Analysis on Neo-colonial policies, Financial Assitance Institutions and the State’s role in Human Trafficking

                                              Image 1: World Bank political cartoon, By Mick James. Source: thenewworker.org

INTRODUCTION

This blog will explore how the World Trade Organization and other financial assistance institutions have imposed their neo-colonial, western agendas onto the Global South. These establishments have played a role in their impoverishment and disparity. This paper’s analysis will explore how neo-imperialistic interventions have destroyed third world countries natural, local economies. Also, it will explain how the corrosion of these lucrative localities put third world women in economically vulnerable positions. It will critique and dispel pervasive narratives regarding the facilitation of human trafficking. I will include personal reflections about my native country, Uganda throughout this blog. I will do this to illustrate how the state is an active and willing participant in the exploitation of human labour.

                      

 Image 2: Occupy Nigeria movement at the World Bank, Washington D.C. Source: nigerianssavingnigerians.org
Image 3: Demonstrators hold a protest about the World Trade Organization’s policies on agriculture in Indonesia. Source: Britannica.com

In the reading, China’s Transition and Feminist Economics, Breik, Dong and Summerfield (2007) discuss how China’s inclusion into the World Trade organisation required that the country would agree to undergo transitional reforms. Wealthy nations own financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Alam, Houssain, Chowdhury and Techera (2012) explain how these establishments impose strangulating policies and laws on the Global South to favour their interests. For example, a third world country asking for a loan from the World Bank will be told, that to receive funding that they need to implement agro-industrial businesses. The industrialisation of agriculture and food is a western concept. This process involves genetically modified organisms. Also, the excessive use of pesticides and herbicides. Indigenous populations within the Global South practice sustainability and co-habitation. However, the continuous use of these chemicals causes ecological devastation. They also impact how the local communities provide sustenance for themselves. The industrialisation of agriculture also affects the livelihoods of the local women, who find it difficult to compete with emerging supermarkets. Third world women’s domestic, informal economies allow for them to be economically autonomous. “Informal economies are deeply rooted in people’s cultural practices. (Kinyanjui, 2014, p.45) Also, traditionally women in the Global South “are important in both productive and reproductive spaces.” (Kinyanjui, 2014, p.45) Neo-colonial domination excludes third world women from these sectors. Also, the Global South faces crippling debt when they borrow money from institutions such as the IMF, World Bank and the World Trade Organization. “This form of strangulating economics is designed to end to any development taking place in the South’s local economies.”(Alam, Houssain, Chowdhury and Techera, 2007, p.82) Neo-imperial policies and agenda have been instrumental in the creation of economic disparity and impoverishment within the Global South.

HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND THE STATE

Alam, Houssain, Chowdhury and Techera (2012) discusses how third world nations tackle the debt they have accrued through the exportation of their local goods and services. Svati Shah (2007) explains how poverty and human trafficking are inextricably linked. She elaborates by pointing out how those who are “economically vulnerable are rendered as non-agentive beings who rely on illegal and underground strategies as means of economic survival.”(Shah, 2007, p.442) In May of this year, I visited my family in Kampala, Uganda. While watching the local news I noticed a lot of segments that covered human trafficking of Ugandan women to the Middle East. In 2015, President Museveni signed an agreement with the United Arab Emirates allowing for Ugandan post-graduates to seek employment in Saudi Arabia as domestic workers. The government advertised this agreement as a way for the unemployed youth to acquire incomes, which they can repatriate home. However, since this deal was signed, there have been countless cases of Ugandan women who have reported inhumane mistreatment. There are numerous accounts of women who have come forward about being subjected to torture, physical, emotional and sexual abuse. In addition, there have been an alarming amount of trafficked Ugandan women in the Middle East who have mysteriously been murdered, gone missing or committed suicide. Museveni has banned the exportation of Ugandan labour to the Middle East, due to the national backlash. However, he has repeatedly lifted these bans, allowing for the cycle of exploitation to reoccur. The Ugandan President is a prime example how the state can be a facilitator of human trafficking.

Video link 1: Working Abroad: Forty-Eight Ugandans have died this year in the Middle East- Report by Herbert Zziwa. Source: NTVUganada

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References

Alam, S., Hossain, B. J., Chowdhury, T. M., & Techera, E. J. (Eds.). (2012). Routledge handbook of international environmental law. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

 

Günseli Berik, Xiao-yuan Dong & Gale Summerfield (2007) China’s Transition and Feminist Economics, Feminist Economics, 13:3-4, 1-33, DOI:10.1080/13545700701513954 http://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/doi/pdf/10.1080/13545700701513954?needAccess=true

 

Kinyanjui, Mary Njeri. (2014) “The Quest for Spatial Justice: From the Margins to the Centre.” In Women and the Informal Economy in Urban Africa: From the Margins to the Centre, 115, 87-98. London: Zed Books. http://genderandsecurity.org/sites/default/files/Kinyanjui__Women_The_Informal_Economy_in_Urban_Africa_.pdf

 

Olubukola S. Adesina (2014) Modern day slavery: poverty and child trafficking in Nigeria, African Identities, 12:2, 165-179, DOI: 10.1080/14725843.2014.881278 http://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/doi/pdf/10.1080/14725843.2014.881278?needAccess=true

 

Shah P. Svati (2007) Distinguishing between poverty and trafficking: Lessons from field research in Mumbai, Georgetown Journal of Poverty, Policy and Law 14 (3): 441-454.http://heinonline.org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/HOL/PrintRequest?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/geojpovlp14&div=25&print=section&format=PDFsearchable&submit=Print%2FDownload&id=450

 

 

Analysis of Colonial and Neo-liberal greed and how it has impacted how Third World women produce and acquire nourishment.

INTRODUCTION 

In the article, How Feminism Became Capitalism’s Handmaiden –and how to Reclaim it, Nancy Fraser (2013) expresses how “the movement for women’s liberation has become entangled in a dangerous liaison with neoliberal efforts to build a free-market society”(para. 2). The author goes into great depth about how second-wave feminism was supposed to be radically different from first-wave feminism. However, it has become saturated by capitalism instead. The article provides a variety of ingenious and powerful critiques regarding the exploitation of “the women’s dream of emancipation”(Nancy, 2013, para. 7) However, the article fails to provide intersectional theory concepts and is predominately garnered towards white women who reside in the western world. Furthermore, there is no mention about how the development of the global north has resulted in the maldevelopment within the global south. Also, the challenges that third world women face are, rooted in imperialism. These colonial, patriarchal structures hinder these women to sustain themselves and their households. Their plight is often invisible and unheard. In this essay, I will explore how colonial and neo-liberal agendas have affected how racialised women can access and produce their natural resources.

Image 1: Gold Digger’s political cartoon. Source:polyp.org.uk

The European colonialism model of development demanded industrial capitalist growth of the empire. Vandana Shiva (2015) explains in her book Earth Democracy: Social Justice, Sustainability and Peace that this “development was done at the expense of the colonised peoples and their land and resources, which led to the destruction of their local natural economies.”(Shiva, 2015, p.11) Imperialism was crucial for capitalistic growth because it insured the “accumulation of wealth for the colonisers. However, this also resulted in poverty and dispossession of land and resources for the colonised.”(Shiva, 2005, p.12) The wealth creation of the western world is rooted in colonial and patriarchal ideologies and practices. The accumulation of wealth through “the exploitation, exclusion and degradation of women of nature.”(Shiva, 1988, p.2) These patriarchal beliefs are the fabrics of post-colonial countries. These structures have resulted in “women who are having very little or no access to irrigation water for agricultural purposes or land.”(“Gender, Water and Sanitation: A Policy Brief,” 2006) Women in the global south are responsible for collecting water, which they are reliant on for household duties, food production, agriculture and everyday activities. Due to their reliance on water, “women have accumulated considerable knowledge about water resources including location, quality and storage methods.”(“Gender, Water and Sanitation: A Policy Brief,” 2006) Despite women’s immense understanding of sustainability and food production, they are not prominent within the sectors of the agriculture. Allen and Sachs (2012) explain how agrarianism is a gendered ideology, which embodies traditional gendered roles. For instance, “irrigation plays a crucial role in maintaining male dominance because irrigation is a profession that is predominately male.”(Allen and Sachs, 2012, p.7) Agrarianism has become so “integrated into women’s labour in agriculture production that women farmers often are not taken seriously or treated respectfully by their counterparts.”(Allen and Sachs, 2012, p. 5) Second wave Feminist critiques fail to acknowledge how patriarchy and European colonialism are inseparable. It is impossible to discuss patriarchy’s advantageous exploitation of women without addressing the reality that racialised women within the third world are facing the brunt of this mistreatment.

Image 2: Biodiversity Loss. Source:tunza.eco-generation.org

Also, neo-liberal projects have resulted in the re-allocation of water taken from indigenous populations for capitalist expansion. Corporations hide under the guise of privatisation, so the process of depleting indigenous people’s resources reflect “better governance, corruption will be mitigated while achieving sustainability.”(Allen and Sachs, 2012, p.7) However, the water that has been re-allocated is a publically owned resource which has become an asset and a commodity that generates profit. Overall, feminist critique of the state and global capitalism is rooted in colonial and patriarchal legacies. The global North’s accumulation of wealth has not come without the strife and depletion of the indigenous and women of the global South’s resources.

 

References

Allen, P., & Sachs, C. (2012). Women and food chains: The gendered politics of food. International Journal of Food and Agriculture, 15, 23-40.

 

Shiva, V. (1988). Staying alive: Women, ecology, and development. London: Zed Books.

 

Shiva, V. (2005). Earth Democracy: Justice, sustainability, and peace. Cambridge, Mass: South End Press.

 

UN Water. (2006) Gender, Water and Sanitation: A Policy Brief.
New York: Inter-agency Task Force on Gender and Water, GWTF.

 

 

 

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