All over the globe, women are victims of the credit crisis
BY RITU SHARMA
Thursday, October 23rd 2008, 4:00 AM
This year, I spent some time in Terrabona, a rural region in Nicaragua, trying to live on a dollar a day, like the poorest citizens of the world. The women I lived among – and women are the majority of the billion poorest people worldwide – displayed tremendous ingenuity as they made tough choices every day between tortillas or bus fare, medicine or beans, holding their families together with the thinnest of threads.
As the economic crisis unfolds and leaders from World Bank President Robert Zoellick to Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown sound the alarm about the impact it could have on the developing world, I find myself thinking more and more about those women in Nicaragua.
The impact on them and millions like them around the world could be the worst effect of this crisis – as it threatens to reverse the remarkable gains they have made in recent years.
The last decade has seen some of the world’s poorest regions begin to climb out of poverty – and women are behind the rise. In just the last six years, for example, Africa’s exports have jumped by about $240 billion, far more than either humanitarian assistance from wealthy countries or annual remittances from the 16 million Africans working abroad. More than 100,000 new jobs have been created on the continent just in the export-based textile industry, with up to 90% of these jobs going to women living in poverty. It’s estimated that one textile sector job for a woman supports up to seven family members.
But as Americans and Europeans snap their wallets shut this Christmas season, these exports from Africa will fall, putting thousands of newly created manufacturing jobs in danger.
So, too, will women have to piece together food and shelter with fewer remittances coming in from relatives living abroad. According to the Inter-American Development Bank, money flowing into Latin America has already fallen across the region.
