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No Glass Ceiling in Dreams of Women Workers

IPS/TerraViva correspondents*

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 20 2010 (IPS) - “There are no ceilings in our dreams; we want to transform young women, tell them there is a way for them to be happy,” says Elza Santiago, a resident of a “favela” or shantytown in Brazil who defines her mission as “mixing feminism with work.”

Santiago, 49, and Marinalva Alves, 44, live in Morro da Coroa, one of the favelas that line the steep hills of the city of Rio de Janeiro.

But for poor black women like Santiago and Alves, the hills to climb are even steeper, because of the racial prejudice that is deep-rooted in Brazil, “even though they pretend it doesn’t exist,” Santiago tells TerraViva in their workshop in the favela, where they sew and do embroidery work.

Santiago is a widow and Alves is single, and they each have two sons. They used to scrape by doing occasional work as seamstresses. “We worked to earn enough that day to eat that night,” Santiago says.

They often walked all the way back up the steep path to their homes, because the choice was taking the bus or buying some rice.

Years ago, the Rio de Janeiro city government established a group in Morro da Coroa called Mulheres em Ação (Women in Action), where poor women — who were mainly over 40 and had no formal studies or job skills — were given training in questions like human rights, justice and the environment, while receiving a monthly stipend of less than 50 dollars.

But when the programme ended, they found themselves without any work options or subsidy, and decided to form a cooperative, sewing and embroidering handbags and clothing.

“Who hires an unskilled black woman over 40? That’s why we decided to join forces to support ourselves,” Santiago says.

But the members of the Bordadeiras da Coroa (Embroiderers of Coroa) cooperative were barely eking out a living until 2006, when they were selected by the ELAS Social Investment Fund, which helps women become independent under the premise that investing in women is the fastest route to development of the country.

ELAS provided the cooperative with some 2,500 dollars in financing to buy two sewing machines, fabrics and other materials, and the women received training in human rights, communication, administration, marketing and project planning.

The boost they were given brought about a radical change, and the cooperative’s products took off, and were even included in the Fashion Rio show.

Since then, demand for their garments, handbags, tablecloths, towels, quilts, t-shirts and other products has not stopped growing. The average monthly income of each member has soared from 50 dollars to 700 dollars, and the company is duly registered and has access to credit.

The cooperative has eight members. But its impact is much broader, because it employs and trains other women, and the members are active in a national network that advocates women’s rights.

ELAS has financed roughly 180 groups around the country, providing direct support to about 25,000 women and girls and indirect support to more than 100,000 people.

Now, “no one walks over us,” Santiago says. “We don’t want to be millionaires; we just want to live decent lives, with dignity. Money comes and goes. The most important thing is to change things, as women.”

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), more than 60 percent of women in developing countries who work outside the home do so in the urban informal economy, where they do not enjoy protections like a minimum wage, limits on working hours, or benefits like social security.

Learning to negotiate, even under the table

Wages depend on a number of variables, one of which is bargaining power. The women who clean, cook or care for children and the elderly have in their hands a particular power: the key to the smooth functioning of a family.

In San Francisco, California, La Raza Centro Legal’s Women’s Collective teaches members, mostly undocumented immigrant women who work in private households, how to negotiate for decent wages and safe, dignified working conditions.

“The women dictate how much they earn,” Guillermina Castellanos, coordinator of the Women’s Collective, tells TerraViva.

The centre has a Day Labour Programme where employers willing to pay a decent wage can hire experienced workers with just one day advance notice.

“Because I care for their children, both my employers are able to work full-time, but I struggle to buy groceries for my family and pay rent each month,” says Reina Flamenco, a member of the collective.

“But,” Castellanos warns, “outside the organisation, many domestic workers are more likely to be exploited.”

According to the centre, two-thirds of domestics in California earn low wages or wages below the poverty line.

Neither California nor the rest of the country provides legal protection for the roughly 2.5 million domestic employees in the United States, nearly all of whom are immigrant women.

The exception, as of recently, is the state of New York. On Aug. 31, Governor David Paterson signed into law the first extensive domestic workers’ rights measure in the nation, which guarantees a minimum wage, overtime pay, sick days, one day off a week, and three paid days off a year.

The law, which overcame multiple hurdles in the legislative process, is the result of years of struggle by associations of domestic workers.

Female domestic workers often face mistreatment by their employers, hazardous working conditions and challenges unique to their gender.

“They are women with children, single mothers…Many others have families and take care of their husbands and children,” Castellanos explains, adding, “They have to be careful about not getting pregnant.” Worse, she says, “Many are abused verbally or sexually.”

As a former domestic worker, Castellanos understands these challenges well. “We’ll do anything…to eat,” she says.

But domestics around the world may soon have an instrument to protect them from such abuses, if the ILO approves an international convention in 2011 for the protection of the rights of domestic workers, including fair working standards and norms regarding social assistance and support.

“What if I could change their lives?”

Chen Reaksmey wants to be a role model. She moved to the Cambodian capital when she was just 15, hoping to support her poor family back home in the provinces and gain economic independence. But the only work she could find was in a karaoke parlour, part of this Southeast Asian nation’s high-risk entertainment industry, which often includes sex work.

By 22, she was regularly smoking highly addictive ice, or crystal methamphetamine, to cope with her job.

“A friend said, ‘Take some of this. It can make you work all night’,” Chen recalls. “It gave me energy. And it helped me forget all the painful things.”

But her life began to change when she met workers with Korsang, a local non-governmental organisation that works on harm reduction and HIV-prevention for people with drug addictions.

As she gradually decreased her drug use, she started volunteering as a peer educator. She excelled at what the male volunteers could not: talking to female drug users about health risks.

“At first I thought it was kind of crazy and not worth my time,” Chen tells TerraViva. “But then I saw all these women using drugs. I thought, what if I could change their lives?”

But Chen did not fully change her own life until she finally stopped smoking ice entirely three years ago, when she was pregnant with her second child.

Now 31, Chen is the head of Korsang’s women’s programme, which she started up in 2008. It’s the only programme geared toward female drug users in a country that has few treatment and rehabilitation options. Looking back, Chen says she has both an adequate means of living and a way to help others, drawing lessons from her own experience.

“I used to smoke. I used to work at night just like them. Now, I have a family and a good job,” says Chen. “I want to raise their self-esteem. I want to be a role model.”

* With additional reporting by Fabiana Frayssinet in Rio de Janeiro, Aprille Muscara in New York, and Irwin Loy in Phnom Penh.

*This story was originally published by IPS TerraViva with the support of UNIFEM and the Dutch MDG3 Fund.