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Importing marginalization? Gender, work and globalization: Sri Lankan experience
Globalization, with regulation of economies, has the potential to be a powerful contributor to gender equality, as a creator of new economic opportunities for women. However, these positive effects are still only potential and need to be unleashed. Therefore there is much controversy surrounding the actual impact of globalization, particularly in terms of gender equity.
The Women’s Movement in Russia: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
The women’s movement in contemporary Russia exists as the social, cultural, and political activity of women’s groups and organisations, aimed at bringing together the interests of various social strata of women and bringing about a change in the system of gender relations. The Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation has officially registered over 600 women’s organisations. The women’s movement in Russia is one of the most active parts of the Third Section Movement, encompassing approximately 10% of the most active NGOs.
The New Constitution of Serbia and Gender Equality
The constitutional issue in the Republic of Serbia has been open for a long time now. The debate on the constitutional issue was initiated among experts as early as the moment of adopting the Constitution, and debate has continued. The constitutional debate has been conducted in stages, focusing on various constitutional issues. Constitutional guarantees of gender equality did not come into the focus of attention of the expert and political community until late 2004. Some other constitutional contents had been the object of interest until then.
The Enlarged EU and Its Agenda for a Wider Europe:
The privatisation process has lead to the abolishment of economic and social rights and inadequate protective mechanisms; a lack of respect for international labour and environmental standards; a lack of transparency. Moreover, there is no legislation on corporate responsibility. The need to make the economy attractive for foreign investments is being used as justification for all these legal changes. Of course, all these policies are not gender-neutral. Women have absorbed the shock of the adjustment by intensifying their unpaid work necessary because of budget cuts in basic public services such as education, social services, and health care.
The Enlarged EU and Its Agenda for a Wider Europe:
The transition from centrally planned to market-based economies was based on privatisation, liberalisation and a strengthening of the financial and tax discipline of companies. These changes had serious implications for the redistribution of resources and budgetary spending. Price increases and an increase in foreign debt put pressure on national budgets resulting in cuts in public expenditures - including in health, education and family related benefits. The transition process had significant social impacts including destabilising the labour market and creating a class of so-called “new poor”.
The Enlarged EU and its Agenda for a Wider Europe:
Structural reform, privatisation, attracting foreign direct investments and accession to the European Union in 2007 are the main priorities of the Bulgarian government - but the government is not taking into consideration the negative effects of globalisation on social protection, especially among vulnerable groups (women, young people, pensioners). Armed conflicts in the Balkans and financial constraints related to structural adjustment programmes have negatively affected the ability of the previous and the current governments of Bulgaria to promote social development through better safety nets.
The Enlarged EU and its Agenda for a Wider Europe:
The CEE countries share a common economic history of being centrally controlled until the end of the 1980s - including wages, prices of goods and services, and real estate, followed by the subsidisation of a great range of goods and services (and hence those goods were relatively affordable). At the beginning of the 1990s, the process of political, social and economic transition led to the privatisation of state assets and the integration into the global capitalist market.
The Enlarged EU and its Agenda for a Wider Europe:
From a women’s rights and a gender equality perspective, and indeed from a social protection perspective in general, there is growing evidence that social directives and guidelines from the EU are at odds with those ruling economic matters. It is undeniable that in some countries the social directives and guidelines have done much to introduce and accelerate an increased awareness and needed change with respect to women’s economic and social rights and gender equality in general. However, economic policies can work directly and indirectly against adequately guaranteeing these rights inasmuch as these policies assume gender neutrality when in fact they are gender blind.
The enlarged European Union and its agenda for a ‘wider Europe’:
Among the shared values the EU wants its new and future members and its neighbours to foment are democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law. But do these values include gender equality? The European Commission’s 2003 Communication ‘Wider Europe - Neighbourhood: A new framework for relations with our Eastern and Southern neighbours’ is silent on the subject. The hearing held by Women in Development Europe (WIDE) at the European Parliament on December 2, 2004 explored the potential for mainstreaming gender equality in key areas of national policy in the new member states and other Eastern European countries, and the extent to which the EU can help in this respect. The hearing followed up WIDE’s consultation on gender equality in EU accession negotiations held in 2003 in Brussels, and aimed to carry the discussion forward to the formulation of recommendations to be taken back to the participants’ national governments.
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