Gender
and neo-liberal economic policies
Current
economic and development policy in Cambodia is not improving women's
rights. The increasing liberalisation of Cambodia is being promoted
by organisations such as the International Monetary Fund, World
Bank, World Trade Organisation and loans organisations, as well
as the Cambodian government, and many international donors, development
organisations and NGOs.
Cambodia
is becoming increasingly open to foreign capital and dependent
on the rules of international trade agreements and has insufficient
capital reserves to lessen the impact of trade liberalisation
on society. This is effectively pushing poor Cambodian women further
into poverty.
The
neo-liberal rhetoric is that trade liberalisation and economic
globalisation will increase economic growth, which will decrease
poverty. Their logic is that women's rights will be strengthened
as women participate in globalisation.
These
assumptions need serious questioning. The experience of countries
that liberalised trade rapidly - particularly developing countries
- has shown that neo-liberal policies benefit corporations, banks
and governments, take rights away from the poor, threaten democracy,
widen the gap between the rich and the poor, further disempower
the poorest people and do not improve women's rights. Yet it is
within this paradigm that development practice is being carried
out and donor projects undertaken.
IMF/WB
loans and WTO agreements do not automatically increase a country's
economic growth and where they do increase growth, this does not
necessarily decrease poverty, On the contrary rapid trade liberalisation
exacerbates poverty, drives people from their land and from subsistence
agriculture and involves a forced migration into more economically
productive activities such as garment factory work, sex work,
and begging.
Liberalisation
means that local agricultural producers face competition from
a massive flow of imports. At the same time, higher production
costs requiring the increased use of credit leads to a cycle of
debt and landlessness. Trade liberalisation-inspired growth also
results in environmental degradation and depletion of natural
resources, as land and natural resources become privatised. It
also results in further entrenching the separation of men and
women's work, with women receiving fewer opportunities in new
technology, education and training and commercial business opportunities.
Women
farmers are especially vulnerable to loss of land and hardship,
as they face gender discrimination; own smaller farms and more
often need to rely on hiring male labourers. They also must contend
with a double load of agricultural work and domestic housework
and childcare.
Women feel the effects of privatisation policies more harshly.
The burden of a loss of social services falls upon women, the
traditional caretakers and healers of the family. It is women
who are left to look after sick children and relatives and find
food for the family. If there is less to be had - less food, healthcare,
and education - it is usually women who do without first.
The
stress that poverty creates on families and communities is also
experienced most powerfully by women through other such factors
as domestic violence, husband or father's drunkenness and desertion.
The
exploitation of the poor by the multilateral lending institutions
such as the WB and IMF is being played out on a micro level as
well, through loans by microfinance institutions (charging approximately
10% interest per month) and NGOs (charging 4-6% interest per month).
Microcredit,
the aid industry's prescribed solution to poverty, often drags
poor families further into debt and it is the women who are left
with the impossible task of managing the family's finances. People
often take out loans from NGOs to pay for medical bills, or buy
rice and in times of drought, flood, or other hardships. Often
they cannot meet the interest payments and end up selling their
land and are forced to migrate to find work or beg in the city,
causing family separation and often family breakdown.
As
costs go up and rural communities become more connected to the
cash economy, it is more becoming more difficult for farmers to
survive through agricultural work alone. In such an environment
families cannot afford to keep children in school. This is especially
true of girl children who are traditionally burdened with the
care of the family members. It is girl children that are most
commonly sent to the city to work to support their families in
rural villages. Many families now depend heavily on the income
sent home by their daughters.
These
young women have a heavy weight of responsibility, based on the
desperation of their families and have few options or choices
in the work they undertake. Most find themselves in exploitative
employment such as in the garment industry, where 21% of Cambodian
women aged between 18 and 25 work, or in the sex industry. Older
women and women with children who migrate to the city often end
up begging.
Any
examination of the issue of women's rights in Cambodia needs to
look at women in the context of current macroeconomic policies.
It cannot focus narrowly on giving women more opportunities in
the context of an economic and development paradigm that is intensifying
the feminisation of poverty.
