they are still not a critical mass and their views strong enough to be able to impact consciousness of the policymakers, police, lawyers, judges, teachers, schools, mental, physical and sexual health professionals, and all those who could take up the issue. In general incest abuse continues to be treated as a rarity rather than a norm.

Backlash against the victim or survivor of incest abuse or those who try to support the victim or survivor is commonplace. Family honour, social sniggering and abuse of other family members of the abused child and a lack of support mechanism and resources are major barriers that prevent the defence of the abused child - within the household and or from resorting to legal defence. More than often there is a counter attack on an abused child by the other family members, if the child dares to report or complain or raise the issue in any other form.

The Indian laws on sexual offences do not recognize incest abuse. For that matter, even the broader issue of child sexual abuse is not addressed by the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860, specifically Section 376 of the IPC. As of now recognition of sexual abuse is limited only to rape (read vaginal-penis intercourse) and sodomy. Any other form of rape and abuse is expressed as 'outraging the modesty' and is a bailable offence in the law (Section 354 of the IPC). The limitations of such a law reduce it to mere tokenism. Anomaly among several laws affecting children make it further easier for abuse of children in homes to go on.

There have been several talks of amendment of the IPC over the last two decades but till the profile of the issue is visible among those involved in advocacy and processing of the amendment, it is bound to be ignored.

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Power is Money and Money is Power?




Paid Work. Photo Courtesy: Commonwealth Foundation



The road to equality in rights, in ability to exercise those rights, and in being able to obtain redress when rights are violated is a story of crossovers of human rights not often recognized. Often, protection of a particular right is seen as enough. For example, many believe that if women are ‘bestowed’ with economic rights it will end the discriminations against girls and violations of women’s human rights. The rationale behind this thinking is that money gives a person power. In other words, पैसा बोलता है!

It is correct that economic empowerment of the vast majority, especially in a poverty-ridden context such as India, is a critical need that must be met. More so when we have all data to see that the income gap has worsened in the last decade. But the limitations of the economic empowerment approach as an isolated-strategy, as far as girls and women are concerned, are also out there to see. The limitations exist in the form of dowry-murders of educated and employed women, double-whammy of paid work and unpaid household work that economically empowered women have to suffer, denial of certain civil rights like ‘equal parenthood’ to married/divorcee women, demands to write ‘father’s/husband’s name’ in any and every document with a bit of legality involved and so on. The fact that women who bring dowry get killed for bringing ‘less than expected dowry’ or ‘no more dowry’ shows that women, when it comes to money, are seen as conduits to bring money or sources of unpaid work that would save and build up money of their husband/father and the rest. This is why women have such poor control over their resources and income. This means that women's ability to earn an income or bring resources home cannot be equated with or assumed to mean control of income and an ability to own, use, and dispose material assets. The question is what is preventing women from using money as power ever so often?

Unpaid Work. Photo Courtesy:
Socio Economic Research Institute

At the immediate level, household relationships affect women's ability to control their income. Prevailing codes of gender relationships may place the husband/father/another male recognized as having rights over a women in control of all or some income/resources of a woman. Women are often not involved in the savings, investment or expenditure related discussions and decision-making. When their name is added to ownership documents, it is usually to benefit from the certain taxation policies. It is also not unusual to find that majority women are still given a fixed sum every month by their husbands to run the kitchen even if the income has been earned by women. And this does not happen only in the rural or urban slum areas.

The next level that affects women’s economic empowerment from bringing empowerment in the other realms of life can be called the neighbourhood or environmental barrier. This barrier varies in its controlling power from culture to culture, region to region, class to class and sometimes, a bit also from caste to caste.  But, on the whole, this barrier aims to ensure that women’s economic empowerment does not pose a threat to patriarchal family relations.  This barrier exists in the form of socio-cultural practices like early/child marriage; denial of women’s choices with regard to who they would like to marry or whether or not they would like to stay in a marriage; procreation being treated as women’s duty and  determining the number of and spacing between children a male preserve; recognizing descent through male lineage; dime-a-dozen festivals like karwa-chauth and teej, which tell women that they are nothing without their husbands or like raksha-bandhan or rakhi that tell girls they can’t protect themselves and will always need the protection of their brothers; and so on. This barrier works by establishing women as ‘dependents’ and thereby reducing their bargaining power vis-à-vis their male family members and in doing so not recognizing women as equal members of the society.

Agriculture Extension. Photo Courtesy:
Institute for Integrated Rural Development

At the outer level, because of the denial or repression of the social and cultural rights, the discrimination against women continues to be evident in the economic fields as well. This includes job market and entrepreneurship opportunities. Denial of equality in the social and cultural realms means that women, without male relatives, have limited access to social security; continue to be treated as unwanted children so either get killed in the womb or attract little investment in their health and education, and as a result, have high rates of illiteracy in comparison to men; and live in the extreme poverty and with social exclusion.

In terms of economic impact of the above, women come out as a lower-grade human resource who cannot either meet demands of the job market or match the requisites of the entrepreneurship opportunities because they lack in relevant skills and education and do not have collaterals of offer. Where women are qualified to meet these demands, they are seen as incapable because of gender stereotypes. Sometimes, the job market cannot reject women on grounds of qualifications or a perceived lack of capacity due to the affirmative legal provisions but employers still go ahead and under-pay or deny equal opportunities to women because they are confident that the justice system will be inaccessible to women. 

The cumulative impact of the above is also felt on their political participation, which is no small deal. Limited or restricted political participation affects women’s ability to protect and promote their rights through public policies, laws and oversight. It prevents them from holding their elected representatives and the governance system accountable to them.

The basic problem is that discrimination against girls and women is engrained the socio-cultural, economic and political fabric of the country. The discriminations are deep-seated beliefs and practices that have been institutionalized. They are what may be termed as structural inequalities. These inequalities are pervasive in all public and private spheres, including the economy, education, labour, health, justice and decision-making and so on. These inequalities do not occur in isolation rather crossover from one sector to another and act simultaneously.

So what do we take from the fact that women have less means than men to satisfy basic needs like education, training, food, access to housing and to the specialized health services, like, safe child-birth, pre and post natal medical facilities, contraception, and women specific diseases; that they are particularly vulnerable to physical and sexual violence; and that they have limited options when it comes to finding decent work and having a voice in shaping public in their countries? In my opinion, it shows the defeat of the isolated-strategies and calls for multi-pronged concerted strategies for promoting and protecting all of women’s human rights. 

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Dressed to Get Raped, They Said.

He said that the ‘others’ say that when women dress ‘fashionably’, they incite the onlookers. He further added that if what the ‘others’ say were not true, why the schools and colleges would stop them from wearing such clothing. He is the senior most police official of a metropolitan city in India. He knows ‘better’.

I thought that he is such a drab. At least, he could have been a little creative in ‘repeating’ what the others say. But then the Indian Police Services does not hire people for their creativity or their ability to analyze, and be resourceful and innovative in problem-solving. Not his fault when his society, his Police Service and those around him have either taught him to follow what is already laid down or tolerate what he says because he speaks from a position of power. Especially not when he claims that media misrepresented him and that what he said was a repetition of what the ‘others’ say. Now how can he distort what the others say! He can’t.   

So as ‘they’ say, women and girls invite molesters and rapists when they dress in a certain way – short or tight, off-shoulder or hipster, backless or cleavage revealing, and so on. Applying ‘their’ argument, in a country where about 40-50% of men are probably dhoti or lungi-clad with torso uncovered or covered with unbuttoned shirts or torn under-shirts, all the women who see these men should be on sexual high forever. Alas, no. What’s wrong with these men’s bare legs, chests, and all the other parts that some of them and some other fully dressed men keep flashing on little girls, big girls and women? Nothing, women do not have such needs; men need sex more, ‘they’ say. Now who can stop somebody from meeting a ‘need’ when it is so well-established that men have ‘more need’ and are not responsible for creating this ‘more need’. Perhaps this is why in so many parts of the world, the institutions of marriage, religion, culture and tradition, have formalized sexual slavery of women. Only lack of social intelligence can inhibit a person from seeing a ‘fact’ so clearly laid out and stated so often.

Now in these times, because of the men-hating feminist women and some insane feminist men so many rubbish laws have come up, which brand ‘meeting the need’ as sexual abuse or rape. When these simple acts of ‘meeting a need’ are branded as crimes, obviously the so-called rapists and sexual abusers are overwhelmingly men. It’s a trap laid out by these feminists, you see.

Isn’t worth wondering why these feminists make the so-called sexual violence their issue? After all, sometimes, when the little boys or young men appear more ‘dressed up’ for ‘meeting the need’, they are the ones who are ‘used to meet the need’. Shouldn’t feminists, if at all, raise it as an issue if the so-called victims were only girls and women; they can’t do so when they are predominantly girls and women? Why don’t these feminists teach girls and women to mind their clothing and be what they call ‘safe’? Why do they waste their time and others’ by asking frivolous question like ‘why do men rape and how can a society and governance system recognize, take action and stop it’?  How a society can stop them, when it’s a natural need that men have and a society is supposed to help its members meet their needs!

It would be so much easier for the men to control themselves, if girls and women, little boys and young boys do not sexually excite them. It is so easy for girls and women to mind their clothing and behaviour. After all, they are taught to fear, not to trust men, behave ‘decently’ and take all precautions, like not going out of the home or not going out alone, not playing and definitely not playing with boys and men, if out then not staying out late; not drinking or smoking, etc. It’s another thing that they may get sexually abused or raped in their homes. How long can men control themselves with little and big women pondering around them and some men have ‘much more need’ than the others. It may so happen that burqa-clad girls and women and women with ghunghat as down as to touch the ground, get sexually abused or raped. This is because there’s something inciting in their body movement and that is why women are taught to mind the way they walk, sit, get up or lie down from a young age. It may also happen that a seventy year old woman suddenly finds a man mounted on her. But such acts happening in homes with girls and women or with elderly women are aberrations. These incidents happen when the society fails to recognize and meet the rather ‘more frequent needs’. Sometimes, some women need to be taught a lesson or else the others’ start becoming careless about the teachings they receive. Sometimes, some girls and women need to be sexually abused or raped to teach a lesson to the men in their families. Men who are relatives, immediate relatives more so, have a responsibility to control the bodies and sexual conducts of ‘their’ girls and women and the way to discredit these men’s abilities is by showing that they have failed.

If only the feminists could see that what they call sexual violence or rape is ‘inevitable by-products’ of the way girls and women dress and behave!

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F I R E

Seething -

Suppressed

Fermented

Turmoil took over the streets

"The Arab Spring"                                                                     

Flickering -

Distressed

Anxious

Fear crossed his face as the crowd  impersonated him

“Gaddafi”                                                                                    

Dancing -

Rhythmically

Passionately

They moved and were laid to rest
“Children of Syria”                                                                                        

Spreading -

Wings

Horizon

Flame to flame words multiplied mocking boundaries
“Crack Down on Internet Freedoms”                                                           

 

Slowly -

Determinately

Sensitively

Joining hands they walked
“The Arab Women”                                                                          



Energetically -

Emotionally

Forcefully

They led from the front

“Young Men and Women in the Arab Region”                  

 

  

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Migrant Women Workers

Image: MS Office

Migration ceased to be a venture of a select few looking for better avenues long time back. One can safely say that since medieval period it has become a compulsion for farm workers, domestic workers and small landholders workers who are simply looking for a source of income to survive. It is estimated that 1 out of every 6 persons, that is, more than 1 billion persons, are migrating within countries and internally, in search of employment. Of these 1 billion, 72% are women[1]. This is even more so when it comes to women migrant workers, whose numbers have been increasing, now constituting 50 percent or more of the migrant workforce in Asia and Latin America[2]. According to a study that focuses on women’s migration labour from and between six countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region[3], the numbers of women who undertake migrant labour in Southern Africa have been increasing significantly over the past decade. Most people when they think of migrant labour, usually imagine a male face. But over the years, due to several socio-economic and political changes the face of the African migrant labour is changing into a twin woman-man face. Women now make up almost 50% of migrants in the SADC region.

Globalization of labour:

Globalization has contributed to an increasing flow of migrant workers from countries with limited economic opportunities to fill gaps in nations with a dwindling labour supply, for eg, from Somalia to Canada, or in nations which may offer better remuneration for the same work, for eg, from Afghanistan to Iran. Globalisation has also opened up markets for skilled workers and the decrease in traditional labour employment areas such as mining and agriculture. This has provided new entry points for the migrant labour into economies, for example in the service sector. Women are increasingly participating in the trans-national informal sector (for eg, as construction workers in countries other than theirs), and cross-border trade (for eg, between Tanzania and Kenya). This said, since globalization of labour is also characterized by increasing demand for skilled workers and is, therefore, leading to job losses and further impoverishment of unskilled workers. Globalization, in this sense, has created a complex tension between the demand for skilled labour and constraints imposed on unskilled workforce.

Globalization pushes the States to open up the borders for economic transactions. This is leading to increasing number of free trade agreements between countries, emergence and growth of multinational corporations and common markets such as the one mooted and promoted by the East African Community (EAC) for the free flow of products. While the borders are opened for the free flow of products, the borders remain closed for the labourers. Globalization, in this sense, has created another kind of tension between the rich and the poor countries. The developed countries, more than ever before, are banging their doors shut on those seeking refuge or work. Since global concept of production is based on comparative advantage, production sectors within developing economies are losing the diversity of production and labour employed in subsistence production, which benefitted from the diversity of production, is forced to cross borders hiding in trucks and boats or clinging to lifeboats adrift in the oceans.

Within Africa both rural to urban and cross-border migration has been significant due to domestic economic reasons as well as due to colonization. Colonization crated new boundaries, divided communities and separated families and clans. These separations had the effect of increasing cross-border movement. Since the end of colonization, intra-regional migration in SADC includes temporary migration, including workers and seasonal migrants, permanent migration, forced migration and refugee or asylum-seekers. Refugees/Asylum-seekers usually come from politically unstable countries such as Angola, Mozambique and more recently from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, as well as countries that do not belong to SADC.

Recent trends in migration are increasingly marked by movements linked to cross border-trading and related businesses and street vending, and less by formal employment because, as mentioned earlier, formal employment opportunities are becoming more and more demanding on skills.

Women as migrant labour:

The migrant labour endeavour is a double-edged sword for women. On the one hand, becoming a migrant labourer can mean the acquisition of new skills and uplifting one’s family and community financially, but on the other, women migrant workers expose themselves to several risks during this process.

While globalization may foster the acceleration of trade and investment, it does not create an environment that protects migrant workers’ economic, social and physical security. By creating new economic opportunities, migration can promote economic independence and status for women workers, who provide safety nets that sustain communities at home. But here’s the flip-side of the story: Many of the smugglers of human-labour are part of a growing ring of sex-traffickers. Huge numbers of poverty-stricken girls and women accept the promise of a good job or forced into so-called marriages with financially well to do husband but find they have been tricked into sex work as has been revealed from several cases in the South Asia. Cases noted from Nepal and Philippines suggest that some girls are even sold to smugglers by poverty-stricken families who see them as their only hope for an escape from poverty. Most women trafficked for sex work come from Asia, but increasingly Eastern European women are also getting into ‘international sex trade’ due to the hardship created after the erosion of the social safety nets in their countries.

The chain of exploiters for migrant workers, especially those seeking unskilled jobs include the brokers who facilitate passport, etc, recruiters who find employers and help obtain visa, employers who secure work-permit, and migration officials. Migrant workers are often illiterate or semi-literate and often have limited knowledge about and access to information regarding their rights. Women migrant workers are vulnerable as women, and like the rest, as foreigners and as unskilled labourers, and are exposed to possible abuse and exploitation such as physical and social isolation, and sexual and physical violence. Countries, where the migrant workers migrate to, also resent them when they have to pay for medical and legal services required by the migrant workers.

Marginalization, racial discrimination and suspicion are all too well known to the migrant women workers. Some countries do racial profiling on grounds of suspicion of a threat to security or sex work. Many women, unable to understand the bureaucracy around migration, find themselves declared ‘illegal’ and in detention centres for months or even years at a time, imprisoned for reasons not known to them. Women and girls going for either domestic work or sex-work, are usually left high and dry by the brokers, recruiters or employers who take their passport and a large chunk of their income. It is not unknown to find cases of women migrant workers being kept imprisoned, unable to escape. When the police of the receiving country reaches them, women migrant workers are usually hesitant to speak out about abuses they suffer because of the fear of deportation or greater sense of economic insecurity.

Combinations of poverty, gender discrimination, abuse, armed conflict, HIV & AIDS and climate change push women to seek employment in other countries. Though there is no data to establish, migrant women have been noticed to be more likely to be divorced, separated or have been abandoned. Similarly, migrant women are also more likely to be widowed than men. The study of migration of women from SADC countries suggests that increasingly, women migrant workers are primary economic providers and heads of households. They often travel alone and need to return to migrant occupations repeatedly.

Key sectors in which women migrant workers are involved:



Image: Christian Aid

As far as unskilled of semiskilled women are concerned, women and girls from all over the world are recruited to be domestic workers. In Africa and Asia girls from rural areas are often expected to move to urban areas and become domestic workers in order to help support their families financially. In North America and Europe, women from South America and Asia and in the Middle-east, women and girls from South-east Asia and South Asia work in the homes of the rich sending money back home to their families abroad. Common experiences of domestic workers include low wages, long working hours, no time off, loneliness, verbal and sometimes physical abuse, being forced to wear uniforms and act in roles of servitude, heavy work demands, homesickness, the denial of a family life of one's own, racism, and vulnerability to sexual abuse and HIV/AIDS[4].

Many women are involved in cross border informal businesses, crossing borders for small periods of time or even daily. Their daily life, therefore, is marked by daily saga of exploitation and abuse.

Migrant women in SADC region, usually find employment as domestic workers or entertainers, or other fields that are not regulated by labour laws. The agricultural sector absorbs a large amount of migrant workers, but its seasonal nature does not make for a stable year-round income. Thus a combination of elements, such as local conflicts and global restructuring of work, result in an array of migration patterns in Southern Africa.

Women migrant workers and economic development:

 

Image: Christian Aid

Studies indicate that migrant women workers contribute to the development of both sending and receiving countries — Ethiopians in diaspora sent a total of $591 million to Ethiopia in 2006, which is nearly 4.4% of Ethiopia's GDP and Eritrea received $411 million in remittance money, which amounts to 38% of Eritrea's GDP[5]. In Somalia, remittances are regarded as the ‘lifeline to survival’. In 2008, remittances were estimated by the World Bank at US$305 billion. These monetary investments — used for food, housing, education and medical services — along with newly acquired skills of returnees, can potentially contribute significantly to poverty reduction and the Millennium Development Goals[2].

Some women acquire new skills through their migrant occupations, which they use to contribute to both the host and their own countries’ economies. The sending and receiving countries benefit from the remittances women send and the productive investments they are able to make with their earned income. In households, which receive remittances, the bulk is utilized to cover basic needs and services, with differences depending on the country. Most remittances are spent on education in Zimbabwe (57%) and Mozambique (57%), while a significant portion is also spent on medicine in Zimbabwe (40%), Swaziland (39%) and Mozambique (31 %). Recipient households reported having contracted loans to purchase food, etc also use the remittance to pay-off debts. These examples suggest that the households of migrant women workers are highly dependent on external sources of income. In general, remittances seem to be protecting human development because they allow families to pay for education, health, electricity, water and other services, when they are not provided by the State. It can be said then that poverty reduction and community development could be aided by these remittances. Examples from Kerala in India shows that these benefits include improved local physical infrastructure, growth of local commodity markets, development of new services, changes to cultural practices that harm girl children and generation of local employment opportunities.

Migration and the UN:

The UN has adopted several conventions to protect migrant workers including the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. However this convention is not in effect because it has not been signed by enough countries. There is also a UN protocol dealing with the rights of trafficked women and children under the International Convention on Transnational Organized Crime and the Optional Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children.

To learn More:

For more information on migrant workers see the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Fact Sheet on http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FactSheet24rev.1en.pdf and violence against women migrant workers on http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/vaw/v-hrc.htm.   

References:

[1] Enaskhi Dua. "Beyond Diversity: Exploring Ways in which the Discourse of Race has Shaped the Institution of the Nuclear Family" in Enashki Dua and Angela Robertson. Eds. Scratching the Surface: Canadian Anti-Feminist Thought. Toronto: Women's Press, 1999. pp 237-260. Quoted in Helene Moussa "Global Surge in Forced Migration Linked to Colonial Past".

[2] United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM - now part of UN Women). http://www.unifem.org/

[3] United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (UN-INSTRAW - now part of UN Women) and the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA). “Gender, Migration and Remittances in Selected SADC Countries: Preliminary Findings”.The study focuses on cross-border migration to and from Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland, although it refers to other countries when there are notable trends, particularly related to the relatively unexplored subject of gender

[4] Abigail Bakan and Daiva Stasiulis. Not One of the Family: Foreign Domestic Workers in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997.

[5] UN's International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)

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We Live in a World of Ineffective Efforts; Well, Most of the Time!

Union Carbide Gas Leak on the night of
the 2nd and 3rd of Dec 1984 in Bhopal,
was perhaps, the worst industrial disaster
in the human history. 25 years on, the
survivors are still denied justice.
 Image: India Protest

Nobody denies that established and efficient justice systems are essential for getting justice. The ‘established’ part is not the problem. Using the development and humanitarian world jargons, there exist all sorts of ‘formal’ [implying a state run system] and ‘informal’ [implying a plethora of systems that exist and operate based on tradition, customs, religions, a mix of some or all of these]. The significant difference being the appointment of the judges in the case of the former is by a state authority and in the case of the latter, by community elders/elite/religious heads or even by heredity.

‘Established’ does not mean an ‘efficient’ justice system. Both the formal and informal justice systems are fraught with not only the most serious disturbing practices, corruption being one of them, abuse of authority to harass the petitioners being another.

A mother and child left dead by
the Union Carbide Gas Leak in Bhopal.
Image: Avaaz

Neither ‘established’ nor ‘efficient’ mean ‘effective’ in terms of upholding and standing for fairness and equality in the application of rights. One of fundamental flaws of both the systems has been their damaging role in the unjust distribution of rights, responsibilities and power to those who seek their intervention as well as those who are subjects of the implementation of the judgments delivered by them. Don’t we remember the Bhanwari Devi case and denial of justice to her and many more injustices that she had to suffer because of the failure of the state justice system? We do. The increasingly notorious Khap Panchayats or the traditional caste councils, which rule on who can and cannot marry and who should be penalized for what and how, stare into our faces. No woman can afford to forget the Imrana Rape case the misogynist roles played by the local Muslim Panchayat and the Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband.

Notwithstanding some good examples of how the formal or informal justice systems can deliver public services fairly and uphold rights applying the principle of equality in rights and equality before law, by and large they have failed to evoke a degree of trust among those who need the justice systems the most. The groups which need the justice systems the most are the dalit, poor, children, women, religious marginalized and others who continue to be discriminated, exploited and abused.

Bhanwari Devi and Her Spouse: Inspirational.
Image: Tehelka

There is no dearth of knowledge about how to mediate conflict, whether at the family, social, economic or political levels to establish equality and justice. The challenge continues to be with the lack of the governance system’s will to facilitate institutional change and to take action against those in the justice systems who are rotting the justice systems.

The engagement with the informal justice systems is turning into a fad in the international development and cooperation sphere. This growth is without much attention to how un-equitable the foundations of the traditional or religious justice structures are and how growth in their strength would promote the powers of the traditional and religious elites. The idea to establish context specific justice systems is laudable but the efforts to apply the idea are too simplistic and shallow. Often this results not in development of equitable and accessible justice systems rather in making of a bigger monster out of the traditional and religious justice structures.



Imrana, the victim branded as a sinner.
Image: Outlook

 The overarching governance structure of a country needs to recognize that the formulation, application and adjudication of laws and delivery of justice in plural socio-religious contexts is far more complex and personal biases of judges, lawyers and others in the justice systems is more likely to damage not just the individual rights-holders but also the social harmony and development. This implies that the reform of the justice system structures without a reform of the people who work in those structures will not make these structures contribute to democratization and improved governance in the country. Any effort to reform the people in the justice systems needs to further recognize that the knowledge of law per se is not adequate that these people need to learn to analyze their own internalized beliefs and behaviours, how the laws came about and what kind of thinking promoted formulation of the law, what was the political climate and what imperatives left to the particular laws, and so on. This is needed for them to have the intellectual capacity to understand the laws from various angles and apply them in a manner that delivers on equality in justice.

The other efforts of researching justice system, analyzing the role they play and of engaging them in a dialogue for reform, need to be strengthened by intensive public oversight, especially oversight by the citizens groups who need the justice systems the most. There is need to understand where these investments in the informal justice systems are leading and what type of trends with regard to long-term consequences are emerging so lessons can be learned and applied in the current and future reform related engagements.

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Why Marriage?

Some years back, we faced this question in a development course. Two of the discussants divided the question into two: Why Women marry? Why men marry? One of them kept the discussion to the basic issues and the other went in-depth into negotiation, survival needs and social and cultural options. Both peeked at the household economic models and theories like the ‘Black Box’, Neoclassical, and Bargaining/ Co-operative, etc. Both came to the same conclusion that women and men marry based on a personal perception of well-being. This perception, according to one of them, is a result of a negotiation between a woman/man’s survival needs and socio-cultural constructions of what ‘personal well-being’ means.

Taking Amartya Sen’s example of a rural Indian woman, who is not likely to extract her own welfare from that of her household and conceive of her own well-being as separate from that of her family’s, the discussant argued that the household, therefore, is the locus of inequality where discrimination and exploitation of women’s labour get naturalized. In other words, a woman from my part of the world is likely to marry based on what she considers to be her well-being but which may not necessarily be her well-being. Does this mean a North American or European woman is more likely to marry based on her sense of ‘personal well-being’, which is more individual centered and that she is more likely to be able to deconstruct the larger structures of inequality and thereby better placed to negotiate her position in the family? This is another debate and we shall come to it some other day. For today, so far, we have one reason which may make women and men inclined to get married. Let's look at some other reasons also.

The brokers of the सात फेरा, मंगलसुत्र, गठबंधन, सिंदूर, the wedding ring, et al or those who market the practice of marriage as ‘the holy state’ of matrimony tend to ascribe some sacredness and centrality of this practice for the institution called family. These brokers, in general, have a big say in the decision to marry, whether to be taken by the individual or the relatives, and/or the family. In some contexts, even when people have little more than a token affiliation with a religion, they tend to stick to the religious boundaries when it comes to marriage. This is not always based on a fear of reprimand or being ostracized. Rather it is based on deep seated belief in the advantages of segregation based on religious affiliation. This belief has a profound influence in the decision about who is fit to mate or is sacred enough to be a partner in personal and family life.

The brokers insist that all the matches for ‘this world’ are made in the ‘other world’ and that it is the duty of the follower to accept the person who the god selected for them. Marriage itself is regarded as a religious obligation by them. Among people who have an inclination to accept that they have a duty to marry, procreation has special value attached to it. Children are the gifts from the god or marriage and children come as a package gift from the god. In other words, religious brokers emphasize shared beliefs in religion, marriage and procreation as a foundation for the continuation of particular faiths, beliefs and way of conducting life. No wonder divorce is a taboo subject in the books of the brokers because ‘What God hath put together, let no man [or woman] put asunder’. But divorce is another [related] issue, not to be brought into today’s discussion [though an interesting one to understand how even when religion says yes to divorce, how religio-legalities disallow it].

The sociologists believe that marriage is a practice to establish a social order. Through marriage women and men are put together in a relationship of social and legal obligations to fulfill social and economic objectives. It is believed that marriage is a good way to put people’s mental and physical health, sex life, solid and liquid assets in an organized state. It is an institution that allows people to meet their sexual desires in a manner that doesn’t harm anybody [or so we like to believe]. It also helps bring together people with greater commitment and therefore provide a safer ground for procreation and responsible environment for bringing up children.

There is no doubt about the economic value of marriage [albeit disputed by some men]. Women have been free labour, partly thanks to the practice of marriage [remember, the complimentarity argument]. The many justifications for marriage advanced through centuries have one angle which has to do with ‘value’-based labour which leads to communal and family wellbeing and another angle of ‘income-based’ labour which brings income to the community and the family. The history of these arguments have subordinated the ‘value’-based labour and elevated the ‘income-based’ labour. The economic argument in an age when the ‘income-based labour has been making more sense to more and more number of women and there is considerable increase in educational and political equality, seems to be fading away. We will come back to this point a little later.

Then there is the whole economy of marriage where the marriage is seen as a contract. This particular reason for marriage does not quite stand on its own. Rather it stands as a dimension in all the above arguments and will remain, in my opinion, a factor in any other current or future reasons for marriage. A marriage contract can be visible or invisible; stated or assumed; or legal or social. For centuries, marriage has involved contracts like the dowry that a bride’s family gives to the groom’s family, the bride price that a groom’s family gives to the bride’s family [they are not to be confused as the same because the theories behind are completely different], exchange of women through marriage for settling disputes between families, giving a daughter or a sister in marriage for settling a debt or to earn goodwill and so on. These practices may sound like buying, selling, discounting and writing off or collateral and the kind that takes place in a market place. Indeed, these practices are exactly that. These contracts also create a lot of employment for people willing to serve as brokers [who are often clan members, church leaders, mullahs, priests, village or community elders, and the like].

In a secular legal context, the terms and conditions of a marriage contract may not have so much of economic angle but does have implications for how responsibilities will be attended and by whom. It is also a way to safeguard the rights of the contracting parties by registration and legitimizing by the state.

In many societies since history began and in the larger visible societies in the last century or so, there have been some departures from the above-mentioned reasons. Marriage here is seen as a relationship between individuals for mutual comfort and assistance and so the personal compatibility issues are as important as procreative and contract aspects of the practice. Now with the lessening of the some other dimensions of the marriage, the centrality of this practice to a family and communal life of an individual has also weakened. Alternatives to marriage are growing as a practice and marriage is increasingly being viewed as essentially an additionality that strengthens the emotional bonding and trust because of some level of social and contractual security that it brings with it.

The alternatives to marriage tend to require a lot of other things but often less commitments of social and contractual/legal nature. This is one of the reasons why some men are a game for the alternatives because they get comforts of a relationship without being responsible for it. Some of them, on the other hand, resent the women’s preference for the alternatives because they stand to lose out on the ‘value’-based labour or the fact that a woman is not willing to commit makes them feel insecure. But alternatives to marriage do not necessarily make the relationships any more egalitarian. Individuals, due to these two factors among several other possible reasons, find themselves participating in inequitable relationships, which leads to both emotional stress and stress in the relationship. The more inequitable the relationship, the more stress they face. So in a nutshell, if not the reasons related to community and family, marital-economics or contracts, the individual needs of emotional security and commitment bring the focus back on marriage in the alternatives to marriage because it is seen as a demonstration of those two qualities. But even without marriage, any real or perceived emotional or material inequity in the relationship has an effect on intimacy and continuation of the relationship. But breakup is not something that we will discuss today!

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