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From Poverty to Power Green, Oxfam 2008 - weman

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3 POVERTY AND WEALTH THE CHANGING WORLD OF WORKMany married women workers interviewed in 2003 said that theynow take decisions with their husbands on family matters, and 13 percent said that their husbands now shared some of the housework,especially shopping and cooking – a small but significant shift. ‘Thegarment sec<strong>to</strong>r has brought a silent revolution for women in oursociety,’ says Shirin Akter of Karmojibi Nari, an NGO supportingwomen workers. 97However, all <strong>to</strong>o often, jobs in the proliferating garment fac<strong>to</strong>riesand fruit farms have exacted a heavy <strong>to</strong>ll in the form of excessivehours, workplace abuse, and long-term damage <strong>to</strong> women’s health.Fruit and flower pickers and packers from Colombia, Chile, the USA,and South Africa commonly report headaches, respira<strong>to</strong>ry problems,and eye pain from handling pesticides. Garment fac<strong>to</strong>ry workers fromBangladesh <strong>to</strong> Morocco commonly suffer headaches, coughing,vomiting, fever, and physical exhaustion. Poor ventilation in lint-filledrooms can lead <strong>to</strong> debilitating respira<strong>to</strong>ry diseases. Hired in jobs thatdemand highly dexterous and repetitive movements, many womensuffer joint injuries and back, leg, and shoulder pain. 98Paid jobs are also largely in addition <strong>to</strong> women’s previous burdenof unpaid work. A study in Ghana showed that women were doing30–46 hours of unpaid caring work a week, while men in the samecategories did an average of eight <strong>to</strong> 11 hours a week of unpaid work. 99These statistics may even underestimate the degree of ‘time poverty’experienced by women, since the time use studies on which they arebased often fail <strong>to</strong> capture women’s ‘multi-tasking’ between a varietyof roles. 100Boxed in by long working hours and unreasonably high productiontargets, many women are unable <strong>to</strong> care for their children, and somove their daughters in<strong>to</strong> their own previous roles, cutting short theireducation. Exhausted women s<strong>to</strong>p participating in social organisations,depriving the broader community of their leadership, energy,and creativity. Angela, sewing garments in a Kenyan fac<strong>to</strong>ry, expressesfrustration at her isolation from the wider community: ‘It is notpossible <strong>to</strong> do anything else. There is no time <strong>to</strong> take care of your ownchildren, visit people, do business, or go <strong>to</strong> college. Even going <strong>to</strong>church has become a problem …We are somehow isolated.’ 101151

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