Rural and Indigenous Women Speak Out on the Impact of Globalization

Abstract

This article describes approach papers, proposed strategies, and closing agreements among those attending the May 1998 Asian Pacific Forum on Women, Law, and Development (APWLD) among rural, indigenous women (IW). IW spoke of their experiences with globalization. The aim was to examine the effects of deregulation and privatization, liberalization, and global market and foreign monopoly capital on rural, IW in Asia. The expected outcome was an advocacy directive for APWLD in the forthcoming APEC and People's Summit in November 1998. Approach papers included F. N. Burnad's paper on the "Impact of Globalization on Rural Women" and V. Tauli-Corpuz's paper on "Globalization and its Impacts on Indigenous Women: The Philippine Experience." These papers emphasized the multiple roles of women, their increasing resourcefulness which leads to their enslavement, links between globalization and continuing colonization by transnationals and international institutions, access to ancestral resources, and promotion of export led production that threatens food security. Suggested strategies were to mobilize opposition to globalization and greater control over traditional resources and knowledge by IW. Several important questions were raised about nation states, dominant cultures, human rights violations, technology, and the close link between militarization and globalization. Participants agreed to mobilize for effectively resisting and eliminating unjust and unequal systems that exploit and oppress rural, poor, and indigenous people, especially women.