BY DITA SARI
[The following statement was issued on March 8 by Dita Sari, chairperson of the Indonesian National Front for Labour Struggles (FNPBI).]
International Women's Day is not just an annual tradition. This isn't also just a celebration. This day is a moment in which we remind ourselves that, even until this last second, prosperity, justice and equality for women, especially workers, hasn't been achieved.
International Women's Day is a bell of warning for women all over the world that capitalist globalisation has thwarted two main aspirations of women and all human beings — prosperity and peace.
The struggle of the advanced capitalist countries to open up the markets [of the Third World], gain huge profits and dominate world politics has produced the pockmarked face of poverty and war.
In almost all continents, civilians have been shaken by war or threat of armed conflicts. From Afghanistan to Palestine to Iraq, from India to Sri Lanka to Aceh — poverty, injustice, economic gaps and violence, have triggered war and bloodshed.
The economic embargo of the United States against the peoples of Iraq and Cuba have killed many women, and especially children, or made it harder for them to get medical service and a proper education.
War in Afghanistan and Palestine have left behind ruined or demolished buildings, children bloated with starvation and malnourished mothers terrorised by fear.
Globalisation does not carry democracy with it, let alone prosperity. Globalisation brings with it low wages and massive dismissal of women workers due to both the economic crisis and industrial relocations to another countries. It is impossible for globalisation to provide political freedom, since the state has been used as an instrument to protect capital from all kinds of disturbance, strikes, workers' demonstrations, and unions' activities.
Living standards in Indonesia and other Third World countries have drastically gone down after the International Monetary Fund's recommendations to cut health and education spending, and electricity, fuel and housing subsidies.
Pregnant mothers will now pay more for health services, while at the same time it's difficult for children to stay in school, due to lack of income. People's control over public enterprises will soon vanish, when privatisation is implemented in various kinds of industry.
The government is the executor of all the IMF's decisions in the interests of the capitalists and their agenda of globalisation.
President Megawati's government is not a government for poor women and children. The interests of this government are to carry out as much as possible the recommendations of the IMF and pay all the foreign debt on time. It is the people who are sacrificed to this goal, especially if the wealth of the corrupt is not confiscated by the courts.
For women, globalisation does not promote equality. Globalisation and capitalism have undermined the position of women in society. Paying women less than men is considered normal. Women's position which is being weakened, giving way to a more intensive scale of trafficking in women, as well as exploitation of their bodies.
Capitalism does not humanise women. Under capitalism, women function merely as labour (the best one is the cheapest), as well as commodities, to provide the capitalists with as large a profit as possible.
We believe that resistance against exploitation, discrimination and violence against women should continue. Side by side with the labour movement, the women's movement can become the source of strength for the social movement of the people.
The emerging anti-globalisation movement around the world — expressed in the protests at Seattle, Genoa, Brussels, South Korea and Melbourne — has demonstrated an incredible level of participation by women fighters.
From Green Left Weekly, March 20, 2002.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.