Tuesday, 22 June, 2010
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The Committee for Asian Women is organising a one-day expert roundtable meeting on “Trade policy and gender”. The objectives of the expert meeting are: 

• To discuss impact on women’s livelihood and security
• To come up with alternative approaches and actions in relation to Free Trade agreements and policies.

The meeting will take place over one day in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Approximately 25 participants will be invited, with the focus being researchers,  academics, think tanks, practioners, representatives of regional research networks, civil society organizations, NGO activists concerned with trade and regulatory policies and gender.

1.     Background

Neo liberal trade policy permeating across multilateral, regional and bilateral levels has compelled   protected markets to open up and reduce tariffs on imports. This has resulted in changing the nature of employment.  Whatever its positive implications it has affected workers and women workers negatively  It is also important to note that bilateral agreements especially between  developed and developing countries have a significant drawback when compared to WTO agreements. At the multilateral level, developing countries have greater bargaining power which is totally absent in bilateral trade agreements.

Proponents, especially the MNCs, governments of the developed and developing world and neo-liberal economists and economic institutions, assume that subsequent economic growth of liberalisation will benefit women given the rise in women’s labour force participation in export processing industries across the Asian region. Critics meanwhile fear that women may be more vulnerable to negative impacts of trade liberalization and less able than men to benefit from positive impacts. The feminization of industrial labour has been accompanied by worsening labour standards as countries compete for low wage, unskilled labour. Work has increasingly become more informal transient and precarious. There is an upsurge in the number of migrant workers and consequent rise in their levels of exploitation. Women have unequal access to resources which provides them lesser possibilities to benefit from trade liberalization and the most likely to suffer from the adjustment costs of trade reform and economic restructuring.

Prevalent today are more than 200-odd export processing zones (EPZs) created by some 50 developing countries to attract foreign investors seeking to reduce production costs by outsourcing non-core functions to low-cost sites. Women – who represent 80% of workers in these zones – are confined to low-paid and low-skilled jobs, earning 20-to-50% less than men (UNIFEM). Generally women still earn only about two thirds of what men earn. The competitive forces arising from foreign trade have not devised schemes to ameliorate the wage gap. The manufacturing wage gap ranges from 52% in Botswana to 81% in Costa Rica and 86% in Sri Lanka (World Bank). In some cases trade liberalization has also exacerbated existing gender inequalities and worsened women´s economic and social status with trade policies often designed and implemented without consideration of gender issues. In addition to this women have little or no job security, social protection and occupational health protection. Working conditions have deteriorated and have resulted in long hours of work with hardly any access to trade unions and any form of collective bargaining. 26 FTAs involving Asian economies have entered into force since 2001 and currently 70 additional ones are under negotiations and discussion. Likewise the financial crisis has generated a disproportionate impact on women due to the fact that women’s employment is concentrated in areas often affected by trade. The discussion on gender implications of trade policies currently sees more relevance as preferential Trade Agreements are proliferating in the Asia and Pacific region.

2.     Objectives  

Given the disproportionate, negative impact on women of trade policies the Committee for Asian Women is organizing a one-day expert roundtable meeting on “Trade policy and gender”. The objectives of the expert meeting are:

i)                    To discuss impact on women’s livelihood and security

ii)                  To come up with alternative approaches and actions in relation to Free Trade agreements and policies.

3.     Agenda and output:

 The expert roundtable meeting will take place over one day in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Approximately 25 participants will be invited, with the focus being researchers, academics, think tanks, practioners, representatives of regional research networks, civil society organizations, NGO activists concerned with trade and regulatory policies and gender.

Agenda:

8.30 Coffee/Tea

9.00-9.30:        Opening Remarks: Committee for Asian Women (TBC)

9.30-11.00:      Session I: Overview on FTAs and Gender

                        Facilitator: TBC

Discussants: Archana Negi (JNU), Charels Santiago (PSM), and R. Rajamoorthy, Third World Network (TBC)

This session will trace the historical perspective of Free Trade from the main global proponents- what was the purpose of globalizing free trade, who were the targets, what was the role of women workers in its inception and popularization? How was trade “engendered” if at all? As a result, what were the challenges that confronted women since then?

11.00- 12.30:   Session II: Implications of FTAs on workers and women workers

Facilitator: TBC

Discussants: Amita Batra, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Lidy Nacpil, Jubilee South, Au Loong Yu, Globalisation Monitor (TBC).

This session will discuss the gender-related implications that the trade agreements have and look into the trade policies in relation to development, poverty eradication and its impact on women’s rights, entitlements and livelihoods. It will look into the current trade negotiations in Asia and will focus on national debt implications, poverty alleviation programs, food security, women rights, entitlements and livelihoods. The session will also explore the impact of trade preferences and rules of origin on specific sectors where women´s employment is particularly high.

12.30- 13.30: Lunch

13.30- 15.00:   Session III: Struggles against FTAs and alternatives

Facilitator: TBC

Discussants:  Aewha Kim, Korean Alliance against the FTA, Jacque Chai, FTA Watch Thailand, FTA Watch Malaysia, Dr. Kumar Devraj, PSM  

This session provides the opportunity for an exchange of views and experiences on the specific strategies and mechanisms used to mainstream gender in trade policies. The lessons learnt will be shared, experiences from Korea, Thailand and Malaysia will be drawn regarding policy instruments that are needed before and during the trade negotiations and also once agreements come into force.

 15.00- 16.30:             Session IV: Agreement on Key outcomes and next step

Facilitator: TBC

Discussants: TBC

This session aims to develop a consensus on the way forward, to help advance the understanding of the links between trade and gender. The session also aims to identify gender-related commitments that need to be included in the main body of trade agreements, research gaps and methodologies for assessing the gender impacts of trade policy and areas of further work

Outputs:

Outputs of the roundtable will include:

• A report of proceedings and outcomes published and uploaded on CAW’s website and accessible to public.
• Women’s Action plan on Trade and Gender. This will be our main lobby agenda in all trade-related engagements of CAW, in addition to the results of the WWS and CAW Consultation of 2009

4.     Note on Organizer: Committee for Asian Women (CAW) (www.cawinfo.org):

The Committee for Asian Women is a network of 46 women workers groups from 14 Asian countries that aims to promote women workers’ human and labour rights. As a regional body, CAW facilitates exchanges amongst women workers groups and provides a platform for advocacy and solidarity linkages at the international level. Empowering women workers in Asia through advocacy, research and documentation, exchange programmes, national and regional level training and education and solidarity building, is the main focus of CAW’s work.

5.     For more information contact:

For further information please contact Suvechha Adhikari, Programme officer, email suvechha@cawinfo.org, phone no: 66-08-65246193 or 66-2-9305634.