And justice for women

The department of partnership of women and men held a Latin American consultation on gender and economic justice in Matanzas, Cuba, in November 2001. The aim was to develop a framework of analysis to identify economic injustices from a gender perspective and a new vision for partnership, especially in our churches.

The meeting, organized together with the Alliance of Presbyterian and Reformed Churches in Latin America (AIPRAL), gave participants an opportunity to examine the economic, social and political contexts in which they live; to analyse them from a holistic theological perspective that includes women's experiences; to discuss how economic policies affect women, men and children; and to explore alternative models for economic development. Department secretary Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth reports.

Maria is in trouble. Her farm is doomed and so is her family. All her life she had worked hard with nothing to show for it, so she was happy and hopeful when her husband first leased this piece of land from his uncle. That was before the bottom fell out of the market for coffee beans and coconuts.

Her home-grown coconuts can't compete with the cheap canned coconut milk that is pouring into her country from abroad. Her coffee beans sell for a pittance. If the local cooperative society were still functioning, she would try to negotiate access to a mill, so that she could process her coffee beans, package them, and market the coffee to the local village shops; but the cooperative is long gone. She can't afford to buy the tools and pesticides she needs. She can't get credit because she has no collateral. She can see no way out.

It was her responsibility to make the farm prosper and to provide food for her family. Now she struggles to put a meal on the table. Her husband has threatened her. She is afraid that his family will blame her for this bad luck and take their land back.

Maria is not alone. Her story is one of billions of similar women's stories in the world today.

Women in her country are often the main food producers in poorer families. Trade liberalization and structural adjustment measures make their life difficult. The government no longer subsidizes agriculture, and open markets allow all kinds of foreign products to replace local produce on the supermarket shelves. Only the big farmers who can participate in the new market structures are getting rich. Women like Maria are getting poorer.

Gender justice and economic justice are inseparable for a model of development. Women comprise about 70 percent of the world's 1.3 billion absolute poor and bear the brunt of economic and financial globalization. Governments and intergovernmental organizations fail to develop and evaluate economic policies from a gender perspective. Their strategies for tackling women's poverty are inadequate, because they do not address the causes of poverty or rectify imbalances of power. Programmes to provide women access to markets do not guarantee them a livelihood, because the market structures are inherently inequitable. Micro-enterprise, micro-credit and poverty alleviation schemes are no cure-all for fundamental, structural injustice.

Two years from now, the Alliance's 24th general council will meet in Accra, Ghana, with the theme "That All may have Life in Fullness" (John 10.10). Scripture tells us that the capacity of the earth to sustain life in the peace and justice of shalom is intimately bound to the protection of justice in the social order. Shalom is a very rich concept in which peace is closely tied to right relationships and justice between people and God, between men, women and children in community, and between people and the earth.

The council theme challenges us to look at the negative impact of globalization on economic and power relations and to seek alternatives. These alternatives must include values that women emphasize: caring, compassion, cooperation, diversity, economic justice, and respect for human rights. They must include a gender perspective that looks at the world and its possibilities of transformation through women's eyes.

Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth