Part 3 - Rural women's decreasing resource base
We need to realise that the real population problem is not that there are too many people, but that there are too many poor people today over one billion-- in absolute poverty.
Fawzi H. Al-Sultan, President
International Fund for Agricultural
Development (IFAD)
Over the last fifty years, massive development processes have occurred in the countries of Southeast Asia. Very few have helped rural women. Summing up the research findings of a project on "Agricultural Change, Rural Women and Organisations," initiated by the Asian and Pacific Development Centre (APDC) in 1985, Heyzer (1987:3-4) wrote:
Options regarding types of agricultural change and the implementation of rural development policies have for a long while been carried out on the assumption that development that benefits men will automatically benefit women and that development that benefits one stratum of rural society will automatically benefit the rest. The needs of women from the poorest strata of rural society have long been ignored or overlooked by governments in the attempts to raise rural productivity and to create access of the poor to land employment, adequate income and technology. This has limited the economic and social outcomes of many development programmes.... Development projects are vehicles for generating change and a major development effort is to ensure that the changes generated, at the very least, do not increase the vulnerability ,and power lessness and isolation of both men and women who are very poor. In part, rural women's experiences with development are common to those of rural me'?. However, the negative effects of development processes have been felt more acutely by rural women because of gender-biased hierarchies which, on the one hand, limit women's access to resources and participation and on the other hand, impose sexual divisions of labour that allocate to women the most tedious, labour-intensive and poorly rewarded work, as well as long hours of work. In such a context, the search for solutions cannot be simply to suggest the addition of a 'women's component' to existing development frameworks... There must also be the questioning of the frameworks within which choices are made in order to come Up with new concepts of work, social organisations and relationships which would improve the terms under which many women are obliged to participate.
Indeed, policies on development, labour, agriculture, environment, and population rarely consider women's views and needs. Moreover, policy makers give scant attention to the linkage between women, population and environment. As the findings of APDC's research project indicate, rural women's resource entitlement has decreased significantly. This is evident in several case studies from this project:
CASE STUDY 1: MALAYSIA
The building of the Batang Ai hydro-electric dam in Sarawak led to the resettlement of the indigenous Iban community. This has led to severe ecological, social, cultural and economic disruption for the people, especially the women who have lost all traditional rights to land and other resources. In traditional Iban custom, men and women work equally in paddy planting, acquire land rights and settlement rights equally and inherit property equally. In the process of resettlement, however, this has changed. The compensation money, ranging from M$ 10,000 to M$ 400,000 (about US$ 4,000 to US$ 160,000), was mostly given to the men, under the planners' false assumption that the men were the 'heads of households. '
With the commercialisation of agriculture and SALCRA's (Sarawak Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority) policy of one certificate of ownership to a household, women's rights over land have been abrogated and a dependency relationship created.... One of the most traumatic effects of resettlement for the women? settlers is that they have no land to plant paddy.... Most settlers continued to grow' paddy on SALCRA land when they first moved into the area as commercial crops were yet to be planted However, this is no longer possible as the land is now planted with cocoa and rubber. There is now a rising desperation among the women to find land for their paddy pun (sacred paddy) to be planted every year in perpetuity. Traditionally women are the custodians of the paddy pun.
Hew and Kedit, 1987:188, 192
This is a process of impoverishment, as people who once had abundant resources and were "haves" are now "have-nots " More recent research done by Noeleen Heyzer in Sarawak on the Iban and other indigenous communities:
...points to the poverty-environment-population linkages sharply and the macro forces that impinge upon communities. The invasion of logging companies resulted in the destruction of the livelihood systems of the indigenous communities. Along with this, land-use and land-titles redefined their access to the resources. In some communities, this has resulted in new patterns of poverty due to environmental degradation. This has led to male migration to urban areas for wage work, leaving women to bear all the burdens of subsistence and slash and burn agriculture. There is a labour shortage and pressures are created to have more children. In other words, the trend here is not that population growth results in environmental degradation and poverty, but the opposite: environmental degradation caused by powerful outside interests can lead to new patterns of poverty at [the] local level and this i'? turrn can create pressures for population growth.
Quoted from Mukherjee, 1993:49-50
Table 7 Estimates for Maternal Mortality Rates per 100,000 Births in Selected
Countries, Around 1980 and Latest Available Year
Country |
Year |
Maternal mortality rate |
Year |
Maternal mortality rate |
Indonesia |
1976 |
300 |
1988 |
300 |
Malaysia |
1981 |
59 |
1988-90 |
20 |
Philippines |
1980 |
125 |
1988-90 |
80 |
Thailand |
1981 |
81 |
1988 |
180 |
Vietnam |
1982 |
100 |
1988 |
400 |
Source: UN, 1994.
CASE STUDY 2: THE PHILIPPINES
This case study showed the marginalisation of rural women in agricultural production as a result of technological changes:
The changes in rice technology were: I) a shift in type of seed from the traditional varieties to the short, early maturing ones produced by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), 2) the spread of farm mechanisation in the land-preparation and threshing tasks, and 3) changes in certain farm practises, such as extensive use of fertilisers, pesticides, weedicides and methods of direct seeding.... Technological changes displaced more women than men. Under the old technology, almost half of the labourers working a hectare of rice land...were women. However, by 1986, only 36 percent in Bo. Lalangan and 29 percent in Bo. Tabon were females.... The fact that displacement has occurred in the absence of other job opportunities implies the severely constricted nature of employment opportunities in these areas.... For a number of women in the two villages, however, mechanisation of the threshing operations created [peripheral] tasks which... were associated with the subsistence activities women had in the past engaged in. As the mechanical thresher blows out the hay stack, women place a plastic mat or net on the ground to catch the falling grains or hay that come with it.... Once this is done, they separate the hay stalks from the grain, a process which must be undertaken right away because the thresher spews out more hay stalk.... Whatever the women got was milled for home consumption.... The worsening unemployment and displacement of women in other villages and towns increased competition for the marginal jobs... The collection and processing of /eft-over grain... symbolises the relegation of women to the left-over employment opportunities of men: [it/ is the rural counterpart of urban scavenging
Banzon-Bautista and Dungo, 1987:280, 285, 287-9
This case study also illustrates the ability of economically-marginalised rural women to make something out of nothing. They convert waste, for example, into a food resource for their families. The economic marginalisation of women nevertheless has repercussions on the welfare of both the women themselves and their children, as the family still remains the responsibility of the women and "the burden of restructuring the budget and meeting cash shortages seems to fall on women" (Banzon-Bautista and Dungo, 198.7:307).
CASE STUDY 3: THAILAND
This study examines changes i'' work patterns in the rural villages of central Thailand due to the construction of a reservoir and development of transportation networks. The resettled farmers have had to change their means of livelihood completely-from lowland paddy cultivation to cultivating dry-field crops in the uplands. Due to this change, farmers who were once self-sufficient in rice are now dependent on cash crops for export. The change from cultivations of food crops to export-oriented crops has throw,' the farmers into the cash economy--i.e., rice, the staple food, has to be bought. Household expenditure on food has increased. I'' poorer households, women as home-keepers and food-providers find it more difficult to manage their small income from agriculture and have had to seek urban employment in nearby towns.
Sirisambhand and Gordon, 1987:313
These case studies and many other examples give clear evidence of an insidious process of the impoverishment of rural women. Ironically, it is the very development processes that are supposed to benefit the people that have dispossessed, displaced, de-skilled and pauperised women and, by extension, their dependents. Invisibility has brought ill-effects for women. While they bear the brunt of agricultural production and, of course, all the childbearing in Southeast Asian society, their work is inadequately acknowledged and rewarded. In the designing of adequate and sustainable development alternatives, therefore, gender equity is not a luxury but a necessity. It has far-reaching consequences for women, population and the environment.
Table 8 Indicators of the Infant Mortality Rates in Selected Countries
Country |
1983-85 |
1986-87 |
1990 |
Indonesia |
85.5 |
78.0 |
75 |
Malaysia |
26.8 |
24.9 |
24 |
Philippines |
48.9 |
46.2 |
45 |
Singapore |
9.6 |
8.7 |
8 |
Thailand |
34.3 |
29.8 |
28 |
Vietnam |
72.3 |
66.6 |
64 |
Source: UNEP, 1994.
Even more ironically, these development processes, orientated as they are towards commercialisation, industrialisation, technologisation, and urbanisation, are environmentally unsustainable. The livelihood of rural communities is badly hurt by environmental disasters including:
· water pollution as a result of sewerage, garbage disposal, industrial waste, pesticides, and sedimentation through soil erosion and timber logging
· toxic wastes dumped in rural areas
· deforestation through timber logging, resulting in the loss of topsoil, landslides, and floods
It is well documented, for example, that massive deforestation has serious consequences on rainfall and climate patterns, resulting in the loss of food crops. These food shortages and price increases affect the livelihood of families and increase women's burden as resource managers who have to seek out increasingly scarce alternatives. The increasing degradation of the natural resource base in many countries has thereby undermined women's roles as major resource users and managers in providing food and securing overall family welfare.
Forests are the source of food, fuel, and medicines. They are also the home of indigenous communities. Deforestation has caused the loss of these essentials for many indigenous, as well as rural, communities. What could have been obtained free from the forests now has to be purchased in the market place. Women as resource managers now need cash, earned only through employment. But in a situation of gender asymmetry, even among the poor, women are the poorest of the poor with little access to scarce resources, including employment opportunities. Pushed into "formal employment," rural women usually enter the labour market as unskilled, low-wage workers. Even so, they must still carry their traditional burdens of child bearing and rearing and overseeing family welfare. Thus children often constitute women's only economic wealth and social security. In the absence of viable alternatives, poor women are motivated to maximise their "wealth" by having many children.
Water pollution and toxic waste dumping also impose serious penalties on women. As pointed out by Dehlot (1992:8):
...women of childbearing age are more vulnerable to environmental pollutants than men because of their reproductive function and breast-feeding practice. Many reports have linked reproductive defects to such contaminants as lead. With the yearly increase in the number of chemicals, the impact on women and children appears to be rising According to UN studies, the possible effects of exposure to chemicals range from infertility, miscarriage, malformation and neonatal death to growth retardation.
Maternal and infant mortality rates are thus a significant indication of health conditions, affected not only by poverty but also by environmental pollution. These figures illustrate the need for major social investment in the health of society's most vulnerable members. Such investment should cover not only the provision of medical services, but perhaps more importantly, poverty alleviation and environmental detoxification.
