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By Jivka Marinova Members of the International Gender and Trade Network are involved in raising awareness about the implications on women of the different global trade agreements, with a specific focus on GATS
Women are always better organised when social issues are at stake -- this was the conclusion of the International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN) workshop. The IGTN, which came out of the resistance in Seattle, is a strong women's movement unifying organisations from Asia, Africa Latin America and the Caribbean. It opposes gender mainstreaming in trade negotiations as something that threatens the true struggle for fair conditions of trade. Talking about gender mainstreaming is just discourse that leads nowhere, they claim. At the last ministerial meeting in Cancun, the legitimacy of the WTO and the IMF were questioned and the importance of national platforms stressed.
People are starting to ask themselves why universal goods like water and air have to be a matter of private market relationships. How is it possible to negotiate privately on air? Why is it necessary to privatise electricity and water and liberate the states from their major responsibilities towards their citizens? These questions are raised by women, who are the major caretakers everywhere. Who collect the water for their households; who are more and more the breadwinners of their families. A lot of awareness-raising and sensitisation of the population is necessary regarding the implication of various trade agreements, especially the implications of GATS (the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade). Women from the IGTN are organising large education campaigns on these issues, specifically on social spending on water and benefits from water budgets. In Africa, they have organised 'water tribunals'. The women take on and criticise the WTO as well as regional trade forums from a women's perspective. They openly critique the trade policy and undertake large advocacy campaigns. They are key in the struggle for their 'other world'. Source: www.ciranda.net , January 19, 2004
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