By Joseph Chamie
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 20 2014 (IPS)

Numerous international and national efforts have focused on gender equality and the empowerment of women. The United Nations, for example, has convened four world conferences on women – Beijing in 1995, Nairobi in 1985, Copenhagen in 1980 and Mexico City in 1975 – and Member States have adopted various international agreements, such as the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

Achieving true gender equality, however, requires resolving the many inequities, discriminations and barriers that are encountered by both women and men. Concentrating attention, policies and programmes on the inequalities, biases and obstacles confronting women, while largely ignoring those of men is an unproductive and limited strategy for attaining true gender equality.

In hazardous jobs, such as mining, logging, fishing, iron and steel work, men are the overwhelming majority of workers. Consequently, men are far more likely to suffer a fatal injury or work-related disability than women.
It is important to acknowledge at the very outset that women’s rights and men’s rights are human rights. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights and are entitled to life, liberty and security of person.

Moreover, empowering women and men is also an indispensable tool for advancing both human and national development, reducing poverty and improving prospects for future generations.

Men suffer a widely acknowledged disadvantage compared to women with respect to perhaps the most important dimension: longevity. Men have shorter life spans and higher mortality than women at virtually all ages. Males, on average live four years less than females worldwide, five years less in the United States, seven years less in Japan and 10 years less in Russia.

The gender gap is considerable at older ages due to men’s shorter lives. Men are a growing minority across each 10-year age group of the aged population worldwide (Figure 1). For example, men represent 40 percent of those in the age group 80-89 years.

Source: United Nations Population Division.

In some countries, for example, Austria, China, Italy, Russia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, statutory retirement ages for men are higher than for women, even though men have fewer potential years for retirement than women. Furthermore, when they meet the same participatory requirements, men receive similar social security benefits as women, without regard to men’s fewer years of retirement.

With respect to education, girls generally outperform boys in most developed countries by receiving better grades and teacher assessments, while having lower school dropout rates than boys. In the crucial area of higher education, women now outnumber men worldwide in both university attendance and graduation.

Regarding childbearing and childrearing, fathers in most industrialised countries generally have little to say about the outcome of a pregnancy even though they will likely incur responsibilities and costs for the child.

Women have the right to choose whether to have an abortion or carry the pregnancy to term, even if the father objects to her decision. Moreover, while women may opt for artificial insemination to have a child, men are generally barred from using surrogacy to have a child.

Men who stay home to raise children are often looked down upon for not financially supporting their families. However, it is still acceptable for women to stay at home and focus on childcare.  Also in contrast to women, men are still expected to enter the labour force early in their lives and are under enormous pressure to be successful providers for the material needs of their families.

Also in cases of divorce in the Western world where child custody is involved, courts most often rule in favour of the mother rather than the father. Moreover, in those instances where the father does receive child custody, he is less likely to receive child support than custodial mothers.

With regard to the occupational structure of most countries, men have to cope with the widely unacknowledged “glass floor”.The glass floor is the invisible barrier limiting the entry of men into the traditional occupations of women, such as pre-school and primary teachers, secretaries/administrative assistants, nurses and medical/dental aides. If gender equality is desired at higher occupational levels, then it is also necessary at lower levels as well.

In hazardous jobs, such as mining, logging, fishing, iron and steel work, men are the overwhelming majority of workers. Consequently, men are far more likely to suffer a fatal injury or work-related disability than women. Moreover, the construction, manufacturing and production sectors are shrinking in many developed countries, resulting in fewer traditional jobs for men.

Concerning sports, boys and men are more often encouraged to participate in more violent activities, such as football, hockey and boxing, than girls and women. As a result, men are at greater risk of suffering serious sports-related injuries and incurring long-term or permanent brain damage.

In armed conflicts both domestic and international, men and boys are more likely to participate in combat than women. Consequently, men suffer more trauma, disability and death than women in such conflicts.

Men have a higher probability of being victims of homicide. Among ethnic minorities, homosexuals and marginalised groups, men are also more likely to experience discrimination, hostility and violence than women. In addition, men are more often incarcerated in jails, prisons and hospitals and serve longer jail terms than women for the same criminal offenses, with women being released earlier on parole than men.

Men are more likely than women to be homeless, often the result of job loss, insufficient income, mental health issues or drug addiction. The consumption of tobacco and alcohol is greater for men than women globally, with men smoking nearly five times as much as women and six percent of male deaths related to alcohol compared to one percent of female deaths.

Also, in most countries more men than women commit suicide. Nevertheless, men are less likely than women to seek help and treatment for alcoholism, substance abuse, mental illness and chronic health problems.

It should be evident that simply focusing attention, policies and programmes on the inequalities and biases that women encounter while largely ignoring those facing men will obstruct and delay efforts to attain gender equality. Achieving true gender equality requires recognising and resolving the inequities, discrimination and barriers that are encountered by both women and men alike.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Excerpt:

Women and children are badly affected by the rise in alcohol consumption in Sri Lanka's Northern Province. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Amantha Perera
DHARMAPURAM, Aug 3 2014 (IPS)

Back in the day when the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) ran a de-facto state in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province, alcohol consumption was closely monitored, and sternly frowned upon.

But after government forces destroyed the militant group in 2009, ushering a new era into a region that had lived through three decades of civil conflict, strict rules governing the brewing and sale of spirits have lost their muscle.

Plagued by poverty, trauma and a lack of employment opportunities, civilians in the former war zone are increasingly turning to the bottle to drink their troubles away.

“There is worryingly high casual and habitual use of alcohol in the region. Drinking hard liquor by the end of the day is becoming a [norm],” Vedanayagam Thabendran, district officer for social services for the Kilinochchi district in the Northern Province, about 240 km from the capital Colombo, told IPS.

Available data on alcohol consumption trends back his assessment.

“There is a visible shift in consumption patterns in the war-affected areas from the days of the LTTE. They did not allow the northern citizens to drink moonshine [freely]." -- G D Dayaratna, manger of the health and economic policy unit at the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS)
According to a December 2013 survey by the Alcohol and Drug Information Centre (ADIC), a national non-governmental organisation, the northern district of Mullaitivu had the second highest alcohol consumption rate in the island, with 34.4 percent of the population identifying as ‘habitual users of alcohol’.

The survey covered 10 of the 25 districts in the country, including two in the Northern Province.

“Frequency of alcohol consumption was highest in Mullaitivu district, among the ten districts surveyed. In both the Jaffna and Mullaitivu districts, beer consumption was higher than arrack (hard liquor) consumption,” said Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, who heads the Jaffna-based Point Pedro Institute of Development.

The researcher told IPS that “anecdotal evidence and alcohol sales figures” indicate a link between the end of the civil war and the rise in alcohol consumption.

District official Thabendran said that alcohol abuse was more pronounced in interior villages that had once fallen under the purview of the LTTE. He identified one such village as Dharmapuram, located about 17 km northeast of Kilinochchi Town.

“We keep getting regular reports of domestic disputes because of alcohol consumption and we know that there are a lot of places (in that village) where illegal alcohol is available,” he stated.

Humanitarian workers in the region said that Dharmapuram has acquired the nickname ‘booze centre’ because of the free availability of illicit liquor.

“One of the disturbing trends is the prevalence of female headed households that have begun to sell illicit liquor as an easy income-generation method,” said a humanitarian worker who wished to remain anonymous because he was working with the families in question.

Homemade brews – typically derived from coconut, palmyra flowers or sugarcane – are cheap to make and easy to procure. Women in the north say they earn about 100 rupees (0.7 dollars) per litre of local moonshine.

A man sits in his makeshift kitchen in the village of Dharmapuram after returning home drunk. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

Drinkers say that illegal alcohol can be obtained for less than one-fifth the price of the lowest-grade legal liquor.

“I haven’t seen this much alcohol here for almost 50 years,” Arumygam Sadagopan, a 60-year-old resident of Dharmapuram, admitted.

A retired education officer, Sadagopan told IPS that habitual drinking, especially among men, is exacerbating poverty and fueling domestic violence. He added that his neighbour’s family was now at “breaking” point due to the husband’s daily bouts of drinking.

“He has two school-going children who now mostly see their father drunk, reeking of alcohol and arguing or fighting with their mother,” he stated.

The end of the war in May 2009 not only removed restrictions on easy access to liquor outlets, it also removed social barriers that had kept consumption in check.

“There is a visible shift in consumption patterns in the war-affected areas from the days of the LTTE. They did not allow the northern citizens to drink moonshine (freely),” said G D Dayaratna, manger of the health and economic policy unit at the think-tank Institute of Policy Studies (IPS).

He also said that the LTTE kept a close tab on alcohol production in areas they controlled. All such safeguards crumbled along with the demise of the armed group.

Still, the situation is not specific to the former war zone. Islandwide alcohol production and consumption have seen sharp increases since the end of the conflict.

In  2013 the Excise Department earned over 66 million rupees (over 500,000 dollars) in duties from the sale of alcohol, an increase of 10 percent from 2012.

In 2009 Sri Lanka produced 41 million liters of hard liquor and 55 million liters of beer, but by 2013 hard liquor production had touched 44 million liters, while beer production was an astonishing 120 million liters.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the total alcohol per capita consumption rate among people aged 15 years and older between 2008 and 2010 was 20.1 litres.

There are no official figures available for the quantity of illegal, homemade alcohol but a 2002 study found that 77 percent of all liquor consumed in Sri Lanka was illicitly brewed. In 2013, fines for illegal liquor touched 127 million rupees (975,000 dollars).

Social workers like Thabendran said that the worst cases of alcohol abuse were visible in poor households in the northern province, where men were either unemployed or engaged in backbreaking daily paid manual labour.

Men who engage in hard, manual labour are the primary consumers of alcohol in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

There are no official figures for full unemployment rates in the north. However, in the two districts where figures are available – 9.3 percent in Kilinochchi and 8.1 percent in Mannar – they were over twice the national rate of four percent.

Sarvananthan estimates that unemployment could be above 20 percent here in Dharmapuram, while employment in the informal sector, which includes agriculture, forestry, fisheries and day labour, hovers at just about 30 percent.

Poverty levels are also high in the province, with four of its five districts recording rates higher than the national average of 6.7 percent.

The three districts where the war was most intense, Kilinochchi, Mannar and Mullaittivu, record poverty rates of 12.7 percent, 20.1 percent and 28.8 percent respectively, according to the latest government poverty headcount released in April.

“When you look at alcohol consumption patterns, you see they have a direct correlation with the type of employment. Manual labourers and daily wage earners are more likely to consume alcohol at the end of the day,” Dayaratna pointed out.

Sadagopan has a simple solution to the alcohol menace, at least in the short term. “The laws against illicit brewing and selling should be strictly enforced,” he said. “The problem is, since our villages are in the interior, enforcement is lax.”

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

A young man sipping a sachet of tujilijili in Chaisa compound, Lusaka, Zambia. Officially he risks a two-year prison sentence by doing this, as these sachets containing hard liquor have now been banned. Credit: Jorrit Meulenbeek

By Jorrit Meulenbeek and David Mwanza
LUSAKA, Sep 12 2012 (INSP)

About a dozen men aimlessly wander around what seems like a prison courtyard. Most of them appear completely disoriented, a confused gaze in their eyes.

A shivering old man staggers around the area in circles with a friendly but absent-minded smile on his face, continually picking imaginary insects from his body. “Doyo,” (insect) he mumbles, as he helpfully points out a birthmark in the neck of one of the nurses.

A young man sits on the concrete floor in another corner, his body shaking so heavily that he fails to bring the spoon filled with porridge to his mouth. He has to be fed like a baby. “This one is still in the withdrawal phase,” head-nurse Alice Phiri remarks dryly. For her, this is business as usual.

“Many of them come with wounds like these,” she points out the circular scars around the young man’s arms and ankles. “When the family doesn’t know what to do with them anymore, they tie them up using electricity wire to restrain them.”

This is not a prison. It is the mental ward of Chainama Hills hospital just outside Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. About three quarters of the men admitted here are only temporarily ‘mad’, as a result of serious alcohol abuse and withdrawal symptoms.

Hearing the stories of those who have already returned to their senses – after 72 hours of detox – most mention one word when asked what they used to drink to end up here: tujilijili.

Killer sachets

These plastic 60 ml sachets, sporting brand names as ‘Zed’, ‘Officer’, ‘Joy’ and ‘Double punch’, appear innocent with their bright and fruity colours, but contain over 40 percent alcohol. Locally produced by various companies they became a trend over the past five years. Apart from in bars and licensed outlets, they were soon sold by the many informal street traders, going for around 1000 Kwacha (20 U.S. cents) or less.

This made them available to the poor, who often use alcohol as an escape from the harsh realities of everyday life. Reports of school children drinking the sachets in class, security guards sipping them on duty, and several deaths attributed to tujilijili made headlines, earning them the nickname ‘killer sachets’. Earlier attempts to ban the product failed, as the producers were operating within the law and the content of the drink itself complied with all existing regulations.

This is why it came as a surprise to both critics and supporters in April when Professor Nkandu Luo, minister under the newly elected Patriotic Front government, made the bold move to outlaw the production, sale and consumption of alcohol in sachets. She did not ban the drink, but the packaging.

For concerned parents like Peter Mbewe from Lusaka’s Chaisa compound, this decision was long overdue. “You have seen how youths are dying at a tender age because of these things,” he says. “The minister was right to ban the substance. It was destroying our children.”

Business out of booze

In the dusty gravel roads of Chaisa, a poor township with high numbers of youth unemployment, a layer of trampled tujilijili sachets has become part of the ground cover. Now the remaining ‘jilis’ are sold under the counter at double the price. It has become risky business since the council police started patrolling undercover. Anyone found with the sachets risks a two-year prison sentence.

Dibblo Mwanza, who used to sell the sachets from his makeshift shop, was also arrested trying to finish his stock, but got away with a fine.

“The PF government is not fair,” he says. It was mainly unemployed urban youths like him who voted the opposition party into power in September last year: “They promised us more money in our pockets, yet there are no jobs, and the only way to sustain ourselves, keep our family and pay rent was through this lucrative business.”

According to the official statistics, Zambia does not rank as highly as other alcohol-loving countries. Compared to Eastern European countries, Zambians seem quite modest, consuming only 3.9 litres of pure alcohol per year compared to 15.7 litres in Russia. But these numbers do not give the full picture as they are mainly based on registered alcohol sales and fail to take into account the homebrews that many poor Zambians drink instead.

Before tujilijili came onto the scene in recent years, hard liquor came in the form of kachasu, a traditional distilled spirit that people brew and sell from home. Kachasu houses are especially common in rural areas and the compounds of Lusaka, where poverty is rife but while Kachasu is also officially illegal, police are less concerned by its use.

Brewer Harry Kalad, who manages to support his wife and kids, his old mother and two orphan children from this business, admits he prays that the police continue their hunt for tujilijili, as his own kachasu business is now doing better than ever. “All my old customers have come back, my profits have been increasing.”

Seeing the effects

While those who really want to drink still have other options now tujilijili is gone, the ban does seem to have had an effect, as the number of people admitted to Chainama Hills hospital with alcohol intoxication seems to have dropped already.

“In the first days after it was banned we saw more people suffering from withdrawal symptoms because they could no longer get the sachets,” says Nurse Alice Phiri. But now she sees the number has dropped.

“Of course Kachasu is still there, but that is sold in bigger, more expensive bottles and is not so easy to carry,” she explains. “I have worked here for more than 20 years. Before tujilijili, when we only had kachasu, such patients were rare.”

“My own son, who also used to work here, was fired because of abusing alcohol. I salute the government for banning these things,” she adds.

But the manufacturers and traders of the sachets have not given up and are still fighting the decision to ban tujilijili in court.

*Published courtesy of www.street-papers.org /INSP