Women Workers Summit 2009

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Invitation to Press Conference on Women Workers Summit at Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand (FCCT)

Media Advisory_ Press Conference 8th Dec

7.30-8.30PM,  8th December 2009

Committee for Asian Women (CAW) is holding a press conference to launch the first Asian Women Workers Summit, which will bring together over 150 women workers from 20 countries in Asia to discuss their livelihood and working conditions as impacted by the financial crisis and propose sustainable solutions.

Working people in Asia have suffered great hardship from a chronic economic slowdown that started as early as 1997. The acute financial crisis in 2009 hit Asia hard as local economies reliant on the export market and financial investment collapsed. If the situation deteriorates, at least 87 million people in Asia will be unemployed and over 832 million will become working poor[1]. The majority of these workers will be women, who make up 80% of the work force at the lowest and unskilled level of the economy. The serious impact on women will influence Asian society as a whole, as women are the primary food providers and care givers in the family. Decrease in women’s income has long-term negative effects on health, education and economy.

The predominant government response to the crisis has been stimulus packages focused on physical infrastructure, creating stop-gap employment and refinancing bad loans. Governments have not targeted women, although the burden of the financial crisis has fallen heavily on them.

The Women Workers Summit will discuss the various policy orientations including a comprehensive social security system, sustainable agriculture and employment in rural areas, government investments in social infrastructures such as education, health and other public services, trade agreements with labour and gender perspectives, and labour protection for migrant workers.

The panelists for the press conference:

Angkachat Yuangchan is among the 1930 unionised workers that had been laid off by Triumph International (Thailand) in 2009. She is now 54 years old and had worked in the factory for over 32 years. Being an unemployed middle age woman taking care of her 79-year-old mother all by her own, she has a sad story to tell.

Lucia Victor Jayaseelan is the executive coordinator of Committee for Asian Women (CAW), a regional labour network of 46 NGOs and trade unions in different sectors focus on women.  She has monitored the impact of globalisation on women for over 30 years. During the financial crisis in 2009, she proposed a number of alternative solutions for policy orientation to Asian governments.

Jurgette Honculada has been a feminist labour activist since early 70s. She has written numerous articles on women workers, feminist theology, and gender mainstreaming in the Philippine bureaucracy. She is general secretary of the National Federation of Labor, the Philippines.

Menaha Kandasamy is a Sri Lankan trade unionist. She is the president of Red Flag Women’s Movement and work with tea plantation workers and domestic workers in Kandy.

The Women Workers Summit will be held on 9-10 December at Palazzo Hotel, Ratchadaphisek Road, Bangkok, Thailand. The participants will organise a women workers’ parade to the Bangkok Arts and Culture Center to launch a celebration of 100 Years of International Women’s Day (1911-2011) from 14.00 to 19.00, 10 December.

For more information, please contact the media liaison desk at:

Juliette (English)-0870999636
Kae (Thai)-0865522247
CAW office:
386/58 Soi Ratchadaphisek 42, Ratchadaphisek Road, Jankasam, Bangkok
Tel: 029305634; Fax: 029305633;
www.cawinfo.org

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[1] International Labour Organisation (ILO), Global Employment Trend, 2009

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• Media Reports of the Events