Gender, Agriculture and WTO
By Ernesto Ordonez
Commentary
Philippine Daily Inquirer
October 14, 2005

TOMORROW IS RURAL WOMEN’S DAY.
December 13-18 marks the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) next ministerial meeting. Is there a connection between the two?

If one reads “Farm Girls Turn to Prostitution” by Blanche Rivera, published in yesterday’s Inquirer, the connection is very clear. Rivera relays the account of Gina (not her real name) who left the rice fields of Montalban to work as a guest relations officer (GRO) in a Caloocan night club to earn enough money for her 11 – year old daughter’s illness.

Gina said her family was earning 5 kilos of rice for a weeks’ work in the upland rice farms of Montalban. She also did laundry for another family for an additional 2 kilos of rice. Her family survived on lugaw (rice broth), eating only once a day. So when her daughter got ill, Gina had no choice but to enter the flesh trade.

In August last year, in a World Council of Church’s consultation on women and globalization, a woman peasant leader asserted that many jobs had been lost because of the WTO. Because of too rapid liberalization, cheap subsidized imports replaced our local products.

With the existing bias against women already present in the agricultural labor market, more and more women were driven out of agriculture. They were forced into getting low-paying jobs involving long hours of work, like working as waitresses and entertainers in beer houses and other establishments. She said: “ This has mushroomed in the rural areas where a different kind of trade has flourished: the flesh trade.”

Background

Today 66 percent of our poor are in the agriculture, fishery and forestry sectors. Poverty incidence in the rural areas is 68 percent as compared to only 34 percent in the urban areas.

In 2003, the Food and Nutrition Research Institute of the Department of Science and Technology released data on poverty and hunger. It showed that eight out of 10 Filipino households are hungry. Economist Alejandro Lichauco said:” The hilipines had now become a case of humanitarian disaster warranting the urgent concern of the international community and a program of international aid and assistance. “ The WTO ministerial meeting in December can either be a boon or bane in addressing this problem.

Our government negotiators should keep in mind the WTO’s adverse impacts on our people, especially the rural women. While these women experience the ravages of poverty and hunger with their male counterparts, they suffer more than them. This is because, women are often considered subordinate and inferior to men. Thus, they experience  various forms of discrimination in work and within their families.
The national Statistics Office (NSO) shows that the women’s rate of participation in the rural labor force is only 50%, compared to the men”s 85% and above. Of the employed women in agriculture, 52 ercent are unaid family labor, while men comprise only 17 percent. To make matters worse, women generally receive lower wages than men for the same jobs.

As women find it harder to get employed and as this employment generates insufficient income for their family’s needs, they engage in additional work, mostly off-farm income generating activities. This exacts a heavy toll on their health.

Even in the food allocation in their families, women experience discrimination. The father is given the biggest allocation since he supposedly earns the family’s upkeep. The next in the allocation are the children, because they need the nutrients to grow and be strong to become the farm’s productive labor. Last is the mother, since her work is perceived and often accepted as less laborious than those of the men. This despite the fact that women bear a triple burden: work in the farm, other off-farm income generating activities, and household work. In several case studies, it was shown that peasant women spent 18-21 hours daily to perform these tasks.

The WTO Link

Accession to WTO has meant more prosperity for the developed countries, but more poverty in the developing ones. This increased poverty has its worst impact on rural women. The WTO practice of developed countries imposing their will on developing countries should be reversed. Instead of using people for trade, trade must be used for people, especially for  rural women in developing countries. Since it is one vote, one country, and since developing countries outnumber the developed ones, it is high time that the developing countries band together and steer the WTO rather than be steered by it. Trade should be beneficial to all the involved parties. Unfortunately, WTO has been harmful to the developing countries. The “urgent concern of the international community” that Lichauco talked about can be demonstrated by the transformation of the WTO’s orientation at its December ministerial meeting.

Trade has significant and far reaching effects in our daily lives. When properly negotiated and implemented, it can open opportunities for growth and development in several critical areas such as employment, livelihood, education and health. It is precisely in these areas where women have fewer opportunities than men and are unfairly discriminated against, especially where poverty is prevalent.

Recommendation

As our government negotiators go to the WTO ministerial meeting, they should keep in mind that any new agreements should benefit, rather than harm, the majority of our people especially the rural women. Uniting with developing and even enlightened developed nations, we can succeed in helping transform the image of the WTO after December from oppressive to empowering. Then  WTO can finally become beneficial for our people.

(The author is Agriwatch chair, former Cabinet secretary for Presidential Flagship  Programs and |Projects, and former undersecretary of agriculture and trade and industry. For inquiries and suggestions, email agriwatchphil@yahoo.com or telefax 8516635)