Bailouts for Bankers, Burdens for Women

Press Release
March 8, 1998

WASHINGTON, March 9-- In honor of International Women's Day (March 8), activists for women's economic rights protested at the U.S. Treasury, denouncing its role in pressuring Congress to give unprecedented power to the International Monetary Fund, an institution that ravages the lives of millions around the globe and does particular harm to women. The Clinton Administration is lobbying Congress heavily to approve $18 billion to expand the IMF.

According to Lisa McGowan, National Coordinator of 50 Years Is Enough, "The problem with the IMF is this: in over 80 countries around the world, it routinely subjugates the social and economic rights of poor and working women to the relentless demands of global capital. So pervasive is this subjugation that the exploitation of women has become part of the very workings of the global economy. The Clinton Administration, supposedly so supportive of women's rights, has shut down Congressional attempts to force the IMF to support economic, human and labor rights necessary to stop the exploitation of women."

Extensive data from around the world show that IMF-imposed austerity and economic reform programs have stripped many women of what meager health and education benefits were once available to them. Women's formal sector unemployment has increased due to IMF- induced recessions, privitizations, and government cutbacks. Sweatshops, whose workers are predominantly women, have proliferated, specifically supported by IMF policies encouraging exports and free trade zones. Women's food production, the basis of household food security in many countries, has been seriously undermined, as in Africa where IMF policies promoting export production have increased women's use as unpaid agricultural laborers and reduced the time they have to grow their own food. The proportion of female-maintained households continues to grow as men become unemployed or are pushed out of their traditional income-generating roles under IMF-driven economic reform.

The conditions for the Asia bailouts closely resemble the structural adjustment policies (SAPs) the IMF has imposed on over 80 countries around the world. The primary beneficiaries of the bailouts are European, U.S., and Japanese banks that made bad loans, while poor and working women are being hit hard. For example, like women workers around the world, women in Asia are the lowest paid workers, and are concentrated in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which are excluded from financial assistance under the bailouts. That means that in South Korea, where 53,000 SMEs are expected to go bankrupt in 1998, women will suffer the greatest employment losses. At the same time, women's role as household managers will be made difficult by increase food and fuel prices, decreased access to government resources, and drops in personal and family income due to layoffs.

Protestors also took aim at the IMF's all-pervasive policy of undermining labor rights. Chris Riddiough, Political Director of the Democratic Socialists of America, said: "One hundred years ago, women workers in the U.S. first demonstrated against the sweatshop conditions in which they were forced to work. Their struggle is commemorated each March 8 as International Women's Day. In 1998, not only do sweatshops still exist, but they are actually encouraged by IMF policies." According to Soren Ambrose, Policy Analyst at the Nicaragua Network, "The time has come to hold the IMF and the Clinton Administration accountable for the fact that they exclude women from global economic decisionmaking and actively promote economic policies that both exacerbates women's poverty and increase the exploitation of women."

The protest at Treasury was organized by 50 Years Is Enough: U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice, which seeks the fundamental transformation of the IMF and the World Bank and has over 200 member organizations in the U.S. and 180 partner organizations in 65 countries. Protest co-sponsors include: the Democratic Socialists of America, the Africa Faith and Justice Network, Alliance for Responsible Trade, Columban Justice and Peace Office, The Development GAP, East Timor Action Network, Essential Action, Friends of the Earth, IPS:Global Economy Program, IPS: Public Trust Campaign, Maryknoll Justice and Peace Office, NETWORK, Nicaragua Network, Peace Action, The Preamble Center for Public Policy, The Washington Peace Center, Witness for Peace, and Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).