Transcript 14IACCCECILIAPPCBBangkok_121110

Empowerment:
A way for poor women in the Andes to
become citizens
Workshop: Gender equality, women’s security and the
MDGs. How far is corruption a hindrance?
Cecilia Blondet, Proética Perú
Perú: economic growth
12
9.84
8.86
10
6.83
8
6
7.74
4.98
4.03
4
2
0
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
Real GDP (var. % anual)
• Perú has been growing consistently in the last decade.
• This means a raise of the GDP, GDP per capita, more job
opportunities and poverty reduction.
Perú: positive economic growth during
the crisis
4
2
0
-2
-4
Argentina
Brasil
Chile
Colombia
México
Perú
-6
-8
• Among the region, Perú continued growing even in 2009, when
every other country in the region during the financial crisis showed a
negative variation in anual GDP.
Latin America: inequality rate
However, this
growth did not
match with
proper
distributive
mechanisms. The
inequality of the
country deepens.
Gap between urban and rural poverty
reduction
80
70.9
69.8
70
69.3
64.6
60.3
59.8
60
50
40
37.1
36.8
31.2
30
25.7
23.5
21.1
20
10
0
2004
2005
2006
Urban
2007
Rural
2008
2009
The gap between
urban and rural areas
increased making
poverty more dramatic
in the fields.
While poverty in urban
area reduced 16% in
five years, in rural
area the reduction
was 10%.
Rural Women
• Peru is the country which host most native ethnic groups
(71) and native languages (67) in America.
• Women in rural areas (Andes and Jungle) are mostly
monolingual. They stay in their indigenous peasant
communities, with limited access to education, health
and market.
• The quality of the delivery of public services (Justice,
health and schooling) are weak.
• State institutions in rural areas are poor and precarious.
• Rural women are hardly able to access to available
information.
Social indicators shows their
vulnerability:
Illiteracy rate in rural areas by gender
50
40
39.4
38.2
36.7
34.9
33.7
33.9
30
20
Male
Female
14.4
13.2
12.9
12.1
11.2
11
10
0
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
Motherhood
Maternal deaths
(per 100,000 born)
Motherhood: Women of 15-19
years old according to
different categories (%)
350
300
40
250
30
35
33
25
20
200
20
150
100
10
50
0
Rural area
0
1980 1985 1990 1993 1996 2000 2010
Bottom
quintile of
wealth
Only
primary
education
Jungle
Education facts
in rural areas
Enrollment Vs. teachers
in rural schools
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
112
61
3
Elementary
school
8
High school
Enrollment (average)
Number of teachers (average)
Bilingual teaching:
• Only 15.9% of the
schools placed in
rural indigenous
areas teach in the
native language of the
students (2008).
Given this social conditions…
• Is very hard for rural women in the Andes and in
the Jungle to surpass the exclusion, to be able
to chose, to decide, to relate with authorities, to
demand better services or to denounce
corruption. They are victims, not citizens.
• Besides, there is a discriminating and excluding
order constantly reproducing itself. Power is in
hands of men, mestizos, nurses, teachers,
judges, and local authorities. Any attempt to
modify it is rejected by those who hold power.
(Either men or women under power condition).
CCT programs and empowerment
• Cash Conditional Transfer Programs, as last generation social
programs have a big potential for empowerment of rural women. To
make them subjects of law (Identity card, savings account, regular
cash money, credit loans, etc.)
• CCTs are long term social programs. In exchange of 30 dollars or
equivalent, women commit to fulfill some requirements regarding the
education and health of their children.
• These mechanisms strengthen their position into the families, in the
communities and in face of the public institutions.
• But at the same time, there is a tension between the “empoweror”
mechanism of the program and the discriminating social and political
reality which pulls them down: As JUNTOS beneficiaries they are
target and stigmatized as “The miserables”, “the poor women of
Juntos”.
How to overcome this?
•
•
This issue of discrimination against rural women goes far beyond poverty. Is a matter of politics
and as such, of public policy.
It deals with a traditional system of reproduction of power which combines different variables of
discrimination where rural women end up at the end of the chain:
–
–
–
–
–
–
•
•
•
•
•
Urban/ Rural.
Educated/ Poorly educated.
Less indigenous/ More indigenous.
Male/ Female.
Public/ Private
Patronizing/ Meritocracy
Social programs are a potential way to make them subjects of rights and duties.
It is crucial to transfer them capabilities, to give them access to information and participation, as
well as to produce information knowledgeable by them since women are the ones that stay in the
rural areas.
Transparency in both ways: as the Right to Information (the Law and its requirements) and also,
as a way to give women beneficiaries the basic information to acknowledge themselves as subject
of rights and duties and to complain for problems in the delivery of service.
Besides, the work with authorities and politicians is a must.
Rural women have to have the opportunity to run away from exclusion, became citizens and be an
active agents of the fight against corruption in local governments.