has long been in the forefront of the LATIN AMERICA-
Latin American women struggle for racial equality within the
As long ago as 1944, the union won a Supreme Court ruling that meant that Black women were entitled to the same wages and conditions as whites working in the industry.
The Trade Union Congress has also meet in Havana been working to improve the lot of women workers, calling for an end to discrimitatory wage rates, for maternity leaves, and for childcare centers.
Although Thandi Modise and Mamphela
Ramphele are representative of a new
Over 350 women representing 101 women's organisations met in Havana strain of activism among the women of last November to assess the progress toward equality during the United
South
Africa, have inherited they struggle which began more than seventy countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
In 1913 a group of women of the obstacles for women which still remain and drew up plans for the years ago.
launched a massive anti-apartheid
This meeting came in advance of a regional meetdemonstration that served as the model ing of governments to prepare the worldwide Nairobi conference, taking for later demonstrations.
Five years later with the help of the
National Congress,
Women's League was founded and then replaced in 1936 by the National Council for African Women.
In 1943 the ANC
Women's League was established with the goal of educating and mobilizing women of all racial groups into the struggle.
The Federation of
Women was created in 1954 out of the
Women's League and other smaller organizations, with the stated aim of "struggling for removal of all laws, regulations, conventions and customs that discriminate against us as women."
Then on August 9, 1956, the spirit of resistance among Black South African women erupted in a demonstration -
20,000 strong - of women from all over
South Africa. The national march was organized to protest the extension to women of the hated pass laws.
laws require all African men to carry an identification document at all times and to produce it on demand, on pain of
The women converged on the government buildings in Pretoria, demanding to the prime minister.
thousands of signatures on petitions were left in his office. After a silent vigil of the women's resounded through the city in an old Zulu refrain: "Now you have touched the women, you have struck a rock, you have dislodged a boulder, you will be
The valiant resistance of the South
August 9 (the day now celebrated as
South African Women's Day), despite continuing imprisonments and bannings.
In 1981 at least 15 women political prisoners were known to be serving sentences. They are subjected to harsh treatment, solitary confinement, censorship of all reading materials - complete isolation from the outside world and
In the face of such ruthless repression, however, the raised clenched fists of the and their cry of "Amandla"
(Power) is changing the South
International Viewpoint 25 March 1985
Nations (UN) decade of women. future in the region. place in July. Socorro RAMIREZ
The representative from CEPAL (the Latin American economic studies unit), Vivian Motta, stressed that the decade of women was winding up in the context of an economic crisis that has also affected crisis has hit women more than any other section of the population, producing a deterioration in the living conditions of a major proportion. She pointed to the gains already made in the last ten years in which a thorough analysis of women's position had been made and which witnessed an increase in the participation of women in social, political and alternative movements, such as the women's movement. Awareness and solidarity had also advances had been obtained, as well as an increase in the activity of non-governmental organisations.
The meeting agreed to make Reagan's inauguration day, a day of mourning and of Latin American unity, with women marching in black against the continuing policy of imperialist aggression. agreed to mark International Day on March 8 with the creation of the 'International Women's Front' against US
'to build a strength and love through sisters weeping create a barrier of the threat to peace in
Progress towards women's equality has now become unstoppable. only 14 countries had ratified the Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. (1) By 1984, only Paraguay and a few Caribbean countries had failed to ratify. However, this has not necessarily resulted, in the majority of countries, in the adoption of the necessary measures.
The annual report of the International Development Bank (IDB) in 1982 shows the Gross National Product of 25 countries in the region has declined by gone down by 10% in countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guyana and Uruguay.
The women came from 39 different
They made an analysis external debt of the region has surpassed the 350 million dollar mark. two thirds of new loans have to be given over solely to the payment of this debt which increases because of arbitrary rises
A further obstacle in the way of positive gains in the last ten years is the existence of dictatorial regimes which have systematically violated human rights. Arms' spending accounted for 600 mil
Women are only 20% of the economically active population, except in Cuba where they are 38.9% (in Havana 44.9% of women are looking for work for the
In the region, women are still largely concentrated in the textile and light industries, in the service industries and in the home work sector and as the countryside women represent 17% of the workforce, and 24% in Cuba. Of course, unpaid work done by women on the family plot is not included in these figures. In Chile and Uruguay unemployment is more than 30%, in Jamaica it is 27% and in Panama, 14.2%.
Convention No 100 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on equal pay has now been ratified by 15 countries, but in the majority of them huge wage differentials still exist, aggravated by the lesser trained skills of the
The World Health Organisation says that in the Caribbean, 40% of women are heads of households, in Paraguay, 37%, and Uruguay 20.9%, a situation resulting either from actual separation, from husband's emigration or als and the maquiladoras (2) operate a system of super-exploitation of women and the family. The policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) also have
The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination was launched by the United Nations Viewpoint, No. 70, February 25, 1984
Maquiladores are factories which function as subsidiaries of US based corporations. deal in one small part of the production process greater flexibility. the workers in these factories are women and because of the method of production they are
unfavourable consequences on the employment of women in the public and private sectors and for the living conditions of people in these countries.
In relation to trade union activity, there has been no greater involvement of women because of a lack of means of overcoming the contradictions in their situation as mothers and as workers; because of poor maternity and the increasingly difficult conditions under which women have to manage the household. Through deductions from their wages, women workers pay for maternity leave, but they are obliged to officially hand in their resignation at the start of the leave which the employers can always accept convenience. Women workers are also obliged to undergo urine tests in order to ascertain whether they are pregnant.
We must work for the establishment of for women at all stages of their lives and in all circumstances. It is also necessary to raise demands around sexuality physical, psychological and social wellbeing of all women and men, in the framework of equality of the sexes. are for a sexuality free from the ideology of women as sexual objects open to exploitation, submission and violence. We are for women's control over their own bodies, over how many children they resourcing by the state of education and social training, combined with the dispersal of the population and the early inclusion of women in agricultural work, mean that women find themselves outside of the educational process.
Although the trend is toward equal numbers of boys and girls entering primary school, it is also true that women tend to leave school before reaching the higher grades.
The number of women education has slowly gone up, with a concentration on careers in the arts, letters
Because of poor scheduling and poor materials only 35 out of every hundred taking part in adult education
On all levels, education must be oriented in accordance with professional criteria and not sex stereotypes. It will be necessary to revise educational methods in order to present a more positive image of women that will make change attitudes. The women's organisations should promote informal educational activities aimed to inform women about their rights and make them aware of what opportunities exist to become fully integrated into society.
They should also conduct study plans programmes involving
Other problems facing women are the lack of adequate housing, poor sanitary
### EGYPT Defend
Egyptian socialists
On January 21, the Egyptian police staged a series of arrests. Thirty persons were taken in. Eleven were accused of belonging to the Egyptian Communist Party-Congress Faction (a left split from the Egyptian CP) and 19 of membership
"Trotskyist Communist Organ-
According to reports by Associated Press and Agence France-Presse, as well as by the Egyptian daily Al Ahram of January 22 - 28, the persons arrested, inone woman, were a doctor, a journalist, a pharmacist, a teacher,
, two lawyers, three engineers, government employees and seven
These thirty persons jailed were charged with "belonging to secret armed Communist organisations." be tried in the State Security Court. The prosecution was demanding sentences of 15 years in prison at hard labor on the basis of charges such as possession of pamphlets that "incited people to rebel and demonstrate against the regime, have and when, as well as for more liberal laws for terminating a pregnancy when it is unwanted.
million Latin Americans, poor diet, and released, but it is not yet clear whether Women's work not recognised
Because of the traditional division of labour and because of the mobility of the male workforce, part of the agricultural work falls on women who usually take part in every stage of the production cycle, including planting, harvest and tending the animals. They carry the responsibility for work on family plots and for care of the domestic animals, raising pigs, tending cattle, and milk production. But this work is not recognised or remunerated because the middling peasants are the sole owners of the land and as heads of the family the men are responsible for all transactions. So however much peasant women may need loans or training they title-holders are men, even in the situation where a woman is the de facto head of a household.
On the large latifundias, women's temporary work is given the minimum remuneration without any kind of social
It is vital to guarantee to women as well as men, the redistibution of the productive resources under their along with the establishment conditions, hunger, the inadequate medical and hospital facilities available to 100 the anaemia related to dietary deficiencies.
year more than a million children under the age of five die in Latin America and the Caribbean, and more than 40 million suffer damage. According to UNICEF, most of these deaths stem from avoidable causes, such as ignorthe elementary notions of hy giene, nutrition, or the lack of safe drink-
The deterioration in living conditions have led to alcoholism, drug abuse, and vagrancy, as well as to crimes such as child prostitution. There are 30 million abandoned children.
The media are being used to reinforce ideas of white supremacy to the detriment of Blacks, Indians and mestizos, who are shown in "quaint" folk settings. Women are portrayed as passive consumers with no thought of looking for alternative solutions.
Attitudes, prejudices and conceptions that reflect a decadent image of women, which isolate women from society, perpetuate the tradition of female submissiveness and inferiority, and block possibilities for personal and collective development are being reinforced.
In their programmes, the media should maintain a respectful image of women, put a rein on wasteful consumerism, violand criticised religion,"
persons arrested have just been the government intends to go ahead with the prosecution. Indeed, this case seems to illustrate well both the systematic repression against the revolutionary left by the Egyptian regime and its present need to try to maintain a democratic face.
these conditions, international protests against instances of political repression
SYRIA Fl supports Syrian socialists
The Twelfth World Congress of the
Fourth International affirms its fraternal solidarity with the struggles of the comrades of the Communist Action Party in Syria against the brutal dictatorship of Hafez El-Assoud. The congress ticularly affirms its solidarity with the ence and pornography, and stimuli to 170 comrades held in the dictatorship's of special training programmes port eiforts to advance a new approach the CAP.
in mass communication and alternative undertakes to continue and step up its
Forty-four million Latin American and
Caribbean people, 25 million of them women, are illiterate. The insufficient egotistic individualism.
They should sup according to the majority of participants in the meeting.
prisons on accusation of belonging to struggle for the release of these com-
International Viewpoint 25 March 1985