ISSUES

The violence of globalisation

Globalisation is an issue in the Asia Pacific region that dominates the context in which violence against women takes place. It influences how states respond to violence against women. Primarily, globalisation has made women more vulnerable to violence in the family, community and by the state.

Globalisation

The liberalisation, privatisation and deregulation policies promoted under globalisation perpetuate inequalities between nations, between the state and citizens, and among people, between women and men. These policies, drafted and enforced with little or no consideration of the interests of women and other marginalised groups, attest to the patriarchal nature of neo-liberal economic globalisation.

So, as testimonies from women living in poverty in the Asia Pacific region consistently reveal, women have become poorer, more disadvantaged and marginalised as a direct result of globalisation.

The aggressive push for trade liberalisation has led to economic and cultural dislocation of rural and indigenous women in the region. Large scale commercial extractive industries such as mining, logging and power generation by multinational corporations have led to the loss of land, the loss of traditional sources of livelihood, and increased food insecurity.

Large numbers of people affected by poverty resulting from globalisation policies are consequently forced into migration. This has created a greater pool of cheap female labour, and a staggering increase in the feminisation of migration. In Hong Kong alone there were 237,110 foreign domestic workers in 2002.

All of these migrant workers are women coming from Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka. There has also been a deplorable increase of women and girls being trafficked. In Southeast Asia, women and girls are being trafficked for the sex industry as well as for sweatshop labour, forced marriage and street begging.

Under privatisation and deregulation policies, the return of investments for the capitalists has had more premium than people's rights. Governments' strategic approach to poverty has been to open up lands and labour to multi-national corporations at the expense of national sovereignty and people's rights to food, land, water and resources. It has also resulted in reduced access to affordable and accessible health and education.

Globalisation policies, including agricultural and services trade, intellectual property rights, finance, heavy burdens on debt servicing and structural adjustment have had enormous impacts on women peasants and small farmers.

With increased poverty and migration, women face greater deprivation and heavier burdens of work. When family food security is threatened, women are the first to suffer. Nowadays women workers have to work longer and harder just to survive under the adverse domestic and market conditions. They face greater health risks and problems from the increasing use of toxic chemicals in the new market-oriented agriculture.

With modern technology-based agriculture, they are even losing the little control they had on food production, as the process becomes further marginalised. Their role is being limited only to farm work, and their participation in decision-making on production methods and new technology, marketing etc., is not 'well received.'

As a result, women have become more vulnerable to violence that persists in various forms. There has been a backlash against women as men within the family and the community prioritises their interests over women's. The UN special rapporteur on violence against women has reaffirmed that "economically disadvantaged women are more vulnerable to sexual harassment, trafficking and sexual slavery."

The backlash against women and women's rights throughout the region is also reflected in the state's assertion and protection of economic-political interests at the expense of women's rights, to the point where the state actors are perpetrating or condoning violence against women to enforce state interests.

Specific forms of violence

Within this context of globalisation, the state is likewise liable for specific forms of violence against women. In an environment of state sponsored militarisation, women have become more vulnerable to violence, especially in militarised areas and as displaced persons and asylum seekers in transit and receiving countries.

The increased militarisation has been supported by increased allocations in national budgets for military purposes and subsequent reductions in budgets for expenditure on health and education for women. Related to this has been the increase in violence against women perpetrated or condoned by states.

Consultations with women's groups in Asia Pacific reveal the following cases of state violence:

For example, the license to rape in Myanmar, where the military junta's forces rape Shan women with impunity. The army exercises absolute power and all abuses, including sexual violence, are licensed in the interests of controlling populations.

The documentation of 173 such incidents of rape gives clear evidence that rape is officially condoned as a 'weapon of war' against women in the state of Shan; and that the Burmese military regime has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in the form of sexual violence against Shan women.

The issue of 'comfort women' is another instance of state sponsored violence against women. 'Comfort women' is a term used for over 200,000 women and girls who were kidnapped, tricked, or coerced and used as sex slaves by the Japanese government during World War II.

Girls, as young as 12 years, were taken from schools and required to 'service' dozens of military personnel a day. Only an estimated 25% survived the war and fewer are alive today. The majority committed suicide, died from sexually transmitted diseases or forced abortions or sterilisations; were murdered by the Japanese army for attempting to escape, or murdered by Japanese troops just before surrender to eliminate evidence; or were simply abandoned in remote jungle battlefields to die. The Japanese government in all these regards acted with impunity.

Another example is where nonintervention by the state in Gujarat's communal violence resulted in numerous accounts of violence against Muslim women, including rape, torchings and killings.

Lack of safety

One key factor that contributes towards impunity for state violence is the lack of safety afforded to women survivors, their families and witnesses and their families that prevents women from reporting incidents of state violence to UN and to other independent fact finding missions and investigations.

In these situations of state violence, the normal criminal sanctions are not applicable to the state per se. Only individual state representatives can be held responsible. Where state representatives have committed acts of violence against women, women victims and their families are not able to testify against state officials as they fear for their safety.

Witness protection schemes in fact-finding missions, such as that identified in the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court can be employed to ensure that women are not exposed to further risk and trauma. There is a need to re-examine the methodologies for verifying violation because unless safer methods are employed, large numbers of women will continue to not speak out and the violence will continue unabated.

Another important element is criminalising violence against women. States have made tremendous progress in criminalising forms of violence against women, such as forced marriage, forced prostitution, rape, domestic violence, violence within the family. The enactment of national legislations on domestic violence and the entry into force of the ICC attest to the national and international advances made in these areas.

This has increased the recognition of violence against women as a state responsibility and its obligation to prevent and offer redress. However, there are several limitations related to such a strategy.

Firstly, in spite of the legal remedies, there is still widespread acceptance of acts of violence against women in many communities. Caste based violence against Dalit women, dowry deaths, honour killings, compensation practices for rape, domestic violence are justified under religious or cultural practices and perpetrators are difficult to persecute.

Secondly, the consequent forms of redress made available to women at the national level are actionable only within the criminal justice system; which tends not to employ gendered processes. This has meant that women are not able to access the criminal justice system as they cannot seek the assistance of the law enforcers with full assurance that their matters will be addressed appropriately.

Where they have sought redress through the criminal legal system, many have been exposed to further risk, where they are required to give evidence without adequate witness protection; or further trauma, where they are forced to re-experience their violation within the court system, and often face unjust outcomes.

Consequently, there continues to be a high level of reluctance among women to seek redress through the criminal system, and correspondingly, a high level of impunity of perpetrators, particularly state perpetrators.

A system that provides legal standards and remedies for violence against women, but that does not 'persecute' the women affected, is imperative. Mechanisms and procedures for redress need to be improved to ensure they do not aggravate the situation for the women affected.

Lack of implementation of state commitments is another contributory factor towards impunity for state violence against women. To a large extent, the commitments made by state to address violence against women and armed conflict under the UN Convention on the elimination of all forms of discriminations against women and critical areas D and E of the Beijing Platform for Action and its five-year review, have not been fully implemented.

Even where states have introduced laws and policies to address violence against women at the national level, the laws and policies themselves are not fully implemented. Related to this, insufficient resources have been allocated in national budgets to fully implement national level policies and programmes. For example, there continues to be a dearth of domestic violence shelters, which is a persisting and urgent need in many countries in the region.

There is also concern that states have placed more focus on service-oriented strategies that address the consequences of violence against women rather than systemic-oriented strategies that focus on the prevention of violence against women.

For instance, rather than only providing relief services for those affected, preventing situations of armed or communal conflict necessitates implementing strategies that change communities' patriarchal attitudes towards women.

- (Ms. is indebted to the Asia Pacific Forum on Women Law
and Development for this contribution) 

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