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Workshops January 27, 1993:
I. "The Impact of Indigenous Socio-Political Structures, Customary Law, and
Culture on Women"
II. Debt Crisis, Structural Adjustment and Official Development Aid:
Impact on Indigenous Women
III. Effects of Militarization on Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous Women
IV. Crimes Against Gender and Domestic Violence
V. Letter of Request to Workshop Participants from Karen Banks, Greennet,
London
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"The Impact of Indigenous Socio-Political Structures, Customary Law, and
Culture on Women"
(outline of workshop results)
Main Points: (Commonalities)
I. Traditionally, women were major producers - they dominated the
economic aspects of society.
A. As such, women were close to nature and were protectors of Nature.
B. They practised subsistence, sustainable agriculture.
II. Politically, women had little/No participation. They were
consulted but actual decisio-making rests on men.
III. India. Socio-political structures had aspects that were
disadvantageous to women:
Ex:
A. Mayu-Dama System in Thailand
B. Dap-ay/Ator in Cordillera
C. Hukum-Adat in Indonesia and Lumads, etc.
IV. ISPs had aspects that were advatageous to women;
Ex:
A. Role in Peace-Pacts (Cordillera)
B. Role in Rituals
C. Women in W.Papua are generally seen as bearers of life:
respected and influential
V. Customary Law gave sanctions against domestic violence
Ex:
A. Taiwan - community concerned with violence against women
B. Ainus of Japan
C. Divorce was allowed (except in Thailand)
VI. Because of (alien) external impositions, traditional practices
were threatened/destroyed:
A. Economic: e.g. tourism and prostitution
logging -> rate of Tiruray women
Meiji restoration -> Auni practices banned
B. Political: ISPs supplanted by dominant, central, colonial
structures -> women more marginalized
C. Cultural: rituals banned
culture commercialized
identity lost: culture/language
not allowed in schools
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Debt Crisis, Structural Adjustment and Official Development Aid:
Impact on Indigenous Women
(outline of workshop results)
Specific to the home:
- ODA merely succeeded in drawing the subsistance agriculture into
the cash economy, which the indigenous women don't have
control over
- ODA is not interested in making the lives of women better/easier;
they use the already overburdened women and force them
to work more and more and more...
- HARD LABOR
- ODA (like HADP) did not significantly uplift the burden of indigenous
women in agriculture. More so, the phenomena of child labor in cash crop
agriculture is reinforced.
- ODA perpetuates practices that are oppressive to women
- Debt: social welfare becomes less or even disappears particularly
in the interiors; women and children are directly affected
- commodification of women; may girls become prostitutes; further
subordination of women
Specific to Indigenous Peoples:
- cultural destruction (due to labor migration)
- Many traditional cultures have been lost
- many people become selfish people
- suppression of right to ancentral lands (due to development
aggression)
- cultural alienation
- DEBT: prices of commodities go up; money's buying power
becomes limited; less food for the family
- Development - leaves women alone
- Destructive to women's development
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Effects of Militarization on Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous Women
(Outline of workshop results)
I. Background
II. Effects on the following Aspect
- political
- economic
- social-cultural
III. Effects and Consequences on Women
- sexual violence, e.g. rape
- forced marriages
- growing effects in the indigenous family
- forced population control
- economic dislocation
- forced labor
IV. Conclusion: ETHNOCIDE
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Crimes Against Gender and Domestic Violence
(Outline of workshop results)
Forms of violence against women:
- rape: military/marital
- wife beating: physical/psychological
- prostitution: child/adult
- sexual trafficking
- sexual harassment
- molestation
- "comfort women"
Precipitating factors
- entry of dev't projects (ex.: dams, logging)
- militarization
- introduction of cash economy
- incursion of lawlanders and multinational corporations
into the ancestral domain
* Indigenous women want to reclaim their lost culture; retain the
positive aspects; change the negative/non-beneficial to women
* Demand that women be active participants in the decision-making
process
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Dear organisers of the Debt Crisis, SAP and ODA workshop,
I ahve already introduced myself as Karen Banks of Greennet..may I also
introduce myself as Karen Banks from the Institute For African Alternatives
London office. I am particularly interested in the full findings/statement
of this particular workshop. IFAA is a networking policy research
instititute with 5 centres in Africa. Most of our work is advocating
alternative development strategies to World Bank and IMF programmes in
sub-saharan Africa. At the moment our gender unit in South Africa is
working on the issue of the impact of SAPS on women in South AFrica
in particular and sub-saharan africa in general. I would welcome
introductions from women/s individuals/groups working in this area.
rgds
Karen Banks
Greennet / IFAA
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Hello again AIWC93 participants,
I hope you don't mind my taking this opportunity to post a request from
a woman who has been commissioned to do research on Servile Forms of Marriage.
I am posting her abstract here and if any women are interested in participating
intthre research, please feel free to contact myself or Ms. Taylor.
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'Anti-Slavery International for the protection of Human Rights'
SERVILE FORMS OF MARRIAGE
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I have been commissioned by Anti-Slavery International to research the above
topic. ASI is concerned about the abuse of human rights such marriages
represent and also about the severe health risks suffered by the often
extremelyyoung women inolved in the first instance.
We are defining as "servile" marriages that take place without the consent of
the wife-to-be, marriages where the wife's humiliation or exploitation are
commonplace, marriages where violence and intimidation are routinely used
to control the wife's behaviour.
This will include very youny marriages, the forced remarriage of widows, and
arrangements where daughters are offered as wives or concubines in exchange
for favours or release from debt. It also includes wife-beating and rape in
marriage, unequal rights to divorce and the right of a wife to control the
number and spacings of her pregnancies. We are also interested in the conflict
between national law and customary or religious laws.
The 'Servile Forms of Marriage' project will involve both researcg and
campaiging elements. ASI will be compiling an archive on the subject as well
as commissioing a serier of in-depth studies in countries where marriages are
most common. The campaiging element will focus on three main activities:
a) sensitising concerned organisations and governments to the existence
and prevalence of such marriages
b) highlighting the ways in which such marriages contravene the major
international human rights conventions and
c) campaiging for the enactment of antional laws--or the enforcement of those
laws where they exist -- to reduce the prevalence of marriages of this kind
My job is to survey the available literature, compile a bibliography and
start amassing a list of contacts -- non -- government organisations,
research institutions, academics and activists -- who are doing work in this
and related fields.
If you feel you are in sympathy with the broad aims of this project, I would
be grateful for any information you can send me about your work ( or that of
the organisation to which you are attached) and about servile forms of
marriage in the country or region in which you are working. I would also
welcome your recommendations for other organisations, individuals and published
material i should consult for additional information on this subject. I am
as interested in individual cases and newspaper cuttings as I am in national
laws, official surverys and statistics.
If it is necessary to photocopy information, or send a great deal of material
through the post, I will be happy to refund your expenses. And if you would
like to find out more about the 'Servile Forms of MArriage' project or
speak eprsonally to me about the topic, do please telephone me at the
above ..[below] telephone number.
I will be writing my report in the second two weeks in February, so it would
help me enourmously to receive whatever material you are able to send as
soon as possible. Thank you very much for your attention. I look forward to
hearing from you.
Yours sincerely
Debbie Taylor
66, Warwick Street, Oxford, OX4 1SX, UK
ph: +44-865-245697
fax: +44-865-726753
Karen Banks
Greennet
23 Bevenden Street
London N1 6BH UK
ph: +44-71-608-3040
fax: +44-71-253-0801
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Center for Indigenous Environment and Development
4224 University Way
Seattle, WA 98105
Tel: (206) 547 2361
Fax: (206) 547 1666
E-mail: pdh@u.washington.edu
phardison@igc.apc.org