Human traffickers make good business taking poorly educated girls from Nigerian villages to toil as domestic workers in the sprawling urban throb of Lagos. But the girls, some as young as five years old, see little or none of their earnings.

This meeting is designed for NGOs, CBOs, PVOs, FBOs, and other organizations working in the area of GBV and health from East and Southern Africa. Also invited are USAID, USG, and other donor organizations, government counterparts, and their implementing partners from the region.

When 45-year-old farmer Fefe Dari decided to perform genital excision on three girls in 2003, with the consent of their parents, little did she know that the tradition would land her a five-year jail sentence. Few of those who perform excision have been jailed under Ghana's 1994 law against the practice - as is the case in other African countries where excision is outlawed.

A recent analysis of data from nearly 1,500 in-person interviews with women in the urban district of Moshi, Tanzania, highlights the need for policies and programs aimed at empowering women to take control of their sex lives and fertility.

Women for Women International, a non-profit humanitarian organization, seeks submissions for the winter 2007 issue of its bi-annual academic journal, Critical Half. The journal is intended to raise awareness and spark debate among a variety of audiences by presenting various perspectives on economic, social, and political issues as they relate to women in international development and conflict and post-conflict societies.

7th September 2006 -- 2:30pm Sexual Offences Bill altered just days before finalisation Yesterday, the Justice Portfolio Committee added a new provision to the Sexual Offences Bill effectively aimed at criminalising the clients of sex workers.

What is the role of women in world trade?

Compared to 50 years ago, women represent an increasingly higher number of the world’s labour force, with many studies placing the number at over 50 percent. However, this doesn’t include women who work in the informal sector or the unpaid activities of women at the household level. On a broader level, women’s access to health care and education, for example, are profoundly influenced by national economic policy – meaning that if international economic best practice doesn’t take into account gender issues, then women are disadvantaged.

How does trade have an impact on women’s rights?

Trade liberalisation, which refers to the untaxed flow of goods and services between countries, has had positive and negative influences. Increasingly, the negative impacts of trade liberalisation, has made trade a central feature of advocacy work by gender activists. Women have gained jobs in the manufacturing sectors, but these jobs may not lead to positive social outcomes as women often work longer hours and are paid low wages. The opening of markets and the influx of cheaper goods have in some cases destroyed livelihoods, and it is women who have borne the brunt of these changes.

Have women’s rights been considered in international trade bodies?

The World Trade Organisation, an international rules-based and member driven organization which oversees a large number of agreements defining the "rules of trade" between its member states, has long been criticized for not including the voices of women, preferring to view trade as gender neutral. Moreover, its main decision making bodies are male-dominated. To this extent, nothing has been done to take into account or lessen the negative impact of trade liberalization on women’s rights. Despite increasingly loud voices, the WTO refuses to reform itself, has unclear rules about its decision making and operates in manner that is non-transparent.

What is the core of the problem? – Trade or the global economic system in which we conduct trade.

There is nothing wrong with trade per se; in fact the cornerstone of human society is based on trade. To human beings, trade is a tool for survival. However, a problem arises when one group of people uses trade to exploit and oppress another group of people. From a feminist standpoint, this normally happens in a patriarchal society. A patriarchal society is a society based on the belief that women are inferior to men. The global economic system is shaped and influenced by patriarchal logic. Indirectly and directly, the global economic system cultivates and encourages misogynists attitudes in traders, which nine out of ten times tend to be men.

What is the Alternative? Or, as patriarchal society puts the question: What do women want?

Women want to be treated with dignity and respect. Lots of feminists have said this before, but women want an end to sex discrimination by job definition and sex-role stereotyping in the media. Like any “normally” functioning group of people on the planet, women want equity and self-management . Women want a good economy that accomplishes central economic functions without exploitation of women, people of colour and the environment; but most importantly, women want an economy that meet people’s needs and develop their potential, to paraphrase Michael Albert.

What’s the solution to these problems?

Most governments are already signatories to a host of international agreements committing them to gender equality. These include the UN’s Beijing Platform for Action, which requires that governments correct imbalances that any policy, including economic policy, might create.

Economic policies are often fostered on countries by International Financial Institutions and donors. Officially, consultation in the implementation of these policies does take place, but in reality economic policy should be formulated through a democratic process that takes into account the voices of local people and considers the existing power relations within society.

Fact and Figures: Women’s rights and trade

- "Thirteen countries - of which Burundi, Liberia, Nigeria, Somalia and Tanzania are a few - are in the same shape or worse off today than they were in 1990. For almost 40 countries the data is insufficient to say anything, which probably reflects an even worse situation for women." - Social Watch, an NGO watchdog system (Source:

- ."...there is growing evidence that trade liberalization tends to disadvantage women, who constitute the majority of small-scale farmers in rural areas. According to the FAO, women make up about 44% of the formally documented agricultural work force in developing countries..." (Source:

Trade and human rights

Economic Partnership Agreements: Territorial conquest by economic means

Trade liberalisation, hunger and starvation

We are fatigued with charity, we know we can do it ourselves

Substantially reducing poverty in Africa will require massive policy shifts, writes Roselynn Musa. This is unlikely to happen unless the voices of women and poor people, which are largely missing from trade policy negotiations, are heard and respected.

It has often been propositioned that ‘trade’ and not ‘aid’ is the catalyst that will plunge African countries from unending poverty to economic prosperity. There is no denying the fact that trade has brought benefits for African women particularly in generating a rise in employment opportunities, yet research into the impacts of trade policy on gender relations and equality paints a disturbing picture. Such research shows that trade under similar terms has different impacts on women and men and often affects women more negatively than positively in their position as workers, consumers, producers, and care givers within the domestic sphere. It also shows that even among women trade affects urban dwellers differently from rural dwellers and younger women differently from older women.

This paper therefore challenges the myth which claims that trade liberalisation brings many benefits at very little cost. Trade liberalisation can bring benefits to a country, but it is also true that trade liberalisation imposes heavy burdens on women as workers in Export Processing Zones (EPZs) and in commercial agriculture. It discusses issues of gender and trade in Africa centering on employment, labour, privatization, salary gaps, and the impact of trade on productive and reproductive spheres. It concludes with steps that could be taken to promote gender equitable trade relations in Africa.

It is evident that trade liberalisation has different outcomes for men and women. These differential impacts relate to many of the most fundamental aspects of livelihoods and well-being, including employment, income, food security and access to health services. The outcomes differ across countries and regions and are based on the type of economic area and specific sector, measures, timing and sequencing of trade policies. They also cut across different sectors and sub-sectors of trade liberalisation: agriculture, services, clothing and textiles, and intellectual property.

Practically, the impacts of trade are felt by individual men and women as fluctuations in price (and hence availability of goods) and through changes in output (what people work to produce, how and under what conditions). The main argument of the proponents of free market policies, including some gender advocates, is that increased trade and investment liberalisation can improve a country’s economic growth, which in turn can increase women’s participation in the labour market. Consequently there have been increased employment opportunities in non-traditional agriculture such as cut flowers, and clothing and textiles, and the services sectors.

Trade may bring new employment and business opportunities, but existing inequalities such as low skills and gendered division of labour means that any adverse effect of trade liberalization - including impacts on the labour market and working conditions - are felt more by women than men.

The impacts of trade liberalisation may vary at different levels of the economy, and may differ between women and men. Yet the picture is often complex and contradictory. For example, African women have benefited from trade liberalisation by increasing their access to employment such as in the Economic Processing Zones (EPZs), but at the same time, African women have paid the price of adjustments in their roles in household management and traditional agriculture, which have been negatively impacted.

The inequality emanating from the differential impacts that trade has on women and men can be effectively addressed and government and other international players held accountable for existing commitments on women’s human rights conventions during trade negotiations. For example, the lack of a mechanism to hold the current trade and international financial regimes into account on women’s rights is evident. This is aggravated by the fact that these regimes did not exist at the time of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the resultant Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) did not specifically address concerns around them and their implications on women’s lives.

Import liberalisation means decreasing tariffs payable to national governments on goods coming into the country. This usually leads to a drop in domestic revenue and consequently cuts in government spending. Such cuts disproportionately affect women, particularly cuts in social services such as health, provision of water, electricity and so forth.

Going back to the example of the consequences in a fall in prices of domestically produced goods due to the abundance of cheap imports, though women may benefit from lower prices of imported products, as small scale producers they face stiff competition with cheap imported goods. This is exacerbated by the fact that government policies of export promotion intended to cushion this effect may be detrimental for small scale producers (mainly women) as these tend to prioritise cash crops, which are mainly produced by men. By extension this has a negative effect on food security, an area for which women are largely responsible.

If we look at the issues of gender participation and governance and ask who was included in decision-making processes around trade issues at the national, sub-regional and regional levels we discover that women play very small roles. There is a wide gap in integration of gender analysis or consultation with women. As long as African women must still negotiate family and work responsibilities, they tend to engage in more informal sector, or home- based work. Women’s equal participation in trading activities is further hampered by concerns such as difficulty in accessing capital, lack of relevant training and skills or limited contacts with national and international trade networks. On this basis there is a need to recognise that women’ participation in international trade must be on terms that allow them the same choices as men and in conditions where they are equally involved in decision- making, with the same opportunities for growth for their businesses and exports.

The question to ask at this point is: How far have African governments’ commitments to gender equality in trade policy been translated into practice? In recent years, it has been viewed that foreign trade has assumed a prominent place in economic development strategies as a key to financing development in African countries, without adding further to their indebtedness.

In addition, expectations have been raised that by creating jobs, transferring new technologies and building linkages with the rest of the economy, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) will directly address the continents´ poverty challenge. Thus policy reforms aimed at improving the investment climate in African countries have increasingly been centred on attracting FDI without the desired results either in increasing FDI flows in productive sectors or in ensuring more rapid growth and poverty reduction. The continent at present accounts for just 2 to 3 per cent of global flows, down from a peak of 6 per cent in the mid-1970s. Even on a per capita basis, the gap between Africa and other developing regions widened significantly in the 1990s and remains very large.

Although there are signs of just a little advancement in Africa’s commitment to gender equality and gender mainstreaming, further steps need to be taken. Specifically, gender issues must be put in the trade and development agenda in a more coherent form, and trade policies should complement gender equality and development policies as enshrined in the Convention on The Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA)

It is widely understood that women make up the majority of workers in the EPZs where the labour and social concerns of women differ from those of men. Women workers in these factories are faced with issues of poor working conditions, and problems of managing both work and domestic responsibilities. Women are paid lower wages than men, partly due to persistent assumptions about women’s income being secondary, rather than primary in the household. They also face instability of employment and lack of access to training, healthcare or social security provisions, notably childcare. They are frequently hired on short-term contracts - or with no contract at all - to work very long hours with little or no job security and little consideration for occupational health. In order to compete and keep prices low, many of the increased costs and risks of doing business are increasingly borne by women, who are still expected to raise children and care for sick and elderly relatives, even when they are the ‘breadwinners’.

Despite the existence of corporate codes of conduct and international conventions in place to protect workers, governments are under pressure from local and foreign investors and from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Trade Organisation (WTO), and World Bank loan conditions to maintain flexibility in the supply chain. This has meant that labour standards are not universally enforced, resulting in short term contracts with little or no benefits.

Studies have shown that work in industries has had a positive effect on women’s self-esteem and decision-making within the family. Paid employment can improve women’s autonomy as well as their economic and social status. It can also shift power relations between women and men, including at the household level, and can improve women’s well-being, negotiating power and overall status.

However, the picture is not as clear-cut as this might suggest. The structure of domestic labour markets and global production chains is highly gendered. Despite the advantages, in many contexts trade liberalisation is coupled with persistent occupational segregation by sex, both vertical and horizontal (Horizontal segregation refers to the distribution of women and men across occupations. Vertical segregation refers to the distribution of men and women in the job hierarchy in terms of status and occupation.) Women not only supply a cheaper workforce, but are also supposedly more docile. And, because of the gendered division of labour, work with textiles, for example, fits in accordance with existing gender norms. Women therefore tend to have less skilled jobs than men; most of the time their wages are lower than men, and they often work in unhealthy and exploitative conditions characterised by incessant sexual harassment/ sexual blackmail.

At this point it is important to note the differentiated impact among women, due to differences based on age, class, race, geographical location or ethnicity. It is generally the poor and marginalised groups of women who are negatively affected by unemployment and the restructuring of labour markets. In reality, there are differentiated outcomes for women in their different roles and locations. For instance, in Ghana, women consumers in urban centres have benefited from the availability of cheaper foodstuffs because they are the net buyers of food. However, women farmers in rural areas, as the net producers of food, have been negatively affected by export-promotion policies that have mainly benefited men and large-scale farmers. They have also suffered, as have men farmers, from declining household incomes due to the increased competition with imports, reduced farm gate prices (price of goods as they are sold where they are produced) and declining commodity prices in international markets.

The policy reforms induced by trade liberalisation and the WTO regime have also resulted in a shrinking policy space that has altered the role of the state in profound ways. Some commentators argue that trade liberalisation has endangered the fiscal basis of the state as a result of tariff reductions combined with the tight constraints on budgets imposed by International Financial Institutions (IFIs). The most common policy response to these fiscal problems has been to increase domestic indirect taxation on goods and services, with a focus on value added tax (VAT). VAT can be particularly detrimental to women, both as consumers and in relation to their reproductive role, as it is often levied on goods for the household and labour-saving devices such as domestic appliances.

Fiscal austerity also has implications for spending on services such as health and education, which are essential for all, but particularly for women. It can also constrain the ability of governments to put in place social protection measures and safety nets to offset some of the negative impacts of liberalisation. These negative impacts are compounded by the undermining effects of international trade rules on national commitments to international conventions on human rights and gender equality.

In practice, service liberalisation is the ultimate outcome of the privatisation agenda carried out through the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank programmes under structural adjustment and more recently through the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) and Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) mechanisms. Although proponents of liberalisation argue that this will reduce the price of services, it does raise a number of issues such as universal access to essential services that pertain to basic needs and rights that states are obliged to provide for their citizens. Experience has shown that when the costs of essential services rise, women typically make up for the shortfall in household resources and caring responsibilities. A government’s ability to regulate the quality of such services is critical to ensuring that the rules are applied in a manner that does not impede the achievement of national development objectives, especially in the area of gender equality.

Trade liberalisation therefore has an impact on women’s unpaid labour. In addition to having to take on added caring responsibilities with the reduction in social spending, the pressure to produce for export drives people out of subsistence farming where caring responsibilities could often be incorporated into productive work or shared among family members. Moreover, although paid employment outside the home can be an advantage to women in many ways, the work needed to reproduce and care for the labour force often means a double or even triple work burden, demonstrating that women working in such industries can suffer extreme stress over juggling their workloads. Women's unpaid work within the household further increases during periods of economic downturn,. When household incomes fall and there is less money available to pay for labour-saving devices or for assistance in caring roles for children or the elderly, women move in to make up the shortfall. These are also the times when women are more likely to take on informal work to boost domestic finances.

Recommendations

- There is a need for the collection of gender aggregated data and detailed research into the impact of trade liberalisation on gender relations and women’s lives.
- Trade review mechanisms and mainstream impact assessments can be used as entry points for gender analysis
- Capacity building is needed to help women participate in determining priorities for trade and employment policies.
- Development agencies and trade ministries need to ensure that market access programmes acknowledge the unequal power between women and men.
- Strategic alliances must be forged between gender equality advocates, trade justice activists and development actors working on policies and programmes.
- There is the need to focus on raising women’s skill levels to cope with the loss of domestic production and to adapt to new markets, as well as develop better tools to establish the gendered impacts of trade agreements.
- Programmes should be developed that promote women’s access to resources (land and credit).
- Attention should be paid to provision of services such as child care, mobile health clinic, maternity protection, paid sick leave etc to enable women to participate in trade activities.
International institutions engaged in trade related functions should be more accountable for defending women’s rights.
- Existing international agreements on women’s rights such as CEDAW and the BPfA should be upheld.
- Women should be provided with training as well as access to credit and finance and improving access to management, marketing and technological skills that will allow them to move beyond micro- credit schemes.
- Networks should be established for advocacy, training, information-sharing and awareness raising between women entrepreneurs, gender focused NGOs, government officials.
- Employers should promote women’s advancement, not limit this to low-skilled, low- paid jobs.
- Women workers should be empowered to defend their rights.
- Introduction of fair trade to ensure that women are paid a fair wage for their contribution to agricultural and production processes resulting in stability of income.
- All institutions dealing with trade policies and governments need to be made accountable and transparent.
- Policy-making should be made democratic and participatory.

The African continent remains by and large marginalized in the world economy, with over half of the population living under US$1 a day per person. If the major Millennium Development Goal of reducing poverty by half by the year 2015 is to be achieved in Africa, a major policy shift is required, both at the national and regional levels, to help boost growth and development in Africa. Policy changes are unlikely to occur unless there is a substantive democratization of policy-making at all levels. In particular, the voices of women and poor people, which are largely missing from trade policy negotiations, need to be heard and respected.

* Roselynn Musa works with African Women’s Development and Communications Network, FEMNET, Nairobi, Kenya. For the full version of this article, please click on the link below.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

References

African Union, (2004) The Road to Gender Equality in Africa: An Overview, Ethiopia

Barbara K (2002), Gender and Debt, Harare, AFRODAD

Beneria L et al, Engendering International Trade: Concepts. Policy and Action,

Edward O. et al, (2000) The Cost of Globalisation, Geneva

http://www.siyanda.org

.org/gender_tradehtml

Margaret S. et al, African Women and Development (1995), Johannesburg

Pheko, M. (2005) Gender and Trade Issues in Africa, Paper prepared for NEPAD Secretariat

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD, (2004) Trade, Sustainable Development and Gender

UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office, Women’s Economic activities and Integration Network, report of meeting of focal points for Women’s Development Programme,

UNIFEM, Gender, Science and Development Working Paper Series

Van Starveren (2002) Gender and Trade Indicators, Brussels, WIDE

WIDE (2003) Feminist Challenges in a Globalised Economy, Brussels

Wiliams, M. (2002), Women in the Market: A manual for Popular Economic Literacy, , Brussels, WIDE

World Bank, 2001

Trade, trade and more trade: That’s the winning formulae for a fulfilled life. But what does this mean for women in the East Africa region? How are their interests reflected in trading activities? Salma Maoulidi investigates.

Trade signifies an assortment of economic activities and transactions. Trade, for many in the Global South struggling to improve their economic status, is the new salvation. It is the magic equation to economic prosperity - do more of it and your Gross Domestic Product (GDP) goes up, winning you points in economic performance.

But like all prevailing economic formulas there is a catch: for any meaningful economic gains to be registered under the present trade regime, external trading must outweigh internal trading. In practical terms this means economies import more at the expense of local production, the latter becoming more prohibitive and less competitive on account of higher production and transaction costs. Conversely, countries fetch lower returns on exports following the devaluation of local currencies, making then too weak to trade competitively on the world market; and also because goods produced locally continue to have the inferior status of “raw materials” or unprocessed goods and are of a lesser value compared to processed goods.

Why sex is a factor in the trade equation

In simple terms, this forms the basic functioning of the current trade regime. Underneath this simplicity, however, lies a complex set of relationships that fundamentally influence the terms and players in trade deals, including women. Universally the world of business is seen to be off limits to women. Just as dominant religious and cultural ideologies persistently deny women proprietary rights, the business establishment has followed suit, recognizing more readily women’s role as producers, and as consumers, but not as owners and managers of productive enterprise.

Political independence has had minimal impact on the national and global economic profile in terms of wealth distribution. During colonial times in East Africa, the trading class was composed mainly of Indians and a few Arabs, who owned the local retail and wholesale shops. The main economic activities were, however, controlled by the settler farmer and colonial administration, mostly Europeans. As corporations take over economic activities, trade monopoly is no longer solely defined by race and ethnicity. Thus the local Indian or Arab retailer in East Africa is being replaced by the Chinese retailer/wholesaler; while an expert labour force from India and other parts of South East Asia take over industries and the service sector. A few indigenous entrepreneurs claim a stake in local and regional business, but for the most part Africans form the bulk of the unskilled labour force and remain the primary consumers.

The sex composition in the business world has remained unchanged, with women registering little success in penetrating global, regional and local markets. Women in trade and economic bodies are still under-represented. In Tanzania, for example, women are underrepresented in virtually all business chambers. The local bourse has very few women traders as do local industries. Regional Trade Agreements offer business opportunities beyond national boundaries but are, for the most part, not integrative of the needs of women. Trade frameworks like NEPAD or the East African Common Markets, while seemingly progressive, are rendered ineffective by constitutional frameworks that preserve gender inequalities at national levels. In many respects, therefore, women remain objects of sale, convenient conduits for furthering materialist aims and gains. They are yet to become the subject of trade regimes and investments.

The miracle of women friendly economic programmes

In view of the persistent exclusion of women in economic enterprise and the widespread belief that economic empowerment is critical towards raising the status of women, some quarters, either pioneering individuals or development organizations, have tried to redress the imbalance of players in economic enterprise. Many implement programmes aimed at the economic upliftment of women, programmes that vary minimally in approach in that they have micro-lending or micro-credit as the basis for women’s economic empowerment.

The theory of women and economic upliftment is, however, flawed as it does not see the woman as an independent economic investor or dealer. Indeed, whereas the imperialist business model focuses on accumulation in order to achieve profit maximization through serious capital injection, prevailing notions of women and entrepreneurship limit women’s economic engagement to the micro, the small business happening outside the margins of real business.

Essentially, the very concept of micro credit is restrictive. Other than suggesting that it is insignificant, and therefore of minimal consequence, in so far as volume and risk is concerned, it does not view women as serious accumulators of capital. Rather, the concern is to give women enough to help them and their families survive. Such an outlook has affected how women engage in business, their overwhelming motivation being aiding their families, not making serious money.

Indeed, women plough back most of the earnings and profits they get from productive activities into their families instead of expanding or diversifying their businesses (a fact a number of agencies have banked on to introduce or intensify micro-credit programmes targeting women). Because women’s economic activity is mainly concerned with improving the household and family welfare it is not perceived as a serious trade venture. Perhaps if women did not assume the greater burden of caring for the household, they would dare trade for profit as some younger unattached women do. They would vie to make money for the sake of making money, and not just for survival.

The terms of engagement under which most micro lending schemes operate are also limiting in that they require women to organize in collectives - in fives or tens - to qualify for lending or credit schemes. Indubitably, it proves more profitable for lending institutions to lend money to communities of women where they can maximize their turnover irrespective of whether women are making any money from the loans: continuous recruitment and policing of group members ensure high return rates. Hence, with very little investments women become effective mediums of cash generation and multiplication.

Women as objects or subjects of trade

In many respects, therefore, women are becoming the objects of trade. Businesses target women using both traditional as well as modern techniques. Economic liberalization has seen an influx of luxury items in Tanzania, the most significant being cosmetics. Images of the modern woman championed by the media, result in the dumping of cheap beauty products such as whitening creams, the health dimension of which is yet to be assessed. The promoters and chief distributors are men, while women are the willing or beleaguered consumers. Similarly, the home, the bastion of womanhood, remains the most effective sales point, luring women with the possibilities of stocking up on the newest and cheapest home gadgets on the market.

This is not to say that women are sitting idly by, oblivious to emerging economic opportunities under traditional and new trade regimes. Women may have been excluded from active trade but they have never shied away from trade. Indeed, in a number of African countries women are revered for their trading skills. For example, food and textile markets in West Africa are dominated by women. It is now customary, even in conservative areas, to see women traders - women running shops and bars in urban and provincial centres; women fish vendors in coastal areas and the Great Lakes areas and Zanzibar; women trading in foodstuffs and cereals in Manyara and Mbeya; women hawking goods in Moshi and Arusha; and women transporters in Tanga and Dar es Salaam. There is also an increase of women participating in national and international trade fairs, many sponsoring their own participation. Increasingly women are trying to build a niche for themselves in fields previously dominated by men.

Women make up a significant percentage of the 85% of Tanzanians engaged in agriculture, the mainstay of the economy. Also they form a sizeable percentage of the self-employed population engaged in the informal sector. Because women’s economic engagement is confined to the reproductive sector - in food production or preparation, hospitality, child caring, education, beauty and hygiene, and handicrafts - areas that affirm a woman’s sexual and reproductive role, they remain excluded from more lucrative productive enterprises like large-scale farming, horticulture or industry.

Even among the fastest growing sectors of the Tanzanian economy, like mining, women are under performing. Whereas there is an association of women miners representing the interest of a sizeable population of women in mines, few are miners or dealers in gemstones or in industries associated with mining. The bulk of the female population working in mines sells food or provides sex services. Women in the tourist industry fare no better. Men dominate the most lucrative services in the sector as tour and taxi operators, travel agencies, hotel owners and managers. Women assume low raking service jobs such as telephone operators, waitresses, chambermaids, cleaners, travel agent sales persons, and flight attendants. As is the case of women in the food industry, women in the tourist industry are pushed to prostitution to supplement meager incomes.

Economic success but at what price for women?

Increasing insecurity in their personal lives may make women reluctant participants in commerce. Micro credit programmes are replete with reports of husbands who appropriate loans or earnings, exacerbating levels of poverty among women. Similarly, little attention has been paid to the great physical risk women face on account of their economic success. Necessarily, economic success does not shield women from the threat of violence. A number of women experience acts of aggression on account of their business success. A case in point involves a popular female fish trader in Arusha market, Mama Terry, who was recently robbed in her home. A close male relative jealous of her business success paid the gangsters to “fix her”. Thankfully, when they attacked she had a sizeable amount of cash, in her possession. Distracted by the loot, the thugs left without harming her. Other women are not so lucky, falling victims to both sexual and physical violence after being gang robbed.

Clearly, the terms under which women can engage in productive economic activity should not surpass social expectation. Otherwise relatives and society at large reserve the right to apply some form of sanction to neutralize a woman’s economic mobility.

It is common for youth traders, frustrated by severe economic alienation, to physically and verbally attack women they perceive as successful. They feel such women “undermine their chances” to make it in a competitive business environment.

Sadly, models of “women of substance” in trade and business continue to be scarce, even among female business graduates. Interestingly, women with business education end up teaching or overseeing less fortunate women in micro-credit and lending programmes. Few actually venture into business. Moreover, instead of being at the forefront of an emancipatory trade and economic agenda, business professionals do very little to emancipate themselves and other women from economic bondage. Rather, they serve the dominant trade framework, becoming brokers for financial interest, urging on poor and less educated women to take on loans and subscribe to economic models that keep them on a leash of economic dependency and exploitation.

A few business savvy women serve as self-appointed advocates for women’s economic justice. They exercise vigilance over global processes that dictate the terms of trade for men and women in the global south. Nevertheless, they communicate via language and process far removed from the realities of women they represent: Their discourse is too technical, aimed at policy makers and academics. Whereas these women would have provided the link between professionalism and creativity in local enterprise, or with local governments, their oppositional stance serves to alienate women further from entrepreneurship, seeing it as too complex and mystical a venture.

Ultimately, women continue to miss out on role models in the business world. They miss being groomed by women with a conceptual and practical understanding of the system. They remain confused and intimidated by the jargon and procedures that restricts their spontaneity to venture and risk. They remain ignorant of terms and processes they can take advantage of because there is little interest all round to acquaint and translate these to women. As long as women’s induction to trade in the region remains microscopic, microminimized and micromanaged they will remain at the margins of trading blocks, earning just enough for their survival and that of their families. How then can such a trade development formula realistically contribute to women’s economic empowerment?

* Salma Maoulidi, is the Executive Director of Sahiba's Sisters Foundation, a women’s development network in Tanzania whose mission is to build women’s leadership and organizational capacity.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Further reading

- Society for International Development, The State of East Africa Report 2006- Trends, Tensions and Contradictions: the Leadership Challenge, 2006

- Khadija Mohammed Hijja, Women and Tourism in Zanzibar, 2005(unpublished)

Far from being bad news for Africa, the July collapse of World Trade Organisation talks aimed at fostering a global free trade regime is actually an unexpected bonus. Out of the breakdown in negotiations should come a new trading system that is beneficial to Africa’s women, says Mohau Pheko.

The Collapse of the WTO Doha negotiations are good for Africa and women. This is an opportunity for Africa to move away from the myth that the Doha Round was a 'developmental round'. Nothing could be further from the truth. From the start, the aim of the developed countries was to push for greater market openings from the developing countries while making minimal concessions on their part. Invoking development was a cynical ploy.

The break down of the talks is a turning point for Africa to contribute to developing a multilateral trading system based on developing Africa, women's rights and sustainable development.

During July, in anticipation of the July 27-28 meeting of the World Trade Organisation's General Council, a major rescue effort was mounted to save the "Doha Round" of global trade negotiations from collapse. The most prominent of these efforts took place at the G8 Summit in St. Petersburg, where leaders of the world's most powerful economies called for a successful conclusion to the round, painting it as a “historic opportunity to generate economic growth, create potential for development, and raise living standards across the world."

The collapse of the Doha negotiations offers Africa a unique opportunity to review and reconsider the multilateral trading system as a whole, and to start with a new approach to a global trading system that will promote social and gender justice, women's empowerment and environmental sustainability. It also offers Africa some breathing space to reclaim the policy space that has been taken away in the process of negotiations.

Africa can expose the hyprocrisy of the lopsided trade in agriculture. Even if the United States had conceded to the terms of the WTO Director General's compromise on cutting its domestic support, this would still have left it with a massive US$20 billion worth of allowable subsidies. Even if the European Union had agreed to phase out its export subsidies, this would still have left it with 55 billion euros in other forms of export support. In return for such minimal concessions, the US, and EU, and other developed countries like Japan wanted radically reduced tariffs for their agricultural exports in Africa and developing country markets.

If these talks had been brought to a conclusion on such lopsided terms, it would result in African countries slashing farm tariffs while preventing them from maintaining food security. This is a recipe for massive expanded hunger and threatens to further impoverish millions of Africans.

The current deadlock was caused by developed countries, mainly the US, who were not willing or able to come up with steeper cuts in farm subsides. The collapse of the Doha negotiations creates a momentum for Africa to review the past negotiations and analyse the flaws in the WTO system in its entirety. The current neoliberal approach to the multilateral trading system subordinates the needs of African women and men to corporate-driven interests.

The bias of the Doha negotiations serves the private interests of the biggest corporations instead of benefiting the majority of Africa's people. Recent World Bank [1] and other studies such as that from the Carnegie Endowment Centre [2] highlight the fact that the current trade liberalisation agenda is not working for the majority of women and men, particularly those living in impoverished African countries, and that especially women “tend to be among the most vulnerable to adverse impacts” [3].

Trade can be a medium of development, but trade liberalisation is not a panacea to development, poverty eradication and gender equality. The time has come for Africa to take leadership and start with a new approach to a multilateral trading systems that will genuinely promote equitable, gender just and sustainable societies that benefit all women and men.

For this, international trade policy must be constrained and bound by existing international agreements that promote human rights and women's rights, ecological sustainability and human dignity and must aim to end poverty and promote well-being.

Trade policies can no longer be dictated by the interests of big corporations. Any further WTO negotiations should not undermine governments' commitments to implement domestic Bills or Rights and United Nations Conventions.

* Mohau Pheko is coordinator of the Gender and Trade Network. For Further Information: Write to: [email][email protected]

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Notes:

[1] A series of devastating reports on the potential outcomes of the Doha Round were published by the World Bank, the UN, and several think tanks including "Agricultural Trade Reform and the Doha Development Agenda", Kym Anderson and Will Martin et. al. World Bank Report, Nov.1, 2005

[2]"Winners and Losers: Impact of the Doha Round on Developing Countries", Sandra Polaski, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC, 2006

[3] "Global Overview Trade Sustainability Assessment of the Doha Development Agenda" from the EU, final draft report

Africa has faced ten years of unfettered liberalisation that, argues Cheikh Tidiane Dièye, has left the continent on its knees. Women, more than any other group, suffer the weight of the constraints of poverty largely brought about by the world trade system. It is women that must play a crucial role in winning the struggle for a better trading system.

Even though over the last twenty years many African nations have adopted sometimes draconian economic reforms, the benefits of trade liberalisation that were promised have not materialised. On the other hand, developed nations have enjoyed 70% of the wealth generated by trade liberalisation. In some respects, world trade regulations, defined for the most part by industrialised countries during the Uruguay Round agreements between 1986 and 1994, have only increased Africa’s economic problems.

Before an “ambiguous consensus” [1] was reached at Doha, which was at the heart of the launch of the round of multilateral negotiations that tool place at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the “battle of Seattle” or “Seattle showdown” [2] revealed to the world the growing dissatisfaction of developing countries with regard to the WTO, whose way of working did not appear to respond to their profound desire for economic progress and development.

With the support of powerful groups of NGOs, they then put into practice their power to block negotiations by refusing to submit to a potential consensus. With this action that was previously unheard of, developing countries, and particularly those in Africa, managed to draw the attention of the international community and the representatives of multilateral institutions to the stark inequalities brought about by inequitable globalisation, whose consequences have been hundreds of millions of human beings being reduced to near total destitution and the almost irreversible destruction of the environment.

This is why in Seattle, while the United Nations and Europe were seeking to enter into a “Millennium Round” of large-scale negotiations concerning new and complex issues, particularly in relation to investment policy, competition, electronic commerce and standards in the areas of labour rights and the environment, a large number of African countries advocated a “Development Round” which would allow interlocutors to discuss the implementation of regulations from the Uruguay Round directly concerning developing countries and to urge industrialised countries to honour their commitments. In this way, these nations hoped finally to succeed in opening developed countries’ markets to their exports, eliminating other structural imbalances that were unfavourable to developing nations, removing tariff, non-tariff and technical barriers imposed on the exports of less developed countries, and developing and making official WTO technical aid and capacity building programmes.

From this perspective, the group of African countries proposed to renew and apply the “special and preferential” measures from the Uruguay agreements, which aimed to facilitate the integration of developing countries into the world trading system.

After Seattle failed, the fourth WTO ministerial conference was held in November 2001 at Doha, Qatar, and the members had a common desire to correct the malfunctioning of the multilateral trading system. The developed countries made promises, among which were to reduce or remove subsidies causing imbalances in global markets, to remove obstacles blocking developing countries’ products entering their markets, to recognise and make effective special and differential treatment, to facilitate poor countries’ access to essential drugs and to create the conditions necessary for the greater participation of these nations in trade negotiations through technical aid and capacity building.

On the other hand, the dogged will of the developed countries to defend the interests of some of their privileged citizens and their multinationals straight away took priority over ethical considerations and concerns for the survival of African populations: access to essential drugs for millions of sick Africans is still being blocked due to market interests; millions of farmers sink into poverty each day as a result of the North’s illegal subsidies [3]; and the pressure to increase the liberalisation of basic social services such as water, education, energy and healthcare is about to destroy what remains of African economies.

One of the most tangible characteristics of African poverty is its “femininity”. Statistics show that African women, more so than any other category, suffer the damaging effects of poverty and all the constraints brought about by the current structure of global economic and trade relations. In healthcare as well as education, access to land and economic resources, etc., African women have remained well below world averages.

In such a context, it is not difficult to establish a link between the situation of women in Africa and the world trade system, which, even if it is not the only explaining factor, is at the very least an important factor. The financial collapse of agriculture and African industries, caused by the combined effect of liberal policies imposed by international financial institutions and WTO rules, affects both rural and urban women, as it subjects them to chronic food insecurity, begging and the dangers of the informal economy in African towns and cities.

Greater liberalisation does not give rise to human development

Many studies have tried to establish a correlation between the level of openness to trade and increased economic growth and human development. In effect, there is no proof that the liberalisation of exchanges leads automatically to economic growth and human development. In a study [4] looking at the relationship between trade and sustainable human development, the UNDP drew an interesting comparison between two countries, in relation to their level of openness to world trade, to demonstrate such an assertion. These countries are Vietnam and Haiti.

Since the beginning of the 1980s, Vietnam has undertaken a progressive approach to reform. It is not a member country of the WTO. It has organised world trade at the level of the state, has maintained a monopoly over imports, and has preserved quantitative restrictions and high customs duties (30 to 50%) on imports of agricultural and industrial products. However, despite these measures being contrary to the “formulas” often advocated by those who hold neo-liberal doctrines, Vietnam has had spectacular success by achieving a growth rate higher than 8% per annum since the mid-1980s, which has earned the country a 12% increase in trade, a considerably reduced level of poverty, including in rural areas and in vulnerable groups (women and young people), and has attracted high levels of foreign direct investment.

Haiti, on the other hand, has become involved in an ambitious road to liberalisation and total openness since 1994/1995. The country has brought its customs tariffs down to a maximum of 15% and has removed all quantitative restrictions. For all this, Haiti’s economy has not evolved. Social indicators have even deteriorated and poverty has, in places, reached worrying levels. Although a member of the WTO, Haiti is one of the most marginal countries in terms of integration into world trade.

Looking at Africa, an analysis of the evolution of world trade over the last twenty years shows that the continent has unfortunately not profited from the benefits [5] that were granted and that, despite all the agreements and preferential schemes, Africa’s share of world trade has dropped significantly from 6% in 1980 to 2% in 2004. In effect, since 1980, African exports have increased at the average annual rate of 1.5%, whereas for the world as whole this increased by 5.8% per year.

The social consequences of such economic decline no longer need to be explained. In sub-Saharan Africa, women in certain areas produce up to 80% of basic food products and therefore play a decisive role in food security at the level of both the family and the nation. And in areas where cash crops predominate, reduced earnings resulting from reduced tariff protections and the large-scale entry of imported goods into national markets has exacerbated the vulnerability of women insofar as they have no other option other than to add to the swelling populations of shanty towns to work in order to survive in informal jobs and small trade.

In the industrial sector, WTO agreements concerning rules for market access for non-agricultural goods have imposed drastic cuts in customs duties, which was the only instrument there to protect African industries. This subjects a growing, and consequently vulnerable, African industry to direct confrontation with big corporations from the developed countries, which has quickly worked to the advantage of the latter. The most edifying example today is the African textile industry, in which countries with a definite relative advantage were obliged to cut hundreds of thousands of jobs even before the agreement on quotas was reached in December 2004. And since 2005, China’s powerful entry into the world textile market has heightened the pressure in this sector. Nigeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Ghana, Senegal and other countries are today experiencing the full force of the crisis in this industry, which has a high potential for employment, including a female workforce.

Even if the liberalisation of the textile industry has increased and diversified the supply of goods in African markets, where prices have also tended to drop, such an outcome cannot compensate for the long-term losses that the de-industrialisation of Africa will bring about. This de-industrialisation has only increased the informalisation of the economy by developing trade around goods produced elsewhere.

The WTO ten years on: economic opportunities or fresh risks?

The ten years of liberalisation under the aegis of the WTO needs to be assessed. Disregarding doctrine and squabbles between different schools of thought, it has been widely accepted that for African countries, trade liberalisation has not produced the results one hoped for.

Even if one has to admit that it is often difficult to measure the real impact of WTO rules on the situation of women in Africa, specific studies, of which there is a real shortage in this area, have concluded that this impact is most worrying when compared with the overall assessment of WTO rules on African populations.

Studies conducted into the liberalisation of the water sector in many African countries have shown that it is mainly women who carry the burden of the fresh constraints brought about by the privatisation of these strategic sectors. In the field of work, liberalisation has certainly increased the opportunities available to women in certain countries, but this usually takes place in very poor conditions and often pays much less.

It is remarkable that the mediocre results achieved for African nations after ten years of liberalisation under the aegis of the WTO has not led developed countries to reassess their positions and objectives. If the negotiations have today become bogged down in differences of opinion such that they have been indefinitely “suspended” by the Director of the WTO, this is not because the organisation is trying to take better account of the interests of developing nations, and Africans in particular. The present crisis is mainly down to the battle between the United States and the European Union on the one side, and the G20 [6] on the other. The battle is over the issue of parallelism [7] of forms. The developed countries are calling for the developing countries to impose drastic cuts in customs duties on industrial goods and to commit to the liberalisation of the trade in services, whereas the developing countries are calling for the other nations to reduce their agricultural subsidies.

Given the present crisis and the gloomy prospects at the WTO, the logical conclusion of an evaluation of its ten years of action should be “mission unaccomplished”.

And the question to ask now is what should be the alternative to the WTO? And what would the consequences of a long-term crisis at the WTO be for African people, and women in particular?

It is extremely tempting to respond in a simplistic way by saying that the failure of negotiations at the WTO could only be to the advantage of African countries due to the unfairness of the current rules. However, if one looks at the power relations at the WTO and in the system of world governance, it shows that such a stance does not stand up easily to clear analysis. The failure of trade negotiations would allow the status quo to gain acceptance once and for all, and would reinforce current trade relations, which are mostly to the detriment of African nations.

Therefore, on the contrary, we must relaunch multilateral negotiations and fight, so that the principle of special and differential treatment for African nations is put in place, made effective and made obligatory, in accordance with the Doha mandate in all areas of the negotiations.

Even if the negotiations have still not really advanced the cause of Africa, they at least allow African populations to hold an interest in them, place more popular pressure on governments and negotiators, provide a platform for African states and civil society organisations (NGOs, producer organisations, trade unions, women’s organisations, etc.) to denounce current trade rules and schemes, and reduce the pressure of governments in the North and multilateral institutions who advocate liberalisation in the interests of the rich.

Conclusion

The way in which trade is governed in today’s world leads to necessarily unfair results. But could it be otherwise in a game whose players are not equal?

Whilst the rules that have been set do not allow African nations to develop the means to compensate those who have been damaged by international trade, developed nations have implemented mechanisms to protect themselves from the dangers brought about by liberalisation.

In such a context, the Doha development agenda could only really achieve its goal of creating a framework for development if it allowed the creation of an international environment that guarantees African countries enough flexibility to implement national standards and policies. This would have the effect of helping these nations protect their populations, markets and institutions from the effects of the market.

Such an approach calls upon African leaders to act responsibly. If it is understood that the system governing world trade should take greater account of the opinions of vulnerable populations, one also needs to recognise that this task must first be carried out at the national level. Greater participation of various types of stakeholder, including politicians, NGOs, producer organisations, women, consumers, the private sector, etc., in the development of trade policy is without doubt a pre-requisite in order to make national interests known at WTO negotiations. From the perspective of gender [8], however, even though efforts have been made for years, there remains a serious shortfall that is holding back African negotiation strategies.

* Cheikh Tidiane Dieye is a socio-anthropologist who has been involved in trade and multilateral negotiations on behalf of Enda Tiers-monde, a member of the Africa Trade Network (ATN). He is co-editor of "Footbridges between trade and durable development", a news bulletin on the trade negotiations.

* This is a shortened version of the original French article, which was translated by Timothy Cleary. Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Notes

[1] See Passerelles n° 2 vol 3, November 2001 – January 2002
[2] From a book by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke (“Global Showdown: How the New Activists are Fighting global corporate rule”, 2002), recounting the demonstrations of global citizens’ movements which prevented the launch of the WTO’s “Millenium Round”.
[3] Interesting studies conducted by NGOs such as Enda Third World, Oxfam and the ICSTD have shown the disastrous impact of American subsidies on the African cotton trade. On this, read the “White Paper on Cotton”, Enda Diapol, 2005.
[4] “Making Global Trade Work for People”, UNDP, 2003
[5] Among these relative benefits, one can cite in particular the unreciprocal trade preferences between the EU and the ACP which characterised the Lomé Convention, the flexibility offered to LDCs at the WTO and, more generally, to the generalised system of preferences.
[6] The G20 is a large group of negotiators based around the big developing countries exporting agricultural goods, such as India, Brazil, Argentina, China and South Africa. The group emerged just before the Cancun Confernece in 2003 and is fighting against subsidies in the North.
[7] This is a concept defended by the EU in particular in its commitments. Each group stands firm and asks the other groups to make the first commitments.
[8] Few African delegations at the WTO ministerial conference in Hong Kong included women.

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