Two thirds of the worldwide work, including reproductive work in
families, is done by women, who still earn only 10% of wages. 70% of
the poorest third of the world’s population and two thirds of
illiterate people are female. Women own merely 0.98% of the world’s
property.
Female labour on a world scale is of great importance
for the capitalist ecomomy. Women’s labour is cheap; the biggest part
of it is even for free. Only 33% of the work done by women is paid, the
rest is done gratis in the households, by bringing up children as well
as caring for husbands and sick and old family members, or work in the
agricultural sector.
Employed women mainly work under irregular
conditions. They earn less than their male colleagues and have less or
no social protection.
Exploitation in the ex-colonial countries
Although
also in developed capitalist countries the majority of women are
oppressed not only because of their class but also because of their
sex, their situation in the so called Third World countries is much
worse.
The international financial and economical organisations
like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank play an
important role in this development. By giving credits to the indebted
ex-colonial countries, they put pressure on them to privatise state
property and reduce social benefits and infrastructure. As a result of
these reforms a large number of women are being pushed out of their
traditional fields of work and are forced to work in unsafe conditions,
as outworkers or as street traders for example. In India for example,
94% of women workers are employed in the informal sector.
Just
as dramatic is the situation in the 70 or so African, Latin American
and Asiatic free-trade zones, or maquiladoras. About 4.5 million people
around the world work in these, of which 90% are women. The workers in
the maquiladoras are working in inhuman conditions for the big
multinational companies such as Nike and Adidas. Barbaric piece-work,
no regular working hours, no legal safety, no payment for overtime
work, no health insurance and extremely low wages are characteristic of
these jobs.
Furthermore, women in the former colonial countries
are not only discriminated against as female workers but also because
of the traditional role of women in these societies.
Backward
regimes keep themselves in power by the use of force and with the
support of the West. Medieval religious and moralistic concepts are
kept alive and together with discriminating laws, women are oppressed
in a double sense. In many countries, certainly not just in
Afghanistan, women are not allowed to take part in public life; they
have no access to education and material resources. They live without
basic human rights and have no chance to determine their own fates.
Demand for cheap labour
The
worldwide exploitation and inequality is the basis for women being
forced to leave their countries of origin, as refugees or immigrants.
Nevertheless, it is important to recognise that poverty is not the main
factor for the existence of immigration to countries like those of the
European Union or the United States. The most exploited and poor layers
of the populations of the former colonial countries are not able to
escape from hunger to the richer countries. The majority of the world’s
refugees and immigrants move within their countries of origin or
between the so-called Third Word countries. Despite the fact that the
majority of the world population lives under extreme poverty, still
only 2.5% of humanity lives outside the countries they were born in.
Only a very small and relatively "privileged" layer of people is
immigrating to the western countries.
The important factor which
is the real precondition for the existence of immigration is the demand
of the economies of the developed countries. They are not only
passively receiving immigration but are intentionally producing it.
Associations of employers are engaging workers over the world, networks
are built to prepare the way for new generations of immigrant workers.
Historically as well as currently immigration is a vital factor of the
capitalist economies. Its main function is to provide the economy with
specific and cheap labour. In periods of booms and low unemployment
these workers are used to keep the general level of wages low. During
times of economic slumps these workers are made scapegoats for the bad
economic situation.
The immigration policy of governments is
determined by the respective needs of the employers which of course has
nothing to do with humanity. Nowadays all western countries carry on a
restrictive immigration policy. Nevertheless there still is the need
for immigrant labour and also a specific demand for female immigrant
workers. On first sight there seems to be a contradiction between the
policy of closed borders on the one hand and the demand for cheap
labour of the employers on the other hand. In reality the opposite is
true, because the closed borders are the precondition for the few
immigrants who are able to cross being without rights and is so the
precondition for their exploitation.
Dependent rights
Women
make up nearly half of the international immigrants. Their motives to
immigrate are similar to these of men and also the immigrating women
are not the poorest layer of the female part of society in their home
countries. In the labour-importing countries women are only accepted to
work in specific fields which are considered to be female.
The
legal status of the majority of female immigrants is that of "relatives
of immigrants" who are either their husbands or their parents. As a
result of this legal situation they don’t have their own independent
residence permits and at least for the first years no right to work.
They are fully dependent on their husbands as far as their residency
and also as far as their financial situation is concerned. If these
women become for example victims of violence in their families they
have no possibility to offer resistance. In case of a divorce they
would be forced to leave and furthermore they have no chance to live
financially-independent. They have no right to earn their own money and
most of the social benefits are not available for them.
In
connection with the immigration of whole families, it is also up to the
women to make the private immigration work with their children. They
have to find solutions not only to their own but also to the
difficulties their children are facing as foreigners.
Women who
follow their husbands to the countries they immigrated to, usually
loose their social networks and suffer from being isolated in a new
society in which they are confronted with racist prejudices. As a
result of their financial and legal situation, a big part of these
women are not even able to learn the new language.
Female immigrant labour
Those
women who are "lucky" enough to have already achieved the right to sell
their labour, are usually working in specific fields under highly
discriminating conditions. They are working mainly on the
assembly-lines of the textile, electronic and food industries but also
in the sweatshops and as outworkers for the big multinational
companies. In the field of service work female immigrants do the worst
paid jobs like cleaning and serving.
Usually the
labour-importing countries provide discriminating labour-laws for
immigrants. They need a special work permit which is hard to get and
easy to loose. As a result of this, they are highly dependent and
vulnerable to extortion. They are the first ones to be expelled and
usually the trade unions don’t recognize them as being part of the
working class whose rights they should defend.
The most
humiliating field for female immigrants is their work in the sex
industry, as "dancers" and prostitutes. These "sex-workers" are sold
like slaves and have no protection at all in the countries they are
imported to.
Last but not least, one should not forget that a
large part of the foreign population doesn’t have any residence permits
at all. These so-called illegals are an important part of the labour
force, for example in the building industries. Illegal women mainly
work as private more-or-less house-slaves or in the sex-industries.
Breaking Barriers!
In
many countries over the world immigrants have started to radically take
part in the labour movement, as for instance in Spain one year ago. The
latest example is the immigrant workers in Hong Kong who have
successfully commenced militant action to prevent further wage cuts.
Women play an important role in these struggles as they are the ones
who have the least to loose. The main problem until now has been the
separation of the immigrant’s struggle from the native labour activism
in the different countries, which is weakening the whole movement. A
solidarity movement of native together with immigrant workers will be
necessary to achieve the basic rights for males and females who are
misused for cheap labour. As explained above the policy of closed
borders in connection with discriminating laws within the
labour-importing countries produces an ideal situation for the
employers. Under these conditions they can gain the maximum profit from
the immigrant workers and at the same time misuse them to blackmail
native workers and keep the general level of wages low.
The
workers’ movement must understand that it is not, as the racist
propaganda is claiming, the immigrants who are destroying jobs and are
responsible for the deterioration of living conditions. This in reality
is simply caused by the parasitic nature of capitalism. Our demand to
stop exploitation of male and female immigrants is that of equal rights
and open borders!
