Lao women express their equality by being as mobile as men. The numbers astride motorbikes in particular, are the same as those of men. But there is a cost.

Girls dash across the road. Road users observe a sort of caste system where the motorised have right of way. Credit: Melody Kemp/IPS

As the number of fatalities and injured rise, so do the number of women victims, and those who find themselves caring for injured relatives. According to the Asian Development Bank’s (AsDB) Road Safety Action Plan (2005-2010), 80 percent of accidents involve a motorbike. The road is an unforgiving surface.

As I was writing this story, my Lao assistant heard that a second woman friend had been killed in a motorbike accident. The second in a fortnight.

Both were in their mid-twenties and supported their families. One a sex worker, the other an office worker. Both killed at night. The witching hour when the police are tucked up in bed.

Both were victims of careless and dangerous driving. One killed when another motorbike ran a red light, the other hit by a car.

Their deaths personalised an issue of growing concern in Laos.

A neighbour in Lao, since 1976, nodded, “A lot of drivers cannot deal with the power of big cars. Together with a tendency to get drunk quite often, you have a dangerous mix. And that includes women.” Lao is anomalous in Asia; women drink almost as much alcohol as men, though not as often, which didn’t matter when they walked home.

What about the police? “Well they are trying hard, but they don’t have vehicles, are poorly paid and they go home at 6pm before the drunk and tired hit the roads.” Indeed the number of fatal accidents rises steeply between 8 and 1l pm. Recently the police have been seen on the night beat.

Police figures indicate there were 556 fatal accidents in Laos in 2007. Although police reports include the sex of those involved, it is not tabulated. The numbers are creeping up each year, as are the costs. In 2004, road accidents were thought to cost the country 13 million dollars, estimated to rise to 153 million dollars in 2010.

But this represents only those reported to the police. NGO research indicates that sometimes accidents, particularly those on minor roads, do not involve police. Compensation and post accident arrangements are negotiated between respective families. The family of the sex worker managed to negotiate 50 million kip (around 6,000 U.S. dollars) for her death by directly negotiating with the family of the person who hit her.

‘Made in Japan’ was the 1960’s metaphor for shoddy products. Now it’s ‘Made in China’. Women eager to get mobile can often only afford cheap Chinese brands; my housekeeper included. “My motorbike is broken” is her usual reason for being late. Her Chinese-made bike costs roughly 600 dollars versus a lower-end Suzuki for 1,480 dollars. The head and tail lights only work sporadically, the brakes an occasional luxury. Fortunately she is a dab hand with a spanner.

A survey in Laos earlier this year found that Chinese bikes were the least reliable and most unsafe. ANCAP (Australasian new car assessment program) and German car club simulations found Chinese cars to have an unacceptable squish factor.

The Chery brand, which makes small brightly coloured cheap cars (9,000-12,000 dollars), has been rated in Russia as “unsafe at any speed”. Photos of the crash test dummies indicate partial amputation of the driver’s legs by the collapsing steering shaft. Mostly driven by women, small cars like the Chery have ‘cute appeal’ and are affordable. Absence of product standards allows unsafe cars or bikes to be imported.

The 2005 Asian Development Bank report concedes that improved roads make things worse as users are tempted to speed. And roads are not designed for safety.

Vientiane’s major thoroughfare completed last year with Japanese aid money has few turning lanes so U-turning cars block the road. The long divider tempts users to head into oncoming traffic, particularly women on short commutes. There is no paving for pedestrians or a slow speed lane for bicycles mostly ridden by women and girls or hand driven carts of the type used by women vegetable sellers.

Souphaphone was flung from a tuk tuk (cheap, three wheeled public transport) hit by a pickup, and her legs crushed by another car that failed to stop. Her right leg was amputated, the left deformed. Unable to continue work as a waitress she became very depressed.

“She tried to kill herself,” her mother told me at a physiotherapy clinic in Vientiane.

They both wept as they talked about the burdens on the family. The accident happened at night and no police attended. There was no compensation from the hit and run drivers. Few vehicles in Laos are insured. If they are, the payouts are minimal. Car drivers are usually regarded as being at fault so they don’t stop. The burden fell on her mother, who went back to selling goods at the market.

“I know it’s dangerous, but it gives me freedom. I pray that I have good luck and I wear my helmet,” said a young woman pulling out into the traffic.

* This is the third part of a series on gender and disability in Laos ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Laos accepted the international treaty in August 1981.

“Most workers have limited knowledge, ultimately you don’t know how many hidden killers are in your workplace. The boss knows, but he won’t tell you,” Wang Fengping, an engineer who was once employed by Hong Kong-based Gold Peak batteries at their factory in Guongdong, China.

Vendors line up waiting for the workers to sign off. Factory guards (blue uniforms) are the first to get out. Credit: Melody Kemp/IPS

In 2008, Wang was unable to walk. Her kidneys had failed and she was dependent on dialysis. According to medical opinion she was unlikely to make old age.

She and 400 other women had been exposed to cadmium and possibly nickel. Their symptoms were consistent with cadmium poisoning. Falling hair, severe body pains, breathing difficulties and kidney failure. The case was reported globally, which didn’t stop Gold Peak’s CEO being appointed to the Hong Kong Executive Council.

There is suspicion that nickel cadmium batteries could be being manufactured in Oudomxai in Lao’s north, where the majority female labour force could be similarly affected, but no one really knows.

The expertise does not exist to monitor the factory, nor to test the workers. Exposure limits, and the protocols needed to achieve them, are similarly absent. Detailed sex disaggregated accident or exposure reporting does not occur. There is little outside the capital a worker can do if dismissed for illness. All that is known is that some women have complained of headaches and skin rashes.

Tuk has been working at a salon and nail bar in central Vientiane for two years. “I sometimes feel really sick, and I don’t eat much.” It may be due to the solvents that she uses in a badly ventilated space. The nail glue contained methyl methacrylate, banned in many western nations for its effects on the liver, skin and lungs. Tuk showed me her hands, which she described as “itchy and sore.”

The piles of skin whitening products behind her all contained hydroquinone, which is known to work by stopping the body making melanin (the brown pigment in skin). Melanin protects the skin from cancer, and the chemical used to suppress it is known to cause kidney and liver damage. It’s bad for the customer, but worse for the beautician who uses it many times each day. The real cost of white.

“Are they really dangerous?” Tuk asked, her hand sweeping the piles of products. I could tell her that beauty salons in the west are required to check seven pages of safety points, but would that change anything? There is no culture of safety in Laos as there has not been any need for one in the past.

As Dr Doming Paek of the University of Seoul fatalistically told delegates at a meeting of Asian labour advocates in Phnom Penh in September, each nation has to learn its own way. It’s a social not a technical process.

Groups with a special interest in the effects of work on women have been proliferating in Asia, but have yet to take root in Laos.

The major agency for women’s affairs, the Lao Women’s Union (LWU), made no mention of workplace health and safety at their annual meeting to review and evaluate their work last week, nor is it a mainstream development topic.

“I wanted to work in a factory,” said Nah, “but the wage is not what I expected. I sometimes earn less than a dollar per day …. and I work 10 hours. All I do is iron jeans. It’s tiring and hot and there is a lot of steam. I have a lot of (vaginal) infections. My back hurts, particularly each month (during menstruation).

“The floor is cement and they do not let us sit down. I have no work contract. I did not want one as I want to be able to leave to go home for harvesting and planting. That means that they can sack me at any time if the orders do not come in from overseas.”

Lack of job security, low-waged, routinised and boring has characterised women’s work. Nah’s work predisposes her to gynaecological problems, the damp and heat enabling thrush to thrive. But she is possibly enumerated as a development success, moving from rural poverty into urban wage slavery.

While women in Laos enjoy social and labour force participation and influence rarely found in other nations, this may count against their long term health in the absence of knowledge and the ability to use it through the instruments of independent labour advocacy. Their strength came from lowland Lao social structures which supported the matrilineal society. Industrialisation is weakening those social bonds, women’s status and damaging women’s health. There is insufficient countervailing force.

The local director of the Australian labour oriented NGO APHEDA conceded that most Lao women workers are still unaware of their rights in regards to compensation and health and safety.

So what happens to them if they have an accident? “They go back to the village so their families can take care of them,” he said. And does having an accident affect their chances of being married? “Of course,” he replied ruefully.

* All names used are pseudonyms to protect the women interviewed.

This is the second part of a series on gender and disability in Laos ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Laos accepted the international treaty in August 1981.

Before 2002, Chanhpheng Sivila held training workshops for the many Lao disabled women and men at her own house.

Chanhpheng Sivila who walks with the help of a caliper believes "education for women is the key". Credit: Melody Kemp/IPS

Now she presides over the sprawling Lao Disabled Women’s Development Centre fronting the Mekong, 20 km from Vientiane. Traffic thunders over the nearby Friendship Bridge on its way to Thailand, the noise carried away on the afternoon breeze.

I was greeted by a myriad smiles from the women; each one herself disabled. One with skeletal deformity that shortened her stature, another with a foot that refuses to behave. Chanhpheng herself had polio when young and walks with the use of a heavy and squeaky caliper.

The stories of hardship and triumph spill from this animated woman. She radiates joy from her face and giggles at being the object of attention.

“It’s remarkable. All the staff and trainers are disabled. The management board are all disabled. They don’t need able-bodied folks,” says able-bodied Kaylie Tiessen who assists with business management. She and Chanhpheng frequently share warm glances, their regard for each other palpable.

“The new woman who started last week,” Chanhpheng begins, “is a good example of the women we can assist.”

“She had leprosy as a child. Damage to one leg required amputation below the knee. She got married and had three children. But the damage was not controlled, meaning she was subject to progressive amputation. Her husband could not cope and began to beat her.”

“She was earning money by making bamboo and rattan furniture, but he took control of her money and now she has nothing.”

This is unusual in a country where women are usually the ones in control of money. That the woman lost control might reflect her vulnerability.

The woman has to find someone to care for her children before she starts at the centre. “Unfortunately we cannot accommodate women and children here,” Chanhpheng continued. “Both her parents died when she was young. She moved to Huaphan (north eastern Laos) where her parents in law still live. They are the only ones left to care for the children; but she is afraid as they do not care, her kids may be sold to a rich person for domestic work or forced into factory work. She is very afraid of losing them.”

Her best hope would be to learn some new skills and find a house so her children can join her. But that may be difficult. “She may not see her children again,” Chanhpheng added.

Chanhpheng looked embarrassed when asked about her story. She repeatedly demurred before revealing she had contracted polio at three years of age. In a family of 12 children, the illness came as huge blow.

When they found she could not walk, the reaction was one commonly held, she said. Attempting to protect her from taunts and embarrassment they refused to let her go to school. In frustration, she stole her sister’s uniform and turned up at school. The teacher was impressed and called on her parents to educate her.

Her parents were reluctant, insisting she learn to sew at home so she had a source of income. She did learn, but by dogged persistence attended school, eventually earning a BA, majoring in Business.

“Education for women is the key. In the old days they believed that disability was caused by something bad you did in a former incarnation. That type of thinking is still around but not as strong,” she said.

“The government of Laos has given approval and support to the Convention for the Rights of the Disabled and are currently drafting a decree which will govern national policy,” Chanhpheng said. But there is no social security, no income support for the disabled or their families. In short if you don’t work, you don’t live.

The Lao Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare donated the land for the centre and various donors have helped build workshops and dormitories. But their income is far from secure. The funds are not sufficient to meet the burgeoning demands. There are no occupational therapists or vocational training staff. There are no designers. But there is a lot of positive energy and dignity. And it is Laos working for Laos.

“We went to follow up some of our graduates,” said Kaylie dashing back in, “one had set up a school teaching computing to adults. Another had a very successful business making snacks – she is now supporting her family. Another who lives in a leprosy village, set herself up in a sewing business and now makes 5 U.S. dollars per day (average Lao rural income is 3 dollars).”

Kaylie and Chanhpheng exchange a look that speaks pride and achievement.

So what now?

“Well we hope to set up a group for the deaf. And we are to have a round table meeting on blindness. But the long term project is to show that the disabled, with education and assistance can live on their own. We can’t change the past, all we do is help the disabled achieve independence and success now.”

*This is the first part of a series on gender and disability in Laos ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Laos accepted the international treaty in August 1981.