ReportWire

Tag: Women & Economy

  • Perus Agro-Export Boom Has not Boosted Human Development

    Perus Agro-Export Boom Has not Boosted Human Development

    [ad_1]

    Her hands loaded with crates, Susan Quintanilla, a union leader of agro-export workers in the department of Ica in southwestern Peru, gets ready to collect different vegetables and fruits for foreign markets. She has witnessed many injustices, saying the companies “made you feel like they were doing you a favor by giving you work, they wanted you to keep your head down.” CREDIT: Courtesy of Susan Quintanilla
    • by Mariela Jara (lima)
    • Inter Press Service

    LIMA, May 31 (IPS) – Peru’s agro-export industry is growing steadily and reached record levels in 2022. But this has not had a favorable impact on human development in this South American country, where high levels of inequality, poverty, childhood anemia and malnutrition persist, as well as complaints about the poor quality of employment in the sector.

    Exports of agricultural products such as blueberries, grapes, tangerines, artichokes and asparagus generated 9.8 billion dollars in revenue in 2022 – 12 percent higher than the 2021 total, as reported in February by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism.

    Agricultural exports represent four percent of GDP in this Andean nation, where mining and fishing are the main economic activities.

    “The increase in revenue from agricultural exports has not brought human development: anemia and tuberculosis are at worrying levels and now dengue fever is skyrocketing,” Rosario Huallanca, a representative of the non-governmental Ica Human Rights Commission (Codeh Ica), which has worked for 41 years in that department of southwestern Peru, told IPS.

    Ica and two other departments along the country’s Pacific coast, La Libertad and Piura, are leaders in the sector, accounting for nearly 50 percent of agricultural exports in this country of 33 million people, which despite this boom remains plagued by inequality, reflected by high levels of poverty and informality and precariousness in employment.

    Monetary poverty affected 27.5 percent of the country’s 33 million inhabitants in 2022, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics. This is a seven percentage point increase over the pre-pandemic period. The number of poor people was estimated at 9,184,000 last year, 600,000 more than in 2021.

    Ica, which has a total of 850,765 inhabitants, is one of the departments with the lowest monetary poverty rates, five percent, because it has full employment, largely due to the agro-export boom of the last two decades.

    Huallanca said the number of agro-export companies is estimated at 320, with a total of 120,000 employees, who come from different parts of the country.

    What stands out, she said, is that 70 percent of the total number of workers in the sector are women, who are valued for their fine motor skills in handling fruits and vegetables.

    Although a portion of the workers of some companies are in the informal sector, there are no clear numbers, the expert pointed out.

    But there are alarming figures available: more than six percent of children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition, and anemia affects 33 percent of children between six and 35 months of age.

    “With the type of job we have, we cannot take our children to their growth checkups, we can’t miss work because they don’t pay you if you don’t show up, we cry in silence because of our anxiety,” 42-year-old Yanina Huamán, who has worked in the agro-export sector for 20 years to support her three children, told IPS.

    The two oldest are in middle and higher education and her youngest is still in primary school. “I am both mother and father to my children. With my work I am giving them an education and I have manged to secure a home of my own, but it’s precarious, the bedrooms don’t have roofs yet, for example,” she said.

    Huamán is secretary for women’s affairs in the union of the company where she works, a position she was appointed to in November 2022. From that post, she hopes to help bring about improvements in access to healthcare for female workers, who either postpone going to the doctor when they need to, or receive poor medical attention in the social security health system “where they only give us pills.”

    Ica currently has the highest number of deaths from dengue fever, a viral disease that led the government of Dina Boluarte to declare a 90-day health emergency in 13 of the country’s 24 departments a couple of weeks ago.

    Not only that, it has the history of being the department with the highest level of deaths from Covid-19: 901 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, exceeding the national average of 630 per 100,000. “The health system here does not work,” trade unionist Huamán said bluntly.

    Yanina Huamán, a worker in the agro-export sector in the department of Ica in southwestern Peru, explains at a meeting in Lima the problems that affect labor rights in the sector, particularly for women who make up 70 percent of the workers. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS
    Yanina Huamán, a worker in the agro-export sector in the department of Ica in southwestern Peru, explains at a meeting in Lima the problems that affect labor rights in the sector, particularly for women who make up 70 percent of the workers. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

    Working conditions more difficult for women

    The lack of quality employment and the deficient recognition of labor rights, exacerbated by the pandemic, prompted a strike in November 2020 that began in Ica and spread to the northern coastal area of ??La Libertad and Piura.

    Their demands included a minimum living wage of 70 soles (19 dollars) a day, social benefits such as compensation and raises for length of service, and recognition of the right to form unions.

    Grouped together in the recently created Ica Workers’ Union Agro-exports Struggle Committee, which represents casual and seasonal workers, they went to Congress in Lima to demand changes in the current legislation.

    Susan Quintanilla, 39, originally from the central Andean department of Ayacucho, is the general secretary of the union. She arrived in Ica in 2014 after separating from her husband. She came with her two children, a girl and a boy, for whom she hoped for a future with better opportunities.

    After working as a harvester in the fields, and cleaning and packing fruit at the plant, she decided to work on a piecework basis, because that way she could earn more and save up for times when the companies needed less labor.

    “It was incredibly hard,” she told IPS. “I would leave home at 10 in the morning and leave work at three or four in the wee hours of the next morning to be there to get my kids ready for school. I was 29 or 30 years old, I was young, but I saw older women with pain in their bodies, their arms and their feet due to the postures we had at work, but they continued because they had no other option.

    “I saw many injustices in the agro-export companies,” she added. “They made you feel that they were doing you a favor by giving you work, they wanted you to keep your head down, they shouted at and humiliated people, they made them feel miserable. I protested, raised my voice, and they didn’t fire me because I was a high performance worker and they needed me. The situation has changed a little because of our struggles, but it hasn’t come for free.”

    The late 2020 protests led to the approval on Dec. 31 of that year of Law No. 31110 on agricultural labor and incentives for the agricultural and irrigation sector, aimed at guaranteeing the rights of workers in the agro-export and agroindustrial sectors.

    But in Quintanilla’s view, the law discriminates against non-permanent workers who make up the largest part of the workforce in the sector, since the preferential right to hiring established in the fourth article of the law is not respected.

    “Nor have they recognized the differentiated payment of our social benefits and they include them in the daily wage that is calculated at 54 soles (a little more than 14 dollars): it’s not fair,” she complained.

    At the same time, she stressed that the agro-export work is harder on women because they are the ones responsible for raising their children. “We live in a sexist society that burdens us with all of the care work,” Quintanilla said.

    She also explained that because several of the companies are so far away, it takes workers longer to get to work, which means they are away from home for up to twelve hours a day. “We go to work with the anxiety that we are leaving our children at risk of the dangers of life, we cannot be with them as we would like, which damages us emotionally.”

    Added to this, she said, are the terrible working conditions, such as the fact that the toilets are far from the areas where they work, as much as three blocks away, or in unsanitary conditions, which leads women to avoid using them, to the detriment of their health.

    Workers sort avocados for export in Peru. Agro-exports account for four percent of the country's GDP, but the prosperity of the sector has not translated into better human development for its workers, and diseases such as anemia and tuberculosis are alarmingly prevalent in agroindustrial areas. CREDIT: Comexperu
    Workers sort avocados for export in Peru. Agro-exports account for four percent of the country’s GDP, but the prosperity of the sector has not translated into better human development for its workers, and diseases such as anemia and tuberculosis are alarmingly prevalent in agroindustrial areas. CREDIT: Comexperu

    Agro-export companies and human rights

    Huallanca said that Codeh Ica was promoting the creation of a space of diverse stakeholders so that the National Business and Human Rights Plan, a public policy aimed at ensuring that economic activities improve people’s quality of life, is fulfilled in the department. Five unions from Ica and the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Tourism participate in this initiative.

    “We have made an enormous effort and we hope that on Jun. 16 it will be formally created by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, the governing body for this policy,” she said.

    In the meantime, she added, “we have helped bring together women involved in the agro-export sector, who have developed a rights agenda that has been given shape in this multi-stakeholder space and we hope it will be taken into account.”

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • Star Wars Director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy Symbolises A Litany of Firsts For Women

    Star Wars Director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy Symbolises A Litany of Firsts For Women

    [ad_1]

    Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (L) on the set of Ms Marvel, directing actor Mehwish Hayat (R). Credit: Disney/Lucasfilm
    • by Zofeen Ebrahim (karachi)
    • Inter Press Service

    KARACHI, Apr 25 (IPS) – The announcement by Lucas film’s president, Kathleen Kennedy, about the upcoming three new live-action Star Wars films was enough for lawyer Maliha Zia to get euphoric.

    But there is another reason for the excitement for many Pakistani Star Wars movie buffs like her. Among the three top-notch directors that Kennedy said her company would be helming the three films is Pakistan’s Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.

    “This is beyond phenomenal,” said an excited Zia, associate director at the Karachi-based Legal Aid Society, who, by her own unabashed admission, is a life-long Star Wars fan, watching the films since she was four.

    Now a mother of three, she religiously watches the original three every year, coercing her 8-year-old to watch with her. “I never imagined that someone from Pakistan would ever get the chance to direct a film from this iconic series,” she added.

    What is even more exciting for the lawyer is that she had not even in her wildest of dreams imagined she would actually know someone who would be directing them. “Something so iconic seemed so far away, untouchable and amazing; it’s unbelievable that it seems so much closer now!” She and Chinoy have collaborated for a long time on an animated series on women’s right to property.

    The Disney-owned studio may have selected “the best and most passionate filmmakers” in the three directors, including Dave Filoni and James Mangold, but with Chinoy overseeing the final new movie, there will be many firsts.

    “She is the only Pakistani, the only South Asian, the only woman, and also the only woman of colour to be helming a Star Wars movie,” said Omair Alavi, a showbiz critic, and a huge Star Wars fan, excited by the news of the three films. Although for him, “the fabulous episodes of The Mandalorian” on the TV screen kept him well appeased during this interim period.

    This year’s USC Annenberg (it examines specific demographics  — gender, race/ethnicity of directors across the 100 top domestic fictional films in North America) study, titled Inclusion in the Director’s Chair, looked at the gender, race and ethnicity of directors across 1600 top films from 2007 to 2022, found a mere 5.6 percent were women, and the ratio of men to women directors across 16 years 11 to 1. In 2022, it was 9 percent — down from 12.7 percent in 2021.

    “Hollywood’s image of a woman director is white,” said the study and pointed out that the “think director, think male” phenomenon disregarding the “competence and experience of women and people of color” should be done away with. In addition, instituting checks in the evaluation process of potential directors was also critical.

    In a way hiring Chinoy may open the doors for the unrepresented.

    She is also the only among the trio to have won two Oscars (for her documentaries denouncing violence against women). In addition, Chinoy has seven Emmys under her belt, aside from being honoured Hilal-i-Imtiaz, Pakistan’s second-highest civilian award.

    “So so proud of you, my friend. May the force be with you!” global actor Priyanka Chopra congratulated Chinoy on her Instagram Stories.

    Although she is a seasoned documentary filmmaker, having directed and produced the first ever Pakistani 3D computer-animated adventure film Teen Bahadur in 2015 and directing two episodes of the 2022 TV series Ms Marvel, this will be Chinoy’s first stint in Hollywood. Will she be able to handle the big project?

    “Sharmeen has a knack of doing things that other people only dream of,” said her former employee, Hussain Qaizar Yunus, a film editor, who, although awestruck, was “unsurprised” to learn of Chinoy’s being selected to direct the Hollywood movie.

    And with the last few films not very well received, he said, “A fresh perspective from someone like Sharmeen is exactly what the franchise needs right now.”

    Nevertheless, she was an “unusual choice” to be directing a Star Wars film. But her documentary background could work to her advantage, he said. “Her experience of telling real stories of real people would perhaps ground the story with a sense of realism to what is otherwise an epic space opera,” he added and hoped Chinoy would bring South Asian representation to Star Wars, both in front of and behind the camera, “the same way that she did with Ms Marvel”.

    Chatting with IPS over WhatsApp, Chinoy said: “As a filmmaker who has championed heroes throughout her career, I think that Star Wars fits in with that mission of a hero’s journey of overcoming against all odds.”

    “The story I will be bringing into the world is about the rebuilding of the new Jedi Order, the new Jedi academy,” said the newly appointed director, who seems to be a Star Wars fan, having named her dog Chewbacca (after the fictional character in the Star Wars). Chinoy will also be co-writing the film with Damon Lindelof. Set 15 years after the end of the last movie (2019), British actor Daisy Ridley will return to her role of Rey, the heroine of the last trilogy, as she fights to revive the Jedi order.

    “She’ll be able to pull it off; she knows her job!” said Alvi confidently.

    Kennedy also revealed that these films will take place across vast timelines from the very early days of the Jedi to a future beyond Rise of Skywalker. “Hopefully, this new series will attract both the older and the newer generation; my generation, who watched it as kids, can watch it with their kids or grandparents can take their grandchildren; it will be worth the wait,” anticipated journalist Muna Khan, who watched the first film as a kid back in the late 70s and the memory of which is “seared in my mind”. These films are not just for folks who watched it then; they’re “timeless, and each new instalment adds to the timelessness” she pointed out. The first of the three films are slated for release in 2025.

    IPS UN Bureau Report


    Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • Gender Central to Parliamentarians Programme of Action

    Gender Central to Parliamentarians Programme of Action

    [ad_1]

    Cooperative members in southern Lebanon make a rare, traditional bread called Mallet El Smid to be sold at the MENNA shop in Beirut. Women are central to meeting the SDGs, say parliamentarians. Credit: UN Women/Joe Saade
    • by IPS Correspondent (johannesburg)
    • Inter Press Service

    JOHANNESBURG, Feb 23 (IPS) – The post-COVID-19 period has been a crucial one for members of parliament who have their work cut out to ensure that issues that arose during the pandemic are addressed, especially concerning the ICPD25 commitments and programmes of action for universal access to sexual and reproductive rights, gender-based violence and building peaceful, just and inclusive societies. Across the world, progress toward achieving the SDGs by 2030 was impacted during the pandemic.

    As Dr Samar Haddad, a former member of the Lebanese Parliament and head of the Population Committee at the Bar Association in Lebanon commented at a recent meeting of the Forum of the Arab Parliamentarians  for Population and Development (FAPPD): “The main theme for this year is combating gender-based violence, which is a scourge that the entire world suffers from, and its rate has risen alarmingly in light of the economic crisis, bloody stability, wars, and displacement.”

    IPS was privileged to interview two members of parliament from the region about how they are tackling GBV, youth empowerment, and women’s participation in politics, society, and the economy.

    Here are edited excerpts from the interviews:

    Pierre Bou Assi, MP from Lebanon
    Pierre Bou Assi, MP from Lebanon

    Pierre Bou Assi, MP from Lebanon

    IPS:What legislation, budgets, and monitoring frameworks are in place or planned for combating GBV in Lebanon?

    Pierre Bou Assi (PA): Lebanon has launched a project to support protection and prevention systems to prevent gender-based violence within the framework of continuous efforts aimed at responding to social and economic challenges in Lebanon and aims to strengthen prevention and monitoring mechanisms for gender-based violence, and support the efforts made by the Public Security Directorate through the Department Family and juvenile protection.

    IPS: One of your speakers at a recent conference spoke about rapid population growth, youth, and high urbanization rates. Youth are often impacted by unemployment or low rates of decent employment. What are parliamentarians doing to assist youth in ensuring that the country can benefit from its demographic dividend?

    PA: Youth are the pillar of the nation, its present and future, and the means and goal of development. They are the title of a strong society and its future, stressing that the conscious youth (educated and mindful) armed with science and knowledge are more than capable of facing the challenges of the present and the most prepared to enter the midst of the future.

    I would like to say that the Youth Committee in the Lebanese Parliament is working on developing a targeted and real strategy that includes advanced programs that are agreed upon by experts and active institutions in this field to consolidate the principles of citizenship, the rule of law and patriotism, and empower the youth politically and economically to achieve their potential and develop and expand their horizons.

    In addition, we are expanding youth participation in public life by providing them with opportunities for practical training in legislative and oversight institutions, and refining the participants’ personal skills by informing them of the decision-making process in the Council.

    IPS:Looking back at the COVID-19 situation, most countries experienced two clear issues, an increase in GBV and its impact on children’s education. There was also an issue with high levels of violence experienced by children. Are parliamentarians concerned about the COVID impacts on children, and what programs have been implemented to support them?

    PA: There is no doubt that Lebanon, like other countries in the world, was affected by the coronavirus pandemic in all aspects of life, including children and its impact on the quality of education, as well as the high level of violence that children were exposed to during that period, as I would like to take a look at the more positive side. We note a number of measures Lebanon took during the pandemic – which included the release of children who were in detention, the strengthening or expansion of social protection systems through cash assistance, and an overall decrease in levels of violence in conflict situations.

    Hmoud Al-Yahyai, MP from Oman.
    Lebanon has a plan that includes the following points:
    The continuity and safety of learning for all school children, including bridging the digital divide and creating low-cost technology.Implementing a basic package for equitable access to primary health care for children and mothers.Expanding the scope and appropriateness of infant and young child feeding programs and general educational messages.Expanding social protection systems to reach the most affected children and families through cash transfer programmes.Enhancing government budgetary allocations and public funding for social sectors, with a special focus on health care and education. Hmoud Al-Yahyai, MP from Oman.

    Hmoud Al-Yahyai, MP from Oman

    Al-Yahyai spoke to IPS about the development of a human-rights-based framework. The interview followed a meeting with the theme “Human Rights and their relationship to the goals of sustainable development. The meeting was held by the Omani Parliamentary Committee for Population and Development in cooperation Omani National Commission for Human Rights, the Forum of Arab Parliamentarians for Population and Development (FAPPD), and the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) on “Human Rights and their relationship to the goals of sustainable development.”

    IPS: How is Oman working towards a human rights-based legislative framework, and what role are parliamentarians taking to ensure implementation? What role does Oman Vision 2040 play in this?

    Hmoud Al-Yahyai (HY): The government of the Sultanate of Oman has integrated the sustainable development goals into national development strategies and plans and made them a major component of the long-term national development strategy components and axes known as Oman Vision 2040. The strategy is enhanced by broad societal participation when designing and implementing it and evaluating the plans and policies set. And we, as parliamentarians, make sure, as stated in the voluntary national report, (to provide oversight of) the government’s commitment to achieving the goals of sustainable development, with its three dimensions, economic, social, and environmental, within the specified time frame.

    I commend the efforts of the Sultanate of Oman in implementing the goals of sustainable development through several axes, including the pillars of sustainable development, implementation mechanisms, progress achieved, and future directions for the localization of the sustainable development agenda in the short and medium term, and the consistency of Oman Vision 2040.

    The Sultanate of Oman reviewed its first voluntary national report on sustainable development at the United Nations headquarters as part of its participation in the work of the UN Economic and Social Council.

    Sustainability is crucial to Sultanate, emphasizing that development is not an end in itself, but aimed at building up its population.

    Future directions for the localization of the SDGs in the short and medium term are represented on five axes, which include raising community awareness, localizing sustainable development, development partnerships, monitoring progress and making evidence-based policies, and institutional support.

    The axes for sustainable development are human empowerment, a competitive knowledge economy, environmental resilience through commitment and prevention, and peace. These form the pillars for sustainable development through efficient financing, local development, and monitoring and evaluation.

    Oman has adopted a coordinated package of social, economic, and financial policies to achieve inclusive development based on a competitive and innovative economy. This is being worked upon toward Oman Vision 2040 and its implementation plans, through a set of programs and initiatives that seek to localize the development plan toward achieving the SDGs 2030 and beyond.

    IPS: What role do women play in your legislative framework, and do they play a role in ensuring, for example, SRHR rights?

    HY: The Sultanate has taken many positive measures to sponsor women. The Sultanate’s policies towards accelerating equality between men and women stem from the directives of the Sultan and his initiatives to appoint women to high positions, to feminize the titles of positions when women fill them, and to grant them political, economic, and social rights.

    Women benefit from support in the

    • Social field: through comprehensive social insurance and social security system.
    • Political field: through the appointment of female ministers, undersecretaries, and ambassadors, and in the field of public prosecution.
    • Economic field: through labor and corporate law.
    • Cultural field: through the system of education and grants.

    There are many programs geared or dedicated to women. The government has begun to circulate and implement a program to support maternal and childcare services at the national level to reduce disease and death rates by providing health care for women during pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum and encouraging childbirth under medical supervision.

    IPS: What are the achievements of Oman in reaching SDG Target 3.7 (Sexual and reproductive health by 2030, ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive healthcare services, including family planning, information and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies)?

    HY: In this regard, a campaign was launched on sexual and reproductive health in the Sultanate due to its positive impact on public health and society. This campaign confirms that reproductive health services are an integral part of primary health care and health security in the country and that it has long-term repercussions on health and social and economic health. Family planning is one of the most important of these services because, if it is not organized, it constitutes a social bomb that can hit everyone, whether a citizen or an official. Therefore, we must take proactive preventive steps.

    IPS UN Bureau Report


    Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • Women Commuters Travel Safe in Innovative Bus Scheme in Pakistan

    Women Commuters Travel Safe in Innovative Bus Scheme in Pakistan

    [ad_1]

    Women students and workers travel free from harassment in the BRT buses, which reserves seats for them in the conservative region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
    • by Ashfaq Yusufzai
    • Inter Press Service

    Jan 04 (IPS) – A bus rapid transport (BRT) system in Peshawar is benefiting female students and working women by providing a safe journey – something women passengers could not take for granted on regular public transport.

    “Prior to the launch of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, girls faced enormous hardships in reaching colleges and universities, but now, we don’t have any issue in getting to our respective institutions in a timely manner,” Javeria Khan, 21, a student at the University of Peshawar, told IPS.

    She said that two of her elder sisters had left education after completion of secondary school because of a lack of proper transportation services.

    “Now, there is a sea-change as far transportation is concerned; thanks to BRT through, we reach home on time without any hindrance,” Javeria, a student at the Department of Chemistry, said.

    The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one of Pakistan’s four provinces, is considered conservative where most women cover their faces while venturing out in public and avoid traveling with men in buses; the new service has proved a blessing for the female population living in the capital city of Peshawar.

    There is a 27 km long corridor with as many stations to facilitate about 400,000 people every day, including 20 percent women.

    BRT launched in April 2020, fleet contains a fleet of 150 air-conditioned buses imported from China, which charge people USD 0.24 from the first to the last station, and the fare is only USD 0.09 for a single stop.

    “We have allocated 25 seats to women in each bus, so they don’t face any harassment. The buses go along the main road, which provides a service to the general public as well as the students,” Umair Khan, spokesman for BRT, told IPS.

    Before the BRT, there were complaints of harassment and high fares charged by private buses, which deterred the women from traveling, he said. “Now, women have separate compartments with security measures in place to ensure the safe journey of all the commuters.”

    In February 2022, the BRT received Gold Standard Award for transforming transport through its clean technology buses and promoting non-motorized traffic. A month before, it received the certificate of International Sustainable Award from the International Transport Organization, while UN Women has also honored the BRT for providing a safe traveling facility to women.

    Transport Ticketing Global, UK presented the award to BRT for easing the lives of a large segment of society using innovative solutions, Khan said.

    A local resident, Palwasha Bibi, 30, told IPS that she thinks that the BRT has been constructed to assist women workers.

    “It was a Herculean task to get a seat in a private bus before the BRT. Even if one was lucky to get a seat, the fares were high, and the drivers were reluctant to drive fast as they waited for more people to embark on the bus to earn more money,” Bibi, who works in a garment factory in Peshawar’s industrial Estate, said.

    More often than not, my colleagues and I encountered pay cuts for arriving late at the factory, she said. “Now, we reach 15 minutes before duty time because the BRT has a strict timing schedule. It stops at every station for 20 seconds only,” Bibi said.

    BRT is also helping the common people.

    Muhammad Zaheer, 31, a salesman at a grocery shop, said that he had been using a motorbike to reach the outlet, which cost him more money and time.

    “Many times, I also faced minor accidents due to huge rush on the road, but now the BRT has a signal-free route with no chance of accidents, and the cost is very low,” he said.

    Our manager is very happy that I get to the shop early than my duty time, and the same is true for over a dozen of my co-workers, Zaheer, father of three, said.

    Naureena Shah a female student at the Islamia College Peshawar, said the BRT had been a blessing for her.

    “My parents have asked me to stop education because every day we encountered problems, but the BRT has helped me to continue my studies because I arrive at the college and get back home well on time,” she said. My parents are no longer opposing my studies because they also use BRT for shopping and so on, she said.

    Now, I will get medical education to serve patients, she said.

    Nasreen Hamid, a schoolteacher, is all praise for BRT services.

    “It has benefitted me in two ways. I use the service for going to duty and getting back home and also for going to market,” she said.

    Spogmay Khan (17), a second-year student at the Jinnah College for Women, said that all her class fellows were praising former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who started the service in the city.

    She said most of the students who were dropped off by fathers or brothers at the college were now traveling alone because the buses were safe.

    “The main road remains flooded with vehicles, making it difficult to attend classes with punctuality, but the BRT route is smooth, and no traffic jams, due to which we enjoy traveling in the buses,” she said.

    Khan said that it has really improved women’s education and the credit goes to former Prime Minister Imran Khan. “Many of our classmates wouldn’t have been able to take admission because of the messy traffic and worn-out buses, but the BRT has solved this issue, once and for all,” she said

    BRT’s spokesman Umair Khan said they had started feeder routes to ensure passengers can use the facility near their homes. The feeder buses use the roads, and the passengers take these buses after disembarking from the buses on (BRT) corridors.

    “About 20 percent of the BRT’s 4000 employees are females,” he said.
    IPS UN Bureau Report


    Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link

  • Reform Needed As Big Business, Not Vulnerable Communities Benefit from Post-Pandemic Support

    Reform Needed As Big Business, Not Vulnerable Communities Benefit from Post-Pandemic Support

    [ad_1]

    Informal sector only received 4 percent of post pandemic funds even though the sector accounts for more than 2 billion workers, many of whom are women. Credit: IITA
    • by Ed Holt (bratislava)
    • Inter Press Service

    BRATISLAVA, Oct 12 (IPS) – Governments and international financial institutions must adopt new ways of providing post-pandemic support, say campaigners after a report found that in many poorer countries, big business benefitted most from Covid-19 recovery funds. At the same time, vulnerable communities have been “left behind.”

    They say the level and distribution of support of these funds has been poor, with the most vulnerable in society, such as informal workers and women, among others, having been especially failed by relief programmes.

    And they warn that the measures have actually only deepened inequalities at a time when the UN has warned that up to 95 million additional people could soon fall into extreme poverty in comparison with pre-Covid-19 levels.

    Matti Kohonen, Director of the Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC), which was behind the report, told IPS: “The elite have been sheltered from the worst effects of the pandemic. Nearly 40 percent of Covid-19 recovery funds went to large corporations, through measures like loans and tax cuts. This means that social protection for, in particular, women and informal workers, has been inadequate.”

    The FTC’s research found that in 21 countries in the Global South, large corporations received 38 percent of recovery funds while small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) got 20 percent. Social protection measures accounted for 38 percent.

    Meanwhile, informal workers received only 4 percent of the funds in the countries surveyed, and the research showed that in many of those states, they actually received nothing at all.

    Studies have shown that informal workers, and especially women, were globally hit hardest by the Covid-19 pandemic, and that economic policy measures taken in response have largely been gender-blind, exacerbating existing gender inequality and economic precarity in the sector.

    According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), of the 2 billion informal workers worldwide, over 740 million are women. However, there is a higher share of women than men in informal employment in many of the world’s poorest regions: in more than 90 percent of countries in sub-Saharan Africa, 89 percent of southern Asian countries, and almost 75 percent of Latin American countries.

    These women also often have jobs most likely to be associated with poor conditions, limited or non-existent labour rights and social protection, and low pay.

    The FTC report points out that while the COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on women’s employment, working hours, and increases in unpaid domestic and care work duties, it found that women received half the funds than men received as most money provided to corporates and also smaller companies predominantly went to men (representing over 59 percent of funds).

    Klelia Guerrero, Economist at The Latin American Network for Economic and Social Justice (LATINDADD), who helped with research into the FTC report, said that just doing work collecting data on the distribution of recovery funds underlined how little thought had been given to women in Covid-19 response policies.

    It was only in a handful of the countries surveyed (Guatemala, Honduras, Bangladesh, Brazil, and Costa Rica) that partial gender-disaggregated data on Covid-19 grants were made available to analyze Covid-19 support.

    “Most countries did not have disaggregated gender data; it was only partial. This in itself should be a red flag – it shows that the people who were implementing these support schemes did not think of women as a priority,” Guerrero told IPS.

    And while the report shows that women did receive the majority of social protection funds in the countries surveyed, even some of those programmes “had discriminative aspects”.

    “For example, here in Ecuador, we had a scheme where people had to register online and then go at certain times to receive their aid products. This was difficult for a lot of women who had to be in the home at those times, or there was no public transport to get to the places to receive aid. So, women were disadvantaged,” she said.

    “Some groups of the population did benefit from Covid relief measures, but the most vulnerable not as much. It was difficult for them to access the aid. The criteria under which aid is given out should include a gender perspective.” she added.

    Other equality campaigners agree.

    “Numerous research has shown how, especially in Africa, women make up the majority of the informal sector. One of the big takeaways of the report is the poor targeting of women in the support response. Programmes going forward need to take into account the gender dimension of any policy,” Ishmael Zulu, Tax and Policy Officer at the Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA), told IPS.

    Groups like the FTC and its members, including the TJNA, say the report’s findings are important not just in terms of the post-pandemic recovery but in highlighting the need to change how support is given to the most vulnerable communities in developing countries in the long-term future.

    Ishmael pointed out that in one scheme in Zambia, the government introduced stimulus to help SMEs and informal workers, but the money was channelled through commercial banks that set specific requirements to access that money, including the need to provide bank statements.

    “Of course, that is very difficult for many informal workers. They just couldn’t provide those documents. So, in the end, even money meant for vulnerable groups ended up in the hands of big corporations, which are the ones that can provide those documents,” he explained. “It speaks of the weakness of the system.”

    The FTC report has also warned that policies pursued by international financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), of pushing countries to introduce austerity measures and cut funding for basic public services in return for debt restructuring is making things worse.

    It cites the example of the cuts in public spending and rises in Value-Added Taxes (VAT) being imposed as part of an IMF loan program in Zambia, saying this will have the greatest impact on the poor.

    Ishmael said: “Our current financial structures have perpetuated inequality in the way, for instance, financial institutions give loans: several countries have had to reform their tax systems … and these financial institutions say subsidies and spending should be channelled into some areas and not others, and it ends up that money is targeted towards large corporates, and vulnerable communities are left behind.”

    He added: “We saw growing inequality , and so when Covid-19 hit, we saw how these vulnerable communities were left behind without safety nets. Governments must put in place sustainable social protection systems providing safety nets to help lift people out of poverty and which won’t just respond to a pandemic or an emergency, but respond to fighting poverty and inequality.”

    The FTC is planning to present its findings at the IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings later this month.

    The FTC’s report calls for all countries and international institutions, including the IMF and World Bank, to implement what it describes as “alternative policies to bring a people-centered recovery instead of austerity”.

    These include, among others, taxing excess windfall corporate profits, introducing progressive levels of income and wealth taxes, and increasing social security contributions and coverage.

    Kohonen said informal workers and women should be at the heart of any such policies.

    “Informal sector and women workers really pulled us through the pandemic, and it is wrong to now impose austerity on them. Support needs to be in place for informal and women workers, people on the front lines, before a pandemic so that support can be then scaled up if needed, in the form of loans, grants or other aid,” he said.

    IPS UN Bureau Report


    Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    [ad_2]

    Global Issues

    Source link