DEVELOPMENT: Rural Women Burdened By Unequal Transport Rights

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

MARAWILA, Sri Lanka, Jun 28 1999 (IPS) - When women in a backward district of southern India begain ferrying the sick to hospital on cycles, they finally earned the respect of local men who earlier sneered at their mobility.

Their ability to perform a wider range of tasks changed men’s attitudes to their cycling, notes Indian researcher Nitya Rao who presented her findings at an international meet here that discussed the unequal transport burden of rural women.

The two-day Asia-wide meeting organised by the London-based International Forum for Rural Transport and Development (IFRTD) shared the case studies it had commissioned in 12 Asian countries including Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Researchers and other professionals from Asian countries and also Cambodia, Britain and the United States sought to understand the transport problems of village women in discussions.

IFRTD is an international network that aims to overcome the physical, economic and social isolation of the rural poor in developing countries.

Its ‘Balancing the Load’ research project in Asia and Africa was funded by the Britain’s Department for International Development (DfID). Another set of case studies in African countries would be discussed at a regional workshop in South Africa next month.

Rao’s fascinating India-study is located in Pudukkottai, one of the most backward districts in coastal Tamil Nadu, with more than 85 percent of its 1.32 million-population dependent on dry- land farming which yields just one crop a year. The women who slightly outnumber the men, are barely literate.

Rao, a programme officer at the New Delhi-based Asian Council for Adult Education, sought to ascertain the impact of the government’s introduction of cycles on women’s lives.

She found evidence of a visible effect on their mobility needs, even in the early stages of the government project, apart from its raising their self-confidence.

“The cycles helped them to meet some of their practical needs, for instance, the time taken for collection of water could be reduced by carrying it on the cycle while emergency needs of their children could be attended to promptly without waiting for the often elusive bus to appear,” she told the meeting.

Others were unforgettable experiences like when they transported the sick to hospital in an emergency, and earned the admiration of men who were earlier dismissive of the very idea of women cycling, she said.

One such was Meenakshi, a young girl from Aharpati village, who told Rao of the time she borrowed a neighbour’s cycle and rushed her critically ill mother to hospital, saving her life.

Similarly Hridaya Mary of Mahuduppati village saved the life of her five-year-old daughter while Mallika, whose brother fell sick while they were at school, wheeled him to a doctor though the teacher was insisting they go home first.

It was seven years ago that the state government encouraged women to hitch up their ‘saris’ and ride a cycle with cross-bars, part of an empowerment programme in this district, where the majority of people are ‘Dalit’ or the people outside the caste system who are discriminated against and unprivileged.

Rao however found that very few of the women still actually own cycles, and were hence dependent on others, like husbands or brothers. In some cases they rented it, in most cases, they adjusted their work so as to not inconvenience the cycle owners.

“That meant they had to get up as early as three or four in the morning and begin their daily work,” Rao revealed.

Also as a result of their mobility, women’s workload has increased. If they did 10 tasks earlier, they were doing 15 or more tasks after the cycle was introduced as a mode of transport. Yet they still finished their chores faster and had leisure time.

“This was an interesting feature. Though they were doing much more work than before, the cycle enabled them to do things faster and in a shorter period of time,” Rao observed.

But it has hardly changed gender relations in the household, the Indian researcher found. Major decision making continued to be vested in the men who also frowned upon the thought of women purchasing their own cycle.

“Ownership raised many issues. Men are prepared to allow women to own things like jewellery but when it came to owning technology or some instrument they could assert their rights

with, there was resistance,” Rao noted.

At the same time since cycles are being used essentially for household work, unpaid tasks that have no cash value, “the owners of the cycles, mostly men, do not see cycles as critical for women in the performance of their tasks”, she explained.

Cycles are used by women for varied tasks like fetching water from the well or tank, taking paddy to the rice mill for grinding, collecting fuel wood and fodder, going to hospital and other social needs. There were some women who also cycled to the market to sell flowers or farm produce and purchase goods.

Says Rao: “Even riding a gent’s bicycle (with a cross-bar) in a sari doesn’t bother the women any more, the convenience of the mode of transport outweighing all other considerations.”