Press Release: IMF and World Bank Policies Promote Violence Against Women

90+ organizations and individuals demand institutions live up to gender equality commitment

Mar 7, 2007
by Gender Action, 50 Years Is Enough, CEE Bankwatch

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:: March 7, 2007

CONTACTS:
Elaine Zuckerman (202) 587-5231
Ruth Castel-Branco (202) 489 2273
Manana Kochladze +99532 22 1604

IMF and World Bank Policies
Promote Violence Against Women; 32 organizations demand institutions live up to gender equality commitment

Washington, DC—March 7 – On the occasion of International Women’s Day, 60+ organizations and individuals have signed onto a call demanding that the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and related organizations live up to their commitments to promote gender equality.

The call comes on the heels of reports linking World Bank backed projects with increased risk to women and girls. “In the case of the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, communities were promised development,” said Manana Kochladze of CEE Bankwatch Network. “Yet many women and girls have been forced into prostitution, that links to a subsequent rise in STDs, sexual harassment and violence against women.” The pipeline is a flagship project of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

“It is no surprise that these mega-development projects tend to have major negative impacts on women and children,” said Ruth Castel-Branco of the 50 Years Is Enough Network. “After all, austere IMF policies have long promoted public investment in mega-projects over social spending. For national public health systems, funding cuts have resulted in a scarcity of doctors and nurses, inadequate provision of medication, especially anti-retroviral drugs, as well as services. Women as the primary caretakers, bear the increased burden.”

Elaine Zuckerman of Gender Action said that it was not necessarily due to lack of gender-related policies that these institutions are endangering women. “As recently as 2003, the heads of these institutions vowed to promote gender equality; many of them have had a gender policy since the 1980s. As yet, these commitments are largely unmet.”

Please see the complete statement and the list of signatories below.

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International Women’s Day Call:
IFIs Must Stop Contributing to Violence Against Women

The theme of International Women’s Day 2007 is Ending Impunity for Violence Against Women. Gender-blind International Financial Institution (IFI) operations—those of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and the regional development banks—financing private-corporate led growth, debt repayment, and low inflation and public spending often aggravate existing discrimination against women and girls, particularly among marginalized groups such as indigenous peoples. Such IFI investments intensify poverty, human displacement, trafficking in and violence against women, prostitution, sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS, sexual harassment, and sexual assault.

The IFIs may not intend their investments to contribute to violence against women, but the impacts are all too real. For example, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)-funded Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline, supposedly designed to boost development, has degraded the environment, driven many women and girls in communities around the pipeline into prostitution, and increased sexually transmitted diseases, sexual harassment and violence against women. The East Asian financial crisis—brought on ten years ago largely by bad IMF advice designed to stimulate foreign investment—strained househol
d gender relations, increasing domestic violence against women and girls, family abandonment by household heads, and female suicide.

Over the last 25 years harmful IMF-imposed policies designed to contain government deficits have slowed growth rates, amplified the gap between the rich and the poor, and increased poverty and unemployment in the developing world. The impacts on women and girls—who constitute 70% of the world’s poor—have been disastrous. IMF agreements often impose caps on public spending, limiting governments’ ability to provide essential services. Public health spending cutbacks increase the suffering of women and girls, who are forced to drop out of school and decrease their working hours to care for sick family members. Lack of education increases girls’ likelihood of contracting HIV/AIDS. And despite World Bank and IMF rhetoric about the importance of spending on social services, the major increases in government spending on health and education necessary to lift women and girls out of poverty, combat HIV/AIDS, and meet the Millennium Development Goals are impossible under the tight fiscal and monetary policy framework required by the IMF.

The World Bank and regional development banks also impose harmful policies on developing countries that disproportionately impoverish women and girls. These include wage caps on teachers’, doctors’, and nurses’ salaries; services and infrastructure privatization; and trade liberalization. Yet the World Bank’s Operational Policy on Gender and Development that calls for all World Bank operations to promote gender equality does not apply to policy-based loans.

All the IFIs have committed to promote gender equality. The Asian Development Bank, African Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank all have strategies, policies or action plans to address gender issues. On March 7th, 2003, the leaders of the most prominent IFIs proclaimed, “We, the Heads of the Multilateral Development Banks/International Monetary Fund, affirm the importance of promoting gender equality and empowering women for achieving the Millennium Development Goals.” They went on to say, “we affirm our continued commitment to promoting gender equality in our organizations and in the work of our organizations to assist member countries.” These commitments remain largely empty, or are negated by weak IFI safeguards against the negative impacts of risky investments.

Harmful impacts on women may be unintentional, but in almost all cases they are reasonably foreseeable. We call for an open, independent, transparent audit of past loans and compensation where appropriate. So long as the IFIs continue operating, we insist that they stop attaching harmful policy prescriptions to their loans and meaningfully strengthen their safeguards to protect women and members of vulnerable groups. We demand that the IFIs without any gender policies or strategies—the IMF, EBRD, and European Investment Bank—develop them, and the IFIs with gender policies fully implement them.

Endorsements as of 3/6/07

Organizations:
1. Gender Action-USA
2. 50 Years Is Enough: U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice
3. Africa Action-USA
4. BanglaPraxis-Bangladesh
5. Campagna per la Riforma della Banca Mondiale (CRBM)-Italy
6. Center for Environmental Public Advocacy/Friends of the Earth Slovakia
7. Center of Information and Development of Women (CIDEM)-Bolivia
8. Centre County Pennsylvania Chapter of the United Nations Association UNA-USA
9. Centre for Organisation Research & Education (CORE)-India
10. Daughters of Mumbi Global Resource Center-Kenya
11. EarthRights International
12. Economic Justice Project, Centre for Civil Society-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
13. Friends of the Earth Canada
14. Friends of the Earth International
15. Fundacion Arcoiris-Mexico
16. Global AIDS Alliance-USA
17. Guatemala Human Rights Commission-USA
18. Halifax Initiative Coalition-Canada
19. International Presentation Association of the Sisters of the Presentation-USA
20. International Women's Anthropology Conference
21. Jubilee USA Network
22. Land Center for Human Rights-Egypt
23. LOKOJ Institute-Bangladesh
24. Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala-USA
25. Sisters of the Holy Cross-Notre Dame, Indiana, USA
26. The Agency for Co-operation & Research in Development-Kenya
27. UK Gender and Development Network
28. VOICE-Bangladesh
29. WOMANKIND Worldwide-UK
30. World Development Movement (UK)
31. Yonge Nawe Environmental Action Group/Friends of the Earth Swaziland
32. Zi Teng-sex workers organization in Hong Kong

Individuals:
1. Ahmed Swapan Mahmud, Executive Director, VOICE-Bangladesh
2. Andrea De La Barrera Montppellier
3. Ann Oestreich IHM-Congregation Justice Coordinator, Sisters of the Holy Cross
4. Ashley Garrett, Regional Programme Coordinator, IOM Bangkok
5. Bruce Rich, Director, International Program, Environmental Defense
6. Catherine Rowan, Bronx, NY USA
7. Charles C. Langford, Associate Professor, Emeritus, Department of Sociology, Oregon State University
8. Daphne Wysham, co-director, Sustainable Energy & Economy Network
9. Delphine Kemneloum Djiraibe, N'djamena-Tchad
10. Dennis Brutus-South Africa
11. Elizabeth DuVerlie-USA
12. Heather D. Switzer, Institute for Policy and Governance, The School for Public and International Affairs, Virginia Tech
13. Irene Tinker
14. Jeanne Koopman, Research Fellow, African Studies Center, Boston University
15. Kristen Timothy Lankester
16. Lee A. Kimball
17. Magda Stoczkiewicz, Policy Coordinator, CEE Bankwatch Network
18. Mustafa Mujeri
19. Nina Klowden Herman-Canada
20. Nora Ferm, Director, Rights for Working Women Campaign International Labor Rights Fund Washington DC
21. Pat Krackov
22. Patrick Bond, Economic Justice Project of the Centre for Civil Society (University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa, Renny Golden, Professor Emerita Northeastern Illinois University; Current adjunct professor University of New Mexico
23. Romil Hernandez, Information & Communication Coordinator, NGO Forum on ADB
24. Sharon Altendorf
25. Sheelu, Tamilnadu Women's Collective
26. Sr. Marie Elena Dio, Dominican Leadership Conference
27. Sundari, Tamilnadu Resource Team
28. Ulrike Bey-Germany

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