The inequities based on gender are rooted in the organized oppression through caste, race, and ethnicity. Rural women in Asia continue to face oppression and violence in all forms – from the impact of globalization, corporatization of agriculture, lack of ownership or access to land and resources, fundamentalism, militarization, and state violence to patriarchy.
Recognizing that the conditions of rural women are intricately linked with international and national contexts, 716 women from 21 countries representing peasants, agricultural workers, indigenous women, Dalit women, nomads, fisherfolk, informal and formal workers and migrants, and supportive activists met and discussed the situation and strategies for change during the 1st Asian Rural Women’s Conference from March 6-8, 2008 in Arakkonam, Tamil Nadu, India. The Conference was jointly organized by the following organizations working on women and rural development: Tamil Nadu Women’s Forum (TNWF), Society for Rural Education and Development (SRED), TENAGANITA, Human Development Organization (HDO), GABRIELA, International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR), All Nepal Women’s Alliance (ANWA), Committee for Asian Women (CAW), Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD), Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW), Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific (PAN AP), and CARAM-Asia.
Intensifying poverty, oppression and exploitation
The present imperialist-dominated economic and political processes promote corporate control over all aspects of food and fiber production and have created monopoly control over land, seas and marine resources, water, livelihoods, seeds and genetic biodiversity. Corporate farming and contract farming, intensive industrial aquaculture, expansion of agro-fuel projects, setting up of special economic zones (SEZs), and massive land conversion are displacing thousands of women peasants, agricultural workers and fisherfolk, worsening the loss of livelihoods and productive resources, increasingly poisoning the environment, accelerating poverty and disintegrating the rural economy. Rural women are disproportionately and negatively affected, suffering increased gender-based violence, hunger and malnutrition, forced evictions and trafficking.
Industries like mining, logging, energy projects, bio-fuel production and agro-industries are taking away the ancestral lands of indigenous women and their communities. Commercialization and monopoly control are destroying traditional knowledge and practices that have kept indigenous women self-sufficient. Displaced from their economic base, indigenous women are forced to migrate and lose the protection provided by their communities, and alienate themselves from their culture and value systems. It is in this way that imperialist globalization is causing ethnocide among indigenous women, their children and their communities.
Life and livelihood of the small-scale fisherfolk have been destroyed by liberalized policies of globalization processes, privatization of the sea and marine resources and the push for exports that have increased the use of modern fishing techniques including trawler fishing and push nets, thus decreasing fish production. At the same time, mega-projects, SEZs, tourism and intensive industrial aquaculture are decreasing the access of women fisherfolk to the sea and marine resources.
Neoliberal globalization processes have caused the greatest destruction of formal and regular work worldwide. The strategy of flexibilization of labor has pushed more women workers into informal work where they are not covered by labor laws and are therefore subject to greater exploitation and abuse.
Rural women are forced to cross borders due to state repression, and in search of livelihood have had to bear huge social costs: are subjected to increased violence, abuse, exploitation, discrimination and criminalization, denied their rights as women and as migrant workers, and when they return home, face alienation.
Rising religious fundamentalisms have made rural women more invisible, further restricted women’s decision-making and mobility, legitimated violence on rural women, revived religious-sanctioned prostitution, perpetuated discrimination, and denied women’s inherent right to control their lives, their sexuality and resources.
Dalit women are further denied of their rights to land, political and equal status, and the very right to life with the intersection of caste discrimination with fundamentalisms and neoliberal globalization. Dalit women face increased untouchability, sexual exploitation and the violent atrocities and harassment by the dominant caste.
The US-led global “War on Terror” being used to push globalization policies, and the economic interests of US and other big capitalist countries are providing Asian governments with the rationale to increase militarization and state terrorism, and is fanning ethnic conflicts in Asia. This has led to killings, detention and harassment of more rural women. In the guise of security, repressive governments like those in Burma, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and the Philippines are carrying out extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances of women, men and children. Ethnic conflicts and civil wars are causing forced displacement of thousands of people, and caste riots are resulting in massive violence against Dalit women. Women in conflict areas are raped as a tool of war, killed, forced to “service” the armed forces, and, in extreme circumstances, become victims of genocide.
Within the context of the “War on Terror”, the top nuclear powers continue nuclear explosions testing. Radiation is the most horrible yet invisible weapon of war. It can kill the environment and lead to the annihilation of mankind. It primarily affects women of fertile age and their children. It causes cancer, particularly of the uterus, breast and blood. Women are suffering and dying from exposure to radiation.
Reclaiming women’s rights through resistance
Acknowledging that the struggle of women is the struggle for rights, identity, dignity, empowerment and full potentiality, the Conference was a huge shout out for rural women to defy injustices and raise their voices against all forms of discrimination and violence on women.
Rural women have become involved in different forms of struggle as they carry their fight in their farms, picket lines, street demonstrations, parliaments and urban centers. Women are holding up placards and are in the frontline , from protesting the US-led “War on Terror”, right up to human rights struggles and the fight for freedom and justice in their own lands and workplace. Rural women are resisting corporate-dominated mal-development and trade liberalization. All over Asia, women peasants, farmers and workers are organizing to drive out transnational corporations such as Syngenta and Monsanto. Rural women are demanding food sovereignty. Women farmers are out in the fields practicing sustainable agriculture and livelihoods. Rural women are fighting to take control of their bodies and claim their reproductive rights. Rural women are challenging patriarchy within their families and communities. Rural women are challenging national policies to incorporate the women’s agenda and become represented in parliaments.
The Conference participants also resolved to continue to challenge and resist neo-liberal globalization, imperialist and fundamentalist forces and militarization. And to achieve this objective, the Asian Rural Women’s Coalition (ARWC) was founded as the expression of solidarity with democratic movements all over Asia.
Based on documents from the Asian Rural Conference held from March 6-8, 2008 in Arakkonam, Tamil, Nadu, India.
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