World Social Forum – Gender Poverty in Latin America

Activist Francini Mestrun said at an event organised by the
Brazil-based Latin American Network of Women Transforming the Economy that
“poor women are not the same as poor men”. 

Some argued open-market policies have hurt Latin American economic
sectors such as agriculture that employ large percentages of women.

Participants at the six-day conference, which has drawn more than
60,000 people from around the world, also called for UN peacekeepers to
leave Haiti, demanded poor countries’ debt be forgiven, and backed Cuban
leader Fidel Castro’s proposal for a permanent “anti-terrorism” tribunal
to battle US abuses against poor
countries…………………………….

Women’s issues also have won increasing attention among
anti-globalisation activists.

Rosana Heringer, a co-ordinator in Brazil for ActionAid International,
said water privatisation – an issue that has caused violent protests
in Bolivia and Guatemala – especially affects women, who are often
responsible for finding access to water in poor communities not served by
profit-driven water utilities.

Latin American and Caribbean countries have also increasingly turned to
tourism as a primary source of income, spawning a booming sex trade that
has turned the trafficking of women into a profitable crime, some leading
activists said.

Women’s benefits

Others criticised a tendency towards part-time jobs that they argued
has given companies an excuse to eliminate health care and other benefits
for women.

Concepcion La Agua, a
45-year-old Indian leader from Ecuador, said the many problems faced by
the region’s women are all rooted in the mentality that “we are only good
for having children, for being maids in the house and for being servile in
the home”.

Juana Vasquez, 61, a Maya Sacapulteca woman from Guatemala, warned
against blaming the problem on globalisation or other outside influences,
saying Latin America has to face up to what she called endemic abuse and
aggression towards women.