INTERVIEW with Miosotis Rivas Peña - Women Must Benefit from Trade

Dionne Jackson Miller

Miosotis Rivas Peña is representing the Caribbean chapter of the International Gender & Trade Network at the WSF. The Network unites gender advocates working to promote equitable, social and sustainable trade and was founded after the Seattle Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation in 1999. Rivas Peña, a panellist at Saturday's seminar on Global Trade and Its Effects on Women, spoke with TerraViva about building an alternative globalisation movement in Caribbean, one that takes women's perspectives into account.

Why do we need to examine international trade agreements from a gender perspective?
Because the impacts trade policies have on women and men are not the same. And because we have women and men working in different places, in different conditions, we need this perspective to ensure that women benefit from trade.

In the Caribbean there are a number of trade agreements that are in force, or are being negotiated, such as the Cotonou Agreement, various accords among Caribbean countries, the Free Trade Area of the Americas. What are some of the most important issues at this point?
In terms of the Caribbean, I think the most important issues are agriculture and services. They are very important because most economies in the Caribbean are based on agriculture or services like tourism, so we need to follow the discussions closely. Even the new Cotonou Agreement. It's going to be very important that we follow what happens with the agricultural sector, because we're going to move from preferential trade agreements to equal trade agreements, so we need to follow agricultural issues and European Union relationships.

How should women prepare for these trade negotiations?
The best we can do is try to analyse the agreements, try to disseminate the information and put it in a way so that people can get a comprehensive perspective of what is happening. We need to build capacity not just for the official negotiators but also for the academics and the advocacy organizations. We need to have workshops outlining women's perspectives, but we need to work also with the small producers to determine what they need and then press the governments with the demands of all those affected by these agreements.

Not much is heard in the Caribbean about alternatives to globalisation. Why is that?
I think it's a lack of information. There are a lot of agendas at the same time, and it's not easy to dig for what's happening in FTAA, what's happening in WTO, what's happening in the Caribbean Community, bilateral agreements with Venezuela. So I think it's not a lack of interest in globalisation, I think its more a lack of information, a lack of activism. It's important to disseminate information and launch campaigns.

And what do you think of the Caribbean presence here at the WSF?
I think there's a lack of participation from the Caribbean. I don't know if it's the language barrier, but there is also a lack of funds to come here. The Caribbean is very poor.