THE South Asian region stands today at a crossroads. One way from here goes towards greater regional cooperation, engagement and growing together as other regions in the world have done. The other option is to remain trapped and inured in the distrust, rivalry and inertia of a zero sum game. So many factors point to the wisdom of the former and the dreary barrenness of the latter. Sheer demographics alone should shatter illusions of winning the zero sum game, while peace and prosperity appear to lie ahead in the pursuit of win-win practical cooperation. Women in all countries in South Asia are crucial stakeholders on this road towards peace and prosperity.

South Asian women have made an impact on the political scene in each country. They are providing leadership in business and economy, have an important role in the media, academia as well as in the legislature and judiciary. However, as statistics compiled by various international organizations indicate, the overall indices about the status of women in countries of South Asia are woefully poor. In fact, for some areas, the statistics show South Asia (in regard to literacy, life expectancy, employment, crime against women) as being the worst in the world. Half of South Asian women cannot read.

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was established in 1985 with membership of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as the inter-governmental organization of the South Asian region. The Heads of State or Government of SAARC defined their vision in the SAARC Charter asserting that, ‘In an increasingly interdependent world, the objectives of peace, freedom, social justice and economic prosperity are best achieved in the South Asian region by fostering mutual understanding, good neighbourly relations and meaningful cooperation among the Member States which are bound by ties of history and culture.’ In 2007, Afghanistan also joined as a full member of SAARC. Sixteen summits of Heads of State or Government of SAARC Member States have taken place so far, the latest in Thimphu in April 2010.

SAARC attaches high priority on its agenda to women’s issues including gender equality, empowerment through literacy, economic and social development, mainstreaming in political, economic, social and cultural fields, and protection from crimes. These commitments of SAARC countries are enshrined in the Social Charter which was put into force in January 2004.¹

The SAARC Social Charter clearly recognizes that ‘empowering people, particularly women, to strengthen their own capacities is an important objective of development and its principal resource. Empowerment requires the full participation of people in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of decisions and sharing the results equitably.’

Seen in this perspective, according primacy to attainment of South Asia’s own version of the Millennium Development Goals, known as SAARC Development Goals (SDGs), including with respect to women in South Asia, remain major factors for peace in the region. Pursuit of gender equality is acknowledged as a basic right and an essential factor for economic well-being of societies in South Asia and for building democratic institutions.

 

The vision of peace, stability and prosperity is more far reaching and deeper than a mere absence of conflict. Peace-building and guaranteeing stability in South Asia warrants that member states in the region grow together in cooperation, build bridges of engagement for mutual benefit and harness their commonality. The region’s growth is also critically dependent on fuller engagement and development of women. Women’s economic development, literacy, health, equal rights vis-à-vis men under law and protection from crime are essential for social stability. Their education and empowerment has already shown promise in those areas of South Asian countries where the related indices are higher, for example, the state of Kerala in India, in Sri Lanka, and in parts of central and eastern Bangladesh. Women in general have shown greater capability to reach out in compassion and empathy. Thus, peace in South Asia is tied to women’s empowerment and their attainment of the SAARC Development Goals.

 

The ground reality about women in South Asia, nonetheless, is of little or no respite from discrimination in jobs, absence of equity vis-à-vis men in social, economic and political arenas, and their social and institutional vulnerabilities. With figures for population below the poverty line being highest in the world and women the poorest among the poor, addressing their status assumes due emphasis and urgency for South Asia. In such a sombre backdrop a faint silver lining in each of the South Asian societies can be seen in the growing number of women (though still far fewer than men) who participate in decision-making in diverse fields at state and national levels and whose voice can be crucial in changing policies, defining strategies and preparing the ground for focused action.

SAARC member states are committed to national action by the provisions in the Social Charter and for its implementation through transparent and broad-based participatory process. As a regional organization, SAARC pursues these goals through coordination of action among member states, through review and reassessment of progress in each individual field of activity and by developing avenues for cooperation in the region to further the SDGs. General Principles about the implementation of the SDGs were agreed by the Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation (ISACPA). They broadly comprise a sustained and innovative motivation campaign; positive incentives to relevant stakeholders; setting up an inter-ministerial task force; re-prioritization of resources; time bound action plans specifying responsibilities of different implementers; ensuring stricter laws and punishment; collaboration and coordination among diverse actors in NGOs and government sector as well as private sector, media, academia and other development partners; learning lessons and best practices from the region and the world at large; and maintaining an appropriate monitoring mechanism.

 

Apart from SAARC’s official mechanisms, which address each area of inter-governmental cooperation, there are also South Asian non-governmental associations in the field of commerce, finance and industry, law and management, and development in general, where the role and representation of women’s groups is on the rise, albeit rather modestly. A SAARC Women’s Advocacy Group (SAWAG) was set up in 2002 to foster gender mainstreaming and make recommendations on programmes in the region on gender issues.

The SAARC Chamber Women Entrepreneurs Council, for example, as part of the SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) is looking at plans for getting more women into entrepreneurship, and programmes for benefit of rural women, for promoting agriculture, fostering opportunities to start business as well as for opening avenues in traditional and modern fields of women’s activities ranging from tailoring, floral arrangements, boutiques, branding of products, etc. on the one hand to international marketing, communication and IT, financial management, among others, on the other.

Other non-official bodies include SAARC Federation of University Women, SAARC Women’s Association in Sri Lanka, and Hindukush Himalayan Grassroots Women’s Natural Resources Management (HIMAWANTI). In individual SAARC countries, in addition to numerous NGOs devoted to women’s issues, national chapters of the regional women’s organizations are coming forth with the help of international organizations. A recent initiative, in particular of ‘Women of South Asia: Partners in Development’, has covered seven sectors, namely, micro-credit, education, arts and literature, women in peacemaking, environment, health and crafts and textiles. These and other initiatives at the intra-SAARC NGO level are bringing together women leaders and activists from South Asian countries to address common problems.

 

A big leap forward was taken during the past decade when a concerted effort was begun with support from SAARC leadership to bring into SAARC processes the poor home-based women workers in all member countries. In the largely ‘invisible’ lives and labour of the poor home-based workers in South Asia there is so much potential for the region. Home-based workers refers to the general category of workers who carry out remunerative work within their homes or in the neighbourhood.

It is estimated that there are over 100 million home-based workers in the world and over 50 million home-based workers in South Asia – of whom around 80% are women. From traditional embroidery and weaving, home-based work today extends to some of the latest sectors such as computers and tele-work. Despite its contribution to the local and national economy, the true extent and nature of home work has not been reflected in the official statistics, nor perhaps recognized by the workers themselves. Home-based workers remain invisible and unrecognized and are also unprotected by the law. Women are over-represented among home-based workers.

The energy and goodwill of these millions of poor women is able to move mountains. It is certainly able to move governments to support them and their movement. In the year 2000, South Asian government representatives and home-based workers and their organizations came together in Kathmandu and in spite of the differences between the country governments, they unanimously supported the ‘Kathmandu Declaration’. The Kathmandu Declaration recommended the formulation of a national policy and urged SAARC to address the issues of home-based workers in the region and take measures to enable them to deal with the risks and opportunities of globalization. Earlier in 1996, the International Labour Organization had adopted the Convention on Home Work, the first comprehensive standard in favour of home-based workers.

 

This process evolved further in 2007 at a South Asian Regional Conference where women workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and India came together. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inaugurated this conference. Padma Kumari Gurung, a handloom weaver who attended from Nepal, greeted the prime minister, saying, ‘I learnt to weave as a little girl and it has given me my living. Today my weaving has brought me to meet many sisters in other countries and the prime minister of a neighbouring country. I am inspired to do great things with the support of so many people.’

Very significantly, in a parallel development, progressively greater emphasis has come in SAARC’s evolution in pursuit of action-oriented cooperation as against only setting of norms and negotiating instruments. SAARC heads have increasingly called for project based cooperation in recent years. The establishment of the SAARC Development Fund (SDF) was a result of this major policy direction from the top. It was launched at the Thirteenth Summit in Dhaka as the umbrella funding agency for regional and sub-regional projects in South Asia in the three broad fields of social development, economy and infrastructure. A series of subsequent meetings at the ministerial and secretarial levels within SAARC underscored the need for policy prioritization for better utilization of budgetary resources in the ongoing Decade on Poverty Alleviation by deepening the pro-poor orientation of the growth process, enhanced investment in human capital and infrastructure and improved service delivery mechanism. One of the outcomes of the meetings was a strong focus on the empowerment of women workers in the informal sector in the SAARC region.

 

In 2008, an official SAARC meeting on home-based workers recognized HomeNet South Asia as the agency to coordinate home-based workers in countries of the region. It went further and asked SEWA and HomeNet South Asia to work towards eliminating poverty in the region through empowering women. The same meeting also set a roadmap for the SAARC Gender Database (which is operative now) as a primary reference document for: statistics and country-mapping of home-based workers; sharing of information and best practices on them; and recommendations for national policies on home-based workers.

In this overall context, the Self Employed Women’s Association and HomeNet South Asia (HNSA) have been awarded a project by the SAARC Development Fund to carry out the mission of women’s empowerment in this region by targeting poor/marginalized home-based women workers from the informal sector of all SAARC member states, except India. The broad spectrum of activities would centre mainly on textiles – product design and development, fabric value addition, cut-to-finish apparel manufacturing, promotion and marketing, packaging and merchandizing, etc., and would also include other local products being produced by home-based workers. The goal of this mission is self sustained income and employment generation, in keeping with the SAARC objectives, commitment of the member states and the SDGs.

 

The objectives of the project are to build a strong supply chain and to generate employment at each stage of the supply chain along with build up of a social business organization in each member state; and to make it sustainable and capable of further expansion so as to generate increased employment. It is also aimed at strengthening marketing power through collective marketing and branding efforts. The overall impact is expected to promote development and inclusive growth through sharing of experiences and learning from each others’ successes; and building a model of empowerment of women through crafts making and marketing, to be replicated afterwards in other sectors. This would deepen the relationship among SAARC member states based on learning and sharing. A business organization for this purpose called SABAH,² SAARC Business Association of Home-based Workers, was accepted as a common brand for all countries.

After some quick action research and visits to the countries it was decided that each Sabah would focus on particular products. Pakistan home-based workers, for instance, were highly skilled in embroidery, including phulkari. Sabah Pakistan is focusing on developing textile based embroidery intensive products. In Nepal, natural fibres occupied a large number of home-based workers, so Sabah Nepal focuses on natural fibres and weaving based products. In Sri Lanka it is proposed that Sabah Sri Lanka would promote food processing and spice based products. Sabah Bangladesh will concentrate on textiles, weaving and katha embroidery.

This is a unique project based on the concept of sharing and collaborating. It encouraged home-based workers across member states to closely interact with their counterparts from other countries. So it is not difficult to envisage a common ‘Made in SAARC’ brand soon emerging, with product tags proudly stating this byline.

 

The first point of action is training of home-based workers which is held in the SEWA Trade Facilitation Centre (TFC). The groups from Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan have already undergone the training programmes held at SEWA TFC, Ahmedabad and the women workers have greatly benefited. Ongoing work to include the rest of the South Asian states is in progress.

As these women’s experiences are shared with their own organizations and other organizations in their country-based networks, large numbers of women and their families are expected to gain. The number of home-based workers who are members of the HomeNet networks currently stands around 326950, representing 569 organizations of home-based workers (as of March 2009). For this reason, the experiences of the home-based workers reach a large number of villages and neighbourhoods throughout the South Asia region. It is on this type of person-to-person and community-to-community basis that the foundation for true and sustainable cooperation across different nationalities can be made, beginning with poor women workers. The women realize that it is their work, their skills that give them the power to come together, and they come together in spontaneous sharing with each other.

 

The process begins with bringing home-based worker leaders together, who then design events and programmes in which larger number of home-based workers from through-out the region can interact and work together, combining their creative energies and getting to know each other better. Ultimately, as the sense of solidarity and commitment of the women to work together spreads, ongoing ‘heart-to-heart’ dialogues will be sustained. In most communities in South Asia women tend to be restricted to their homes, restricted in their movements and restricted in their opportunities. When they join an organization it opens their energies, creates opportunities and leads to empowerment. Although the restrictions continue, they begin to build up support leading to changes in their families, their hard times and their communities.

About suffering, like the Old Masters in W.H. Auden’s poem, they are never wrong. As Shahida Begum, of Mandodoro village in Pakistan said abour her visit to India: ‘I am not here because of my husband, friends, relatives and children. I am here because of my skills. We home-based workers who have come here have come because of our skills. And we don’t see any differences between Pakistan and India because we see women doing similar work like us. Women are playing a role in peace building through their skills.’

 

At the Sixteenth SAARC Summit in Bhutan in April 2010, the home-based women workers from seven SAARC countries were also present to show their wares as a product of the SABAH project. These women were Husne Ara, a nakshikantha embroiderer from Bangladesh; Leki, a weaver from Bhutan; Nasima, a glass painter from Maldives; Laksmi, an allo weaver from Nepal; Gulshan Bibi, an embroiderer from Pakistan; and Elizabeth, a food processor from Sri Lanka. SEWA India was represented in this group by Kakkuben from Santalpur. In the words of the National Coordinator of SEWA and President of HomeNet South Asia, Renanaben, ‘The finest moment came when the group of Summit leaders entered the space where the home-based workers were working, colourfully decorated with their products.’ It was explained to them that this was a SAARC stall and that women workers were working towards a ‘Made in SAARC’ brand. For the summit this was close to an ‘instant hit’. The response of the leaders was most rewarding and each of them proudly commended the work of these women.

Bringing poor women from different countries together in recent years for a wide range of purposes showed that women come together very naturally in spite of the tensions that exist between their countries. Many of the women have never been outside their villages and they are often warned by relatives and friends against travelling to neighbouring countries. However, on their return the women share their own insights and experiences, and become a source of knowledge for their communities – and peace builders in their own right. A woman worker of Sakhar district (Pakistan) noted, in a recent skills training programme hosted by HomeNet South Asia and the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), ‘A woman from my village came to my home and told my husband, "How can you allow her to go? It would be the first time anyone from this village would be going out of the country – and that too, to India! You know the situation there." But before I could answer, my son said, "Someone has to be first, and I’m proud that it’s my mother".’

 

Within SAARC as well, one of the key concerns is how to build cooperative ties across the countries of South Asia. To date, efforts toward the cross-country integration under SAARC auspices take place on multiple levels: e.g., government-to-government, through business associations, professional associations (e.g., of journalists, doctors and lawyers), cultural exchanges (music, films, dance and so forth), and through many other types of exchanges, often involving elite groups. In contrast, the types of interaction that takes place through organizations like the Home Nets and SEWA involve those who are near the bottom of the social and economic ladder, which makes such exchanges and alliances across SAARC countries of ‘common’ people particularly important.

In a sense, this creates a slow but steady integration of SAARC countries through poor women, with women taking the lead; providing as it were, the rag and bone shop of the heart where all ladders start. Their friendships and alliances produce much stronger bonds – with deeper and wider effects – than diplomatic efforts alone could ever hope to achieve.

 

Footnotes:

1. All South Asian countries are parties to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), albeit subject to reservations by some on religious grounds.

2. Sabah is a noun in Urdu, meaning early morning breeze, which also denotes freshness.