WomenAction (North America and Europe - www.womenaction.org) comments on talks and events of the Peoples' Summit from a feminist point of view. The April 16th's edition is about the Women’s Forum, trade as a women's issue and the negative impacts of Free Trade on women from Latin America and the Caribbean.

Women’s Forum

More than 200 women convened the day before the start of the Second Peoples' Summit for a half-day of work exchanging different analysis on how the neo-liberal globalisation processes, and in particular the Free Trade Agreement of the America (FTAA), affect women. Issues raised during the forum were diverse, and witnessed of the very gender specific effects
of trade liberalisation on women’s working conditions, the impacts on women’s poverty, women’s health, women in agriculture, violence against women, etc. The women’s forum also served to mobilise and exchange strategies on how to make sure that gender equality and women’s rights are taken into account in all the other civil society forums to be held in the
next couple of days under among others the following topics: human rights, education, communication, agriculture, etc. If women’s rights are completely marginalized in the international trade negotiations, the battle for women’s rights to be a central part of the social movements agenda for an alternative globalisation process is not a done deal either.

Malin Bjork Les Penelopes Womenaction

Women from Latin America and the Caribbean Highlight the Negative Impacts of Free Trade in Their Regions

Women from Latin America and the Caribbeaan spoke out on April 16th to critique the current process of free trade that is being promoted in the FTAA. Sheila Stuart from the Caribbean Human Rights Network commented on the negative impacts that women in her region have already experienced under NAFTA and the WTO. She explained that as export processing zones in English speaking Caribbean have shifted to Latin America under NAFTA, women workers have lost salaries, health benefits and right to organize. As a result the banana battle between the U.S. and the EU at the WTO, Caribbean women farmers are being forced to compete with agribusiness corporations in the sale of banana exports and are losing the battle to support themselves and their families.

Rosa Guillen, from Women Transforming the Economy, spoke out on the fact that women`s human rights are at stake, and not just civil and political. She talked about economic, social and cultural rights in reference to intellectual property, safe working conditions, a clean environment, and the ability for women to lift themselves out of poverty. She stated that the rights of the state are being threatened and this has major implications for women in terms of access to public services and the right to a living wage. In her final declaration, Ms. Guillen spoke out to say we must challenge the current ideology that is based on exclusion and discrimination in order to ensure economic and social justice for all.

Alexandra Spieldoch, International Gender and Trade Network - WomenAction

Trade is a Women`s Issue!

The International Gender and Trade Network, IGTN, an international network of advocates actively working to promote equitable, social, and sustainable trade through research advocacy and economic literacy is gathered at the 2nd People`s Summit to say No to a FTAA that threatens to marginalize women and our human rights. In 1995, governments signed the Beijing Platform for Action to protect women`s right, to eradicate their struggle with poverty, to increase their access to services, to remove obstacles to our participation, to eliminate violence against women and to ensure our economic freedom. Yet, five years later these goals have not been achieved! The IGTN asserts with other women's networks that while the reduction of tariffs has opened markets, it has not improved the lives of women!

The IGTN has recently released a declaration that reasserts that an FTAA that limits women's access to basic needs such as water, healthcare and education through privatization and liberalization of services will not work for women. The destabilization of small and family farms due to the increased role of agribusiness in the work market will marginalize women and worsen food security. An FTAA that negotiates intellectual property rules without respecting indigenous women's rights to their cultures, medicines, livelihoods and environments does not promote sustainable development. Finally, an FTAA that puts the profits of corporations over women's rights to a livable wage, freedom from discrimination and secure, safe work will not be supported by women!

The IGTN has put forth a set of demands that state that any trade agreement in the Americas be democratic, transparent and accountable to women. Trade agreements in the Americas must contribute to gender equality and must put social development at the core of all policymaking. And, finally, macroeconomic policies that do not benefit the poor, the majority of whom are women, should be rewritten to ensure the common good!

Alexandra Spieldoch, International Gender and Trade Network - WomenAction