The Women's International Coalition for Economic Justice (WICEJ) organized a workshop ("A women's action agenda for social and economic justice") to analyze the effects of trade liberalization, privatizations and cuts in public services spending on conditions of inequality. The impact of the loss of public services, of jobs and means of survival, and of the destruction of the environment has been felt most harshly by women: the panel set out to discuss this basic condition of inequality that violates social, economic and cultural rights.
Speakers expressed the view that women's movements, faced with the challenge presented by the new economic order and the current political climate, need to re-assess their analyses and strategies. In just a few years a lot of progress has been made in research on the effects that global economic policy has on women and in building up a presence in the international arena.
In general, gender has been omitted as a relevant category from traditional theories of international trade, and as a result no analyses have been carried out that distinguish between the different impacts on women and men. Trade policies implemented thus far and North-South trade talks have characteristically contributed to gender inequality, as is now being recognized by various international institutions. For example, women have higher rates of unemployment, of participation in informal labour, and they hold lower-paid, unstable and unprotected jobs. North-South trade agreements -in the negotiations on which women's interests are not represented- are marked by extreme asymmetry, which has undermined national legal provisions.
In the face of this failure to take into account gender differences, the panel analyzed the need to not only work to reverse the negative effects, but to try to influence trade agreements, linking gender and trade and gender and the economy. This aim implies new strategies and the need to broaden alliances.
Finally, the workshop discussed the need to draft a gendered social clause to be included in trade agreements: "States that sign trade agreements make a commitment to designing and implementing programmes that fully guarantee and increase women's participation in all spheres of social, political, cultural and economic life."
The speakers at the workshop were Wendy Caird, representing women from Public Services International (PSI), and Coral Pey, from the International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN). Contributions to the discussion were made by representatives from a range of labour, gender and migrants' organizations.
