Egypt’s population increase puts pressure on the economy and development efforts. Credit: Hisham Allam/IPS
by Hisham Allam (cairo)
Inter Press Service
CAIRO, Sep 20 (IPS) – The population of Egypt increased from 104 million in November 2022 to 105 million in June 2023, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS). This represents the growth rate for the country, where the poverty rate is 27.3 percent. The population increase means that every 245 days, it increases by one million, or 3 people per minute.
The population density in Egypt has also increased, from 100.1 people per square kilometer (km2) in 2020 to 104.2 people per km2 in 2023. Cairo is the most populous Governorate in Egypt, with over 10 million residents, followed by Giza, with 9.5 million residents.
The fertility rate in Egypt has been declining in recent years, from 3.5 births per woman in 2014 to 2.85 births per woman in 2021. However, the annual birth rate is still high, at around 2.2 million.
If current fertility rates remain stable, Egypt’s population will reach 119 million in 2030 and 165 million in 2050. However, if fertility rates fall to 1.6 children per woman by 2042, the population will reach 117 million in 2030 and 139 million in 2050, Dr Najwa Samak, former head of the economics department at Cairo University, told IPS.
Samak stressed that the rapid population growth in Egypt is a burden on the national economy and a major challenge to the state’s development efforts. She called for concerted efforts from all sectors of society, including civil society organizations, the media, and state agencies, to control the population growth rate.
She said that the human element is one of the most important factors in production for any country and that population growth can be a blessing if it is used to raise production rates and national income. However, in the case of Egypt, the rate of population growth is outpacing the rate of economic growth, putting a strain on the country’s resources.
Samak said that family planning is crucial but that the Chinese model of one-child families is not the answer. She said that this model can lead to psychological damage for families and children.
She said that the most important thing now is to invest in eliminating illiteracy and improving the standard of living for poor families. This will help to raise awareness of the challenges of population growth and make it possible for families to make informed choices about their reproductive health.
Dr Hussein Abdelaziz, a professor of statistics at Cairo University, said that the Egyptian government aims to reduce the fertility rate from 2.8 to 1.6 children per woman in the coming years. He said that uncontrolled population growth is a major challenge to the state’s development efforts and drains the country’s resources.
Abdulaziz told IPS that the illiteracy of women is one of the main reasons for the high fertility rate in Egypt. He said that there are some villages in Egypt where the illiteracy rate for girls is up to 50%. He called for the empowerment of women through education to address the problem of population growth.
Despite the challenges, Abdelaziz finds hope in a number of governorates that have achieved positive indicators of population growth. He cited Port Said and Alexandria, where the fertility rates are 1.8 and 2.1 children per woman, respectively. These rates are equivalent to the reproductive rates in developed countries.
Abdulaziz said that the Egyptian government is working to reduce the fertility rate by providing family planning services, improving access to education, and raising awareness of the challenges of population growth.
Women walk in a village in Indian-administered Kashmir. Women here often find themselves lured by the promise of a job into unsuitable marriages. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS
by Athar Parvaiz (budgam, india)
Inter Press Service
BUDGAM, INDIA, Sep 13 (IPS) – It has been over a decade since 32-year-old Rafiqa (not her real name) was sold to a villager after being lured by the promise that she would be employed in the handicrafts industry of Indian-administered Kashmir.
But, instead of getting a job, she was sold to a Kashmiri man in central Kashmir’s Budgam district for a paltry sum of 50,000 Indian rupees (USD 605). Before the traffickers lured her, Rafiqa lived with her parents and three siblings in a poor Muslim family in West Bengal, a state in eastern India.
Ranging from Rohingya refugees – there are an estimated 40,000 Rohingya refugees in India – to women in other states of the country, such as West Bengal and Assam, women are trafficked and sold as brides to men who find it hard to find brides within their communities. Such grooms often include aged, physically challenged, and men with mental health issues.
Rafiqa’s husband, who drives a horse-cart for a living and lives in a one-room wooden shed, had to sell the only cow he possessed to pay the sum to the human traffickers.
She has now come to terms with “what I was destined to face in my life.” Embracing the reality, she says, was the only option left with her.
“I could have either tried to escape or taken some extreme step, but I decided to apply myself positively to make some kind of life out of what I ended up with,” Rafiqa told IPS while sitting at the base of the small wooden staircase of her house. “My husband’s simplicity and kind nature were also helpful in taking this decision – even though I didn’t like his appearance.”
“Now I have three kids for whom I have to live,” Rafiqa said. “I miss my parents and siblings. But it is very difficult to visit them. Even if I convince my husband, we can’t afford to visit them as it takes a lot of money to pay for the travel,” she added, saying her husband hardly provides two square meals for the family.
Rafiqa is not the only trafficked woman in that village. Over a dozen women have ended up getting married in similar circumstances. Elsewhere in the region, hundreds of other women from the Indian states of West Bengal and Assam are married to divorced and physically challenged men.
When 23-year-old Zarina (name changed), a woman from a poor family in West Bengal, got ensnared in a human trafficker’s trap, she had no idea that she would end up marrying a man whom she had never seen and was almost double her age. Zarina also fell for the false promise that a job in a carpet manufacturing unit in north Kashmir’s Patan area would be arranged for her. But, to her shock, she was sold into marriage.
“Now, how will my situation change after talking to you if it has not changed in the last five years? This is where I must be all my life,” an annoyed Zarina told IPS and then refused to elaborate.
Some women who encounter human traffickers are far unluckier. In a village of southern Kashmir’s Anantnag district, a young Rohingya woman was sold to a family by traffickers for their son with mental health issues after she was trafficked from a Rohingya refugee makeshift camp in the adjacent Jammu province.
“We were surprised when we discovered that the family has got a bride for their son who we knew was not mentally sound since his childhood,” said a neighbour of the family. “We would hear her screaming when her husband used to beat her almost every day. But fortunately for her, the young Rohingya woman was somehow able to escape after a few months.”
There are not any accurate official figures about sold brides, but some estimates say that thousands of girls and women are sold annually. The media sometimes reports the arrest of human traffickers, but such reports are not that common.
On July 26, India’s Minister of State for Home Affairs, Ajay Kumar Mishra, told the Indian parliament that 1,061,648 women above 18 years and 251,430 girls below 18 years went missing between 2019 and 2021 across different states in the country.
Mishra, however, said that most of the victims have been found and added that the Indian government has taken several initiatives for the safety of women.
Last year in April, India’s National Commission for Women launched an Anti-Human Trafficking Cell “to improve effectiveness in tackling cases of human trafficking, raising awareness among women and girls, capacity building and training of Anti Trafficking Units, and to increase the responsiveness of law enforcement agencies.”
“The Government of India does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so. The government demonstrated overall increasing efforts compared with the previous reporting period, considering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, if any, on its anti-trafficking capacity; therefore, India remained on Tier 2,” the report says.
KAMPALA/LUSAKA/HARARE, Sep 12 (IPS) – Almost 30 years ago in 1994, the world witnessed a historic event as 179 nations convened on African soil, in Cairo, for the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD).
In an unprecedented moment of collective action, Heads of State adopted a revolutionary Programme of Action and called for women’s reproductive health and rights to take center stage in national and global development efforts.
This summer, in another first, the Women Deliver Conference had its annual meeting in Kigali, Rwanda. As the largest conference on gender equality in the world with 6,000 in-person delegates and a further 200,000 remote participants, the event was a welcome symbol of Africa’s commitment to the rights of women and girls.
Despite this, it was frustrating to witness echoes of the global pushback currently plaguing the reproductive justice movement and how decades of progress on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) continue to face assault.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, the Hungarian President drew controversy for championing her ‘pro-family’ ideals in sharp contrast to the purpose that had united many of the delegates present.
President Katalin Novák, a key player in the movement opposing women’s and girls’ rights, notably access to safe and legal abortion, has publicly asserted that Hungarian women “should not compete with men” or expect to earn equal pay. She publicly envisioned her teenage daughter being empowered to choose a path of mothering a substantial number of children, “even 10 children if she chooses to”.
As part of a 40-women delegation from the Women in Global Health network, we experienced the clash firsthand. Three decades since Cairo, and the struggle for women’s and girls’ rights continues, but as African health professionals and agents of change in the systems we deliver, so does our determination to sustain progress on the continent.
We have much to be proud of. In November 2021, Benin’s Parliament voted to legalize abortion in most circumstances. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, the first country in Francophone Africa to do so, expanded access to abortion care, and endorsed guidelines to implement the directives of the African Protocol on the Rights of Women (the Maputo Protocol).
In July 2022, Sierra Leone took steps to modernize outdated abortion laws following decades of advocacy by the women’s movement and government officials.
Despite these advances, women and adolescent girls in Africa continue to have some of the world’s highest maternal death and morbidity rates. With low access to modern contraceptive methods and quality, safe and legal abortion, stalling progress means life and death for many women and girls.
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the failure of many governments to integrate a gender-responsive approach in national health systems on SRHR. During the emergency response, SRHR services were not always deemed essential and sidelined, resulting in a surge of gender-based violence, unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions.
Access to modern contraception and reproductive health, fundamental to determining whether and how many children to have, when and with whom, remains inaccessible for many adolescent girls and women. Quality, safe abortion care is a right. Restrictions on abortion do not eliminate abortion; they only eliminate safe abortions, resulting in women’s deaths.
According to global estimates up to 10 million more girls will be at risk of becoming child brides in the next decade as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reports also indicate that though all women and girls globally face discrimination in laws, social norms and practices, women and girls in Africa bear the highest share of discrimination in terms of intra-household dynamics and caregiving roles, working environments including harmful practices such as domestic violence and female genital mutilation.
Women health workers are grossly underrepresented in health leadership and this is a key factor in the current push back on SRHR. Women comprise the majority of the health workforce, given they are 70 percent of the overall workforce globally and 90 percent of frontline staff, yet they occupy just 25 percent of leadership roles.
For lower- and middle-income regions such as Africa, the percentage of women in leadership is as low as five percent. As the majority of frontline health professionals, women health workers have a deeper understanding of the health needs of their communities including SRHR needs. This power imbalance at decision-making tables excludes their valuable experiences and expertise to shape policies and programs that adequately address the health needs of women and girls.
Compounding this, 70% of women in Africa are said to be excluded financially, with an estimated gap of $42 billion between men and women. Around six million women work unpaid and underpaid in core health systems roles, effectively subsidizing global health.
Health and care are essential employment sectors for women and have the potential to unlock gender transformative lessons for the rest of the economy by addressing systemic biases that hinder women’s empowerment. Investing in the health workforce, the majority of whom are women, is a sound investment with potential gains for health systems, social change, and economic growth.
The role of women health workers delivering SRHR services in health systems cannot be overestimated. Women health workers typically counsel and support women and girls in accessing a range of modern contraceptives and in dealing with high-risk or unwanted pregnancy.
They brave violence and harassment from anti-rights protestors at quality, safe abortion facilities. They face online abuse and threats when expressing views in favor of SRHR, especially safe abortion.
As a platform, the Women Deliver Conference provided an opportunity for gender advocates and Civil Society Organizations to amplify efforts towards promoting a gender-responsive agenda among policy players and government leaders. While several countries have ratified human rights declarations over the years, not enough has been done to live up to the promise of making gender equality a reality.
Women’s movements and their allies are pivotal for mobilizing the necessary political will needed to drive progress on SRHR. As members of Women in Global Health, a movement challenging power and privilege for gender equity in health, we are calling on political and global health leaders to establish the following:
1. Gender responsive UHC that ensures all people have access to the services they need, when they need them including access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) for women and girls.
2. Gender Equal and diverse leadership in Global Health based on Gender Transformative Leadership. This offers equal opportunities for women to lead in health and contribute to shaping health systems and health policies that are gender responsive. This is critical if we are to achieve health for all.
3. Gender equity in emergency preparedness and response. We are calling for continuation of essential health services, including SRHR, and the protection of health workers to be central in these political agreements.
Movements such as ours are pivotal in building allyship between health workers and national leaders in the delivery of SRHR while also safeguarding health outcomes for future generations. Across Africa, reducing health inequities and maternal mortalities is of paramount concern.
African countries have the opportunity to secure the foundation for just societies and health for all, what we need now is to hold firm against the global pushback on reproductive rights and deliver on the promises made to women and girls.
This article was authored by Members of the African Women in Global Health network: Dorothy Akongo, Research and Advocacy Manager, Busoga Health Forum and Coordinator, Uganda Chapter; Flata Mwale, Global Health Professional and Deputy Country Lead, Zambia Chapter; Vivian Mugarisi, Public Health Communications Specialist, Zimbabwe Chapter.
Asian Parliamentarians believe it’s important to prioritise spending on ageing and youth populations. Credit: APDA
by Ranjit Devraj (new delhi)
Inter Press Service
NEW DELHI, Sep 05 (IPS) – Legislators from around the world, this week, officially submitted to the Sherpa of the G20 meeting set for September in New Delhi a declaration calling on governments to prioritise spending on ageing, youth, gender, human security, and other burning population issues.
The submission to the G20 Sherpa follows a workshop held on August 22 in New Delhi to discuss the Declaration first presented at the G7 Hiroshima summit in April by the Global Conference of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (GCPPD) under the UNFPA.
“We have now submitted the Declaration to Amitabh Kant, Sherpa to the G-20 so that it can be taken up,” Manmohan Sharma, Executive Secretary of the Indian Association of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (IAPPD), told IPS.
Lawmakers met in New Delhi to discuss the prioritisation of resources to prepare a declaration to the G20. Credit: APDA
Keizo Takemi, member of the House of Councillors, Japan, and Chair of the AFPPD, observed that India faced many challenges that are hard to overcome, and these included the large size of its population, limited school attendance, and a high rate of unemployment. “Prioritisation of population issues is the most important,” he emphasised.
Hooda, a leader of the opposition Congress party from the state of Haryana, said he was concerned at the dwindling budgetary outlay in social sectors like health and education over the last few years in India. “Currently, for some reason, inclusive growth in education and health has fallen,” he told delegates.
A presentation to the workshop by Suneeta Mukherjee indicated that India is among the top five nations leading the ‘out-of-school’ category, with 1.4 million children in the 6-11-years-old age category not attending school. Also, out of every 100 students, 29 per cent drop out of school before completing elementary education.
Mukherjee, an Indian career bureaucrat who has served at the UNFPA, said the situation appeared to be worsening at the upper primary level given that the dropout rate at the upper primary level had gone up to 3 per cent in 2021-2022 while it was only 1.9 per cent in 2020-2021. The annual dropout rate of secondary school students was 14.6 in 2020-2021.
Citing recent studies in her presentation, Mukherjee said 36 per cent of Indians between the ages of 15 and 34 believe that unemployment is the biggest problem facing the country. She said one survey showed 40 per cent of graduates identified unemployment as their most pressing concern.
Said P.J. Kurien, chairperson of IAPPD: “It is important that all MPs take up population-related issues. They need to ask what percentage of the budget is devoted to education and health and ensure that every child goes to school with special attention given to girls.”
Echoing Kurien, Sharma said it was up to members of parliament to ensure that no child is left out in his or her constituency. “The solution is in your hands, but the prioritisation is missing.”
Delegates outlined at the workshop legislative steps taken by Parliamentarians in their countries in implementing the International Conference on Population Development’s Programme of Action and 2030 Agenda.
Josephine Veronique Lacson-Noel, Member, House of Representatives of the Philippines, said over the last two decades, her country had enacted such legislations as the Magna Carta of Women, Reproductive Health Law, 105-Day Expanded Maternity Leave, Act Prohibiting Child Marriage, Universal Health Care Act, Youth Council Reform and Empowerment Act, and an Act to enable conditional cash transfers.
On the anvil, she said, is the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Bill, a law to recognise, evaluate and redistribute unpaid care and domestic work done by women, and another to accord social protection for older persons and the promotion of active aging.
For 2023, the budget allocation for reproductive health was $14.9 million dollars, and that for training teachers to implement comprehensive sexuality education was $13.8 million, Lacson-Noel said.
Andrea W. Wojnar, UNFPA India representative and country director for Bhutan, said with the right expertise and skills, India’s 1.4 billion people could be turned into 1.4 billion opportunities.
Wojnar said India, with its large youth cohort — its 254 million youth in the 15-24 age bracket — can be a source of innovation and solutions, especially if girls and women are provided educational opportunities and skills to access new technologies and are empowered to fully exercise their reproductive rights and choices.
With close to 50 per cent of its population below the age of 25, India has a time-bound opportunity to benefit from the demographic dividend, according to Wojnar.
“Women and girls should be at the centre of sexual and reproductive policies and programmes. When rights, choices, and equal value of all people are truly respected and held, only then can we unlock a future of infinite possibilities,” Wojnar said in a statement.
“As the national fertility rate falls below 2.1 (the replacement level), India is at a unique historical opportunity, witnessing a great demographic transition as a youthful nation,” Wojnar said, adding that India also has the largest number of outmigrants and is affected by ageing, urbanisation and issues around sustainable development.
Wojnar warned that, overall, the Asia Pacific region was six times more likely to be affected by disaster events than other regions and is highly susceptible to changing weather patterns, calling for special attention by governments.
The Declaration presented to the Sherpa of the G-20 called on governments, among other things, to implement comprehensive legislation and policies that address all forms of gender-based violence and eradicate harmful practices such as child marriage, early and forced.
It also called for investment in sexual and reproductive health and rights, as well as comprehensive sexuality education toward making future societies economically dynamic and for building peaceful, inclusive, and sustainable societies. Support for political and economic participation by women and girls could ensure the development of societies that guarantee liberty and individual choice for women and girls, it said.
Governments were asked to promote and assure equitable access to health innovation, finance, technology, and medicines in the global community which can support human security, leaving no one behind.
Acknowledgement of the grave impacts of environment/climate change and global warming was important, as also the need to promote policies that address the needs of geographically vulnerable countries, which is a threat to health and human security, the Declaration said.
Investing in young people by providing decent work opportunities and enabling them to become a driving force for sustainable development was important as also addressing active and healthy ageing to enhance people’s overall quality of life by improving areas such as health and long-term care through resilient universal health coverage, physical security, and income stability.
Governments were also asked to enact national legislation and policies and ensure political will through allocation, oversight, and monitoring of budgetary resources to build universal health coverage, which is vital to enhance the global health framework.
Two pregnant girls walk through the center of the capital of El Salvador, a country with one of the highest rates of pregnancies among girls aged 10 to 14, and where, as in the rest of Central America, what prevails are conservative views opposed to the teaching of sex education in schools, which is essential to reducing the phenomenon. CREDIT: Francisco Campos / IPS
by Edgardo Ayala (san salvador)
Inter Press Service
SAN SALVADOR, Aug 03 (IPS) – Pregnancies among girls and adolescents continue unabated in Central America, where legislation to prevent them, when it exists, is a dead letter, and governments are influenced by conservative sectors opposed to sex education in schools.
The most recent incident reflecting this situation was the Jul. 29 veto by Honduran President Xiomara Castro of an Integral Law for the Prevention of Adolescent Pregnancy, approved by the single-chamber Congress on Mar. 8 and criticized by conservative groups and the country’s political right wing.
“We don’t know the arguments behind the veto, but we could surmise that the law is still being held up by pressure from these anti-rights groups,” lawyer Erika García, of the Women’s Rights Center, told IPS from Tegucigalpa.
The influence of lobbying groups
Conservative sectors, united in “Por nuestros hijos” (“for our children”), a Honduran version of the regional movement “Con mis Hijos no te Metas” (roughly “don’t mess with my children”), have opposed the law because in their view it pushes “gender ideology”, as international conservative populist groups call the current movement for the dissemination of women’s and LGBTI rights.
In June, the United Nations expressed concern about “disinformation campaigns” surrounding the Honduran law.
The last of the marches in favor of “family and children” took place in Tegucigalpa, the country’s capital, on Jul. 22.
These groups “appeal to people’s ignorance, to fear, to religion, with arguments that have nothing to do with reality,” said García. “They say, for example, that people will put skirts on boys and pants on girls.”
According to the Honduran Penal Code having sexual relations with minors under 14 years of age is statutory rape, whether or not the girl consented.
In 2022, 1039 girls under 14 gave birth.
“The problem is quite serious, and it is aggravated by the lack of public policies to prevent pregnancies among girls and adolescents,” García said.
In the countries of Central America, which have a combined total of some 50 million inhabitants, ultra-conservative views prevail when it comes to sexual and reproductive health and education.
In El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua – as well as the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean – abortion is banned under all circumstances, including rape, incest or a threat to the mother’s life.
In the rest of Central America, abortion is only permitted in certain circumstances.
The Honduran president vetoed the law under the formula “return to Congress”, so that it can be studied again and eventually ratified if two thirds of the 128 lawmakers approve it.
Zuleyma Beltrán, 41, talked about becoming pregnant at the age of 15 because there is no proper sex education in El Salvador. A second pregnancy led to a miscarriage that landed her in jail in 1999, where many Salvadoran women who miscarry or have abortions end up due to a draconian anti-abortion law. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
“I didn’t even know what a condom was”
However, having laws of this nature does not ensure that the phenomenon will be reduced, since legislation is not always enforced.
An UNFPA report noted that in this country the pregnancy rate among girls and adolescents dropped by more than 50 percent between 2015 and 2022.
However, “it is worrisome to see that El Salvador is one of the 50 countries in the world with the highest fertility rates in girls aged 10-14 years,” the UN agency said in its latest report, released in July.
Among girls aged 10-14, the study noted, the pregnancy rate dropped by 59.6 percent, from 4.7 girls registered for prenatal care per 1000 girls in 2015 to 1.9 in 2022.
The map of pregnancies in girls and adolescents in El Salvador added that the country “needs to further accelerate the pace of reduction, adopting policies and strategies adapted to the different realities of girls aged 10-14 years and adolescents aged 15-19 years.”
Such actions must be “evidence-based,” the report stressed.
The reference appears to be an allusion to the prevalence of conservative attitudes of groups that, in Honduras for example, reject sexual and reproductive education in schools.
This lack of basic knowledge about sexuality, in a context of structural poverty, led Zuleyma Beltrán to fall pregnant at the age of 15.
“When I became pregnant I didn’t even know what a condom was, I’m not ashamed to say it,” Beltrán, now 41, told IPS.
She added: “I suffered a lot because I didn’t know many things, because I lived in ignorance.”
Two years later, Beltrán became pregnant again but she miscarried, which landed her in jail in August 1999, accused of having an abortion – a plight faced by hundreds of women in El Salvador.
El Salvador not only bans abortion under any circumstances, even in cases of rape. It also imposes penalties of up to 30 years in prison for women who have undergone abortions, and women who end up in the hospital after suffering a miscarriage are often prosecuted under the law as well.
“The State does not provide girls with sex education or sexual and reproductive health, and when pregnancies or obstetric emergencies occur as a result, it is too cruel to them, it only offers them jail,” she added.
Recinos said that, due to pressure from conservative groups, the State has backed down on the strategy of providing sexual and reproductive information in schools.
“Now they are more rigorous in not allowing organizations working in that area to go and give talks on comprehensive sex education in schools,” she noted.
Not even baby formula
In Guatemala, initiatives by civil society organizations that since 2017 have proposed, among other things, that the State should offer reparations to pregnant girls and adolescents, to alleviate their heavy burden, have made no progress either.
These proposals included the creation of scholarships, making it possible for girls to continue going to school while their babies were cared for and received formula.
“But unfortunately we have not been able to take the next step, to get these measures in place,” said Paula Barrios, general coordinator of Women Transforming the World, in a telephone conversation with IPS from the capital, Guatemala City.
Barrios said that most of the users of the services offered by this organization, such as legal and psychological support, “are girls and adolescents who are pregnant because of sexual violence and are forced to have their babies.”
She said that in the last five years some 500,000 girls under 14 years of age have become pregnant, and the number is much higher when teenagers up to 19 years of age are included.
“Today we have half a million girls who we don’t know what they and the children who are the products of rape are eating,” Barrios stressed, adding that as in El Salvador and Honduras, in Guatemala, having sex with a girl under 14 years of age is considered statutory rape.
“Society sees it as normal that women are born to be mothers, and so it doesn’t matter if a girl gets pregnant at the age of 10 or 12 years, they just think she has done it a little bit earlier,” she said.
Patriarchy and capitalism
The experts from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador consulted by IPS said the root of the phenomenon is multi-causal, with facets of patriarchy, especially gender stereotypes and sexual violence.
“The patriarchy has an interest in stopping women from going out into the public sphere,” said Barrios.
She said the life of a 10-year-old girl is cut short when she becomes pregnant. She will no longer go to school and will remain in the domestic sphere, “to raise children and stay at home.”
For her part, Garcia, the lawyer from Honduras, pointed out that there is also an underlying “system of oppression” that is intertwined with patriarchy and colonialism, which is the influence of a hegemonic country or region.
“We have girls giving birth to cheap labor to feed the (capitalist) system, and there is a greater feminization of poverty, girls giving birth to girls whose future prospects are ruined,” she said.
In the meantime, to avoid a repeat of her ordeal, Beltrán said she talks to and teaches her nine-year-old daughter about sexuality.
“In order to keep her from repeating my story, I talk to her about condoms, how a woman has to take care of herself and how she can get pregnant,” she said.
“I don’t want her to go through what I did,” she said.
WASHINGTON DC, Jul 31 (IPS) – This year, India surpassed China as the world’s most populous nation. China is expected to overtake the US as the world’s largest economy by 2035, but its population will likely continue to decline, while India’s will continue to grow.
India is projected to surpass 1.5 billion people by the end of this decade, reaching 1.7 billion people by 2064. Goldman Sachs analysts recently predicted India will be the world’s second-largest economy by 2075.
India’s population growth is widely touted as an economic opportunity to be seized, a chance for India to press its advantage as the most populous nation on Earth, with the greatest proportion of working age people.
For example, there have been recent calls for India to take the helm as a world leader in steel production. Demand for steel is expected to surge as India’s population grows, and more steel production capacity could boost India’s economy.
But there is more to population growth than just bigger markets and workforces. The same population growth that drives up demand also puts immense pressure on environmental, education, and health infrastructure.
So, as India’s population grows, it’s imperative that we balance its economic development with the well-being of its people. Sabina Dewan, a senior visiting fellow at the Center for Policy Research, says population growth could be a “tremendous productive force for the economy” but economic growth “hinges on providing good quality, productive, and well-remunerated jobs.” As Wilson Center scholar Jennifer Sciubba put it, “We’ve got 1.4 billion people in India, and it’s up to India to decide whether or not that becomes a resource or a burden.”
How population growth ultimately impacts people depends on how government, civil society, and society as a whole address its challenges and capitalize on its benefits. One key aspect of this is upholding people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).
As India’s population expands, the number of people of child-bearing age will continue to grow, and the stakes of SRHR will get higher. Studies show access to comprehensive SRHR services is key for health and well-being and helps women and girls reach their educational and economic goals. It also enables them to delay and space childbearing, moderating population growth and easing pressure on natural resources and infrastructure.
Currently, women and girls in India do not have sufficient access to SRHR services. Two million adolescent Indian women have an unmet need for modern contraception. A staggering 78% of abortions among adolescents are unsafe, leading to an elevated risk of complications.
And as India’s population grows, it also raises the stakes of gender discrimination and achieving gender equity. Without sufficient investment in the health and rights and women and girls, population growth is likely to exacerbate existing gender disparities.
But when women gain access to more education, economic opportunity, and family planning resources, it leads to greater economic participation and prosperity. Research finds such programs can help lift people out of poverty, improving their standard of living and contributing to a more inclusive economy.
In order to leverage the demographic dividend from population growth, in addition to manufacturing, transportation, energy, and digital infrastructure, India’s government should invest in its people.
It should focus on skill development and quality education programs that include women and girls, with emphasis on vocational training and technical education to equip the workforce with the skills the rapidly changing job market demands.
India’s rapid population growth is neither a blessing nor a curse, neither utopian opportunity nor dystopian destiny. Instead, it’s a blend of challenges and possibilities. The outcome for people depends on the actions we take and the investments we make.
Conventional investments like ramping up steel production may raise India’s GDP, but won’t by themselves make people happier or healthier, or lead to greater productivity and prosperity in the long run.
For that we’ll need a comprehensive approach, including policies and investments that prioritize SRHR, gender equity, education, and health. That’s the pathway towards beneficial economic growth, sustainable development, and a more balanced, prosperous future.
Taira Bhargava is a Stanback Reproductive Health Research fellow at the Population Institute in Washington, DC. Hailing from New Delhi, India, she is a rising junior at Duke University, studying Human Biology and Environmental Science.
Dr Rintaro Mori, Regional Adviser, Population Ageing and Sustainable Development at UNFPA, told the conference it was crucial to invest to improve social security, health, and well-being. Credit: APDA
by Cecilia Russell (bangkok & johannesburg)
Inter Press Service
BANGKOK & JOHANNESBURG, Jul 19 (IPS) – Countries with falling population growth face twin dilemmas: Ensuring their aging population live healthy and fulfilling lives and removing barriers to parenthood.
This was the focus of a recent workshop in Thailand reviewing the ICPD30 process and preparation for the Summit for the Future slated for next year (2024).
The workshop was opened by Professor Keizo Takemi, MP Japan and Chair of AFPPD, who contextualized the issue.
“In the Asia Pacific region, a profound shift awaits us. By 2050, one in four individuals will be about the age of 60, with a majority of them being women. The empowerment and the well-being of these women become essential for their meaningful and independent participation in the socio-economic development.”
The meeting sought to highlight what is required from lawmakers to ensure a dynamic and balanced aging society where older people will be physically, mentally, and economically self-reliant as possible, with a sustainable healthcare system.
Dr Rintaro Mori, Regional Adviser, Population Ageing and Sustainable Development at UNFPA, in an interview with IPS, said parliamentarians’ role included “macro level policy planning to prepare for the coming population aging and low fertility including both economic and human rights perspectives.”
Their role was to lead the governments’ reform policies and systems of the country to adjust for “the emerging population trend, such as pension reform and education sector reforms to accommodate all ages,” and “investing in early and later years to take preventative measures to improve social security, health, and well-being.”
Mori said this was possible using a life-cycle approach with a strong emphasis on prevention:
“Prevention is the most cost-effective way to promote healthy and active aging. Life-long investment in social security, health promotion, and psychological well-being (relationship) is the key.”
Parliamentarians and experts met in Bangkok to discuss the ICPD30 process and preparation for the Summit for the Future 2024. Credit: APDA
Boosting fertility was crucial for countries facing declining and aging populations. Dr Victoria Boydell from the University of Essex in the UK said it is vital to remove barriers to parenthood but not through the trend of reducing access to sexual and reproductive health services.
According to research by UN Women and the International Labour Organization, 1.6 billion hours a day are spent in unpaid care work – representing 9 percent of global GDP, and women carry out at least two and a half times more unpaid household work than men. These factors needed to be considered by lawmakers.
Boydell said policy responses to boost fertility and remove barriers to parenthood included supporting early childhood development, enrollment in quality childcare from an early age, compensation for the economic cost of children through the allocation of benefits, tax exemptions, and other subsidies.
Other practices include fostering employment, especially amongst mothers, for example, part-time and flexible working conditions, promoting equal pay, equal sharing of paid and unpaid work, and allocating benefits to low-income families.
Regarding SRH services, there could be an increase in access to infertility treatment, fertility targets and policies to support the higher number of children, cash or tax exemptions, and access to contraception and abortion. Choice was a key right that needed protection.
In a case study, Chalermchai Kruangam, an MP from Thailand, said it was expected that a growing number of older people would need institutional long-term care – with considerable costs to the fiscus. It was, therefore, crucial to encourage governments and stakeholders to support modifications of living arrangements for older people and provide access to knowledge and training on new technologies, particularly digitalization and information technology. This would ensure that older people remained independent for longer periods, especially if supported health facilities near their homes.
Willie Mongin, an MP from Malaysia, said governments needed to formulate and implement necessary measures to ensure that social systems are ready to meet the older adult’s needs, improve their lives and the well-being of their families and communities – so they can live their lives with dignity. With the World Bank, Malaysia was formulating a strategic plan or blueprint to address an aging population’s impact, including economic growth, productivity, social protection, and health care.
Mori told IPS it was important to note that “older persons are a quite diverse population. Some of the wealthiest persons are among the older population. The health status of older persons is quite different depending upon the individual. Any country should have basic social security infrastructure based on the needs and demands of the population, not solely on the age of a person.”
He also said governments should take into account the older persons’ diversity in their plans to, for example, encourage them to remain in the workplace beyond traditional retirement ages.
“The health, skills, and knowledge of older individuals are diverse, and governments should not plan such economic and labor market policies based on the assumption that older persons are homogenous, Mori said. Recently in Japan, trends show that small and frontline jobs seem to be suitable for older persons (Sakamoto 2022).
Note: The workshop was organized by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) and supported by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
PORTLAND, USA, Jul 17 (IPS) – With preparations for America’s 2030 population census underway and the Census Bureau encouraging additional public input, it’s time to seriously evaluate the continued inclusion of the race question in the U.S. population census.
Not only is the census race question confusing, an arbitrary classification of unscientific distinctions and conceptually problematic, the continuing collection of race data in the decennial census is divisive, alienating and inconsistent with America’s motto “e pluribus unum”, out of many, one.
The collection of population race data is a controversial matter. Some countries, agencies and organizations, including the UN Council for Human Rights, contend that the collection and compilation of race data are necessary to ensure equality, address systemic racism and guide appropriate public policy decisions. They believe that governments should collect and make publicly available comprehensive demographic data disaggregated by race.
Others, however, maintain that the collection of race data is estranging, promotes adverse stereotypes and contributes to the establishment of discretionary social differences. They also fear that the collection and compilation of population race data may be used by government authorities and others to benefit or sanction certain groups. Moreover, they note that despite religious discrimination in the U.S., the decennial population census does not have a question on religious affiliation.
The large majority of OECD countries, including France, Germany, Italy and Japan, do not collect data on the racial identity of their inhabitants. Only about a fifth of the 38 OECD countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, collect racial data on their respective populations (Figure 1).
Source: OECD.
In some countries, such as France, the collection of data on race is considered divisive and accordingly governments avoid considering their citizens in racial categories. Also, in many European countries as well as elsewhere, the collection of race data remains a highly sensitive matter given the recent history of authorities using demographic data to harass, oppress, persecute and even exterminate certain groups of people.
In the United States, beyond the basic enumeration of its population required by the U.S. Constitution for determining representation in Congress, the questions included in its decennial census is basically a political matter. Topics to be included or excluded in America’s population census are often in response to politics and political lobbying.
Questions about age and place of residence typically raise few objections. In contrast, the collection of other information, such as religious affiliation, citizenship, sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnicity, political affiliation and immigration status, are often contentious and some are not included in the census.
Since the first U.S. census in 1790, when some data on race as well as categories differentiating between free white people, other free people and enslaved people were collected, the government has changed its definitions of racial categories more than 10 times. Also, in many past censuses, individuals who were both white and another race, no matter how small the percentage, were counted as the nonwhite race, largely on the basis of the one drop rule.
The U.S. Census Bureau currently collects race data in accordance with the 1997 Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity directed by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Based largely on continent or country of origin, OMB’s minimum five categories for data on race are: American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and White.
Beginning in the 1960 census, race was no longer determined by the decisions of census enumerators but relied on the individual’s interpretation to select the appropriate racial category. In addition, the self-reporting of more than one race began with the 2000 census.
The Census Bureau defines race as a person’s self-identification with one or more social groups. The Bureau repeatedly stresses that the racial categories in the census questionnaire generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in the country and not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically or genetically.
Anyone who has filled out a recent decennial U.S. census questionnaire is faced with the question of race. There are a lot of people who don’t understand how best to answer that question because it doesn’t match the way they understand race.
With the choice of one or more “racial categories” in the recent 2020 census, an individual could select White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, nearly a dozen Asian or Pacific Island countries as well as the ubiquitous “Some Other Race” category, with national or ethnic origins to be specified in the write-in areas (Figure 2).
Source: U.S. Census Bureau.
The U.S. census race question has been met with dissatisfaction and frustration among some groups and individuals. In addition to the limited choices, the census race categories are increasingly failing to reflect how people see themselves, are out of step with the reality of their personal experiences and are often confused with people’s ethnic identity, especially Hispanic.
In the 2020 census, close to 50 million U.S. residents, or approximately 15 percent of the country’s population, checked a box for “Some Other Race” in the question on race. The proportion of the U.S. population choosing the category “Some Other Race” in 2020 is double the percentage from a decade earlier and triple the percentage from two decades earlier (Figure 3).
Source: U.S. Census Bureau.
Among the proposed reforms being considered to the race question for the 2030 census is the inclusion of a new checkbox for “Middle Eastern or North African” (MENA). Under the current standards set by the Office of Management and Budget, Americans with roots in the Middle East or North Africa are considered white.
Advocates for Arab Americans and other MENA groups have long campaigned for their own checkbox in the race question. Based on their daily life experiences, many people of MENA descent do not identify as white people.
Besides the addition of a new checkbox to the census racial question, the proposed reform to the race question would change the government’s definition of “White” as it would no longer include people with MENA origins. As a result, the change could decrease the proportion of people who identify as white among the U.S, population, which has become a salient part of American politics, especially among the political right.
Families across America are becoming more racially diverse. Part of the rise is the result of the growing diversity of the U.S. population due to immigration and increasing intermarriage among America’s racial and ethnic groups.
Since 2010, the number of people in the U.S. who identify themselves as multiracial has changed substantially. From 9 million people in 2010, the number increased to 33.8 million people in 2020 and now represents about 10 percent of the U.S. population.
Race in America remains a problematic concept, an arbitrary classification of unscientific distinctions and an incoherent stereotype as well as being difficult to define objectively and unambiguously. Also, since 1960 the U.S. Census Bureau has relied on self-identification by the individual to determine a person’s race.
In sum, the population census race question is not required to determine Congressional representation and, very importantly, the race question is contributing to the entrenchment of spurious divisions across the country that are unnecessary, confusing and inimical to the inherent principles of the nation. Accordingly, serious consideration should be given to evaluating the inclusion of the race question in America’s 2030 population census.
Joseph Chamie is an independent consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters.”
Cecilia Menjivar, a tortilla maker in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, takes a break from cooking corn in a pot that is one meter high and 50 centimeters in diameter, heated by a wood stove. Many women in urban and rural areas run these small businesses, aware of the damage to their health caused by the smoke, but the economic situation forces them to use firewood, which is much cheaper than liquefied gas. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
by Edgardo Ayala (san luis la herradura, el salvador)
Inter Press Service
SAN LUIS LA HERRADURA, El Salvador, Jul 04 (IPS) – Using a few dry sticks as fuel, Margarita Ramos of El Salvador lit the fire in her wood stove and set about frying two fish, occasionally fanning the flame, aware that the smoke she inhaled could affect her health.
“I know that the smoke can damage my lungs, because that’s what I’ve heard on the news, but what can I do?” Ramos told IPS, standing next to her stove in the courtyard of her home in El Zapote, a village of 51 families in the coastal municipality of San Luis La Herradura, in the southern Salvadoran department of La Paz.
Firewood, the fuel of the poor
“I cook with firewood out of necessity, because I don’t always have a job or money to buy gas,” added Ramos, 44, referring to liquefied gas, a petroleum derivative used for cooking in 90.6 percent of Salvadoran homes, according to official data.
This is the situation faced by many women in El Salvador and other parts of the world, especially in the countryside, where dire economic conditions as well as ingrained habits and traditions lead families to cook with firewood, with negative repercussions on their health.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that in 2019 approximately 18 percent of global deaths were due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and 23 percent to acute respiratory infections.
Ambient pollution, including wood smoke, plays a decisive role in respiratory diseases, especially among rural women, who do the cooking in line with the roles of patriarchal culture.
Back in 2004 the WHO warned that about 1.6 million people were dying annually from charcoal and wood smoke used in cooking stoves in many developing countries.
In El Salvador, 29,365 cases of acute respiratory infections per 100,000 inhabitants were reported in 2022, well above the 19,000 reported in 2021. Pneumonia reached 365 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the same period, and the case fatality rate stood at 13.6 percent, up from 11.4 percent the previous year.
Ana Margarita Ramos fries two fish for dinner on a wood stove in El Zapote, a coastal village located in the municipality of San Luis La Herradura, in the Salvadoran department of La Paz. Due to economic difficulties she frequently has to cook with firewood, and she fears that she might get asthma from exposure to the smoke. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
Ramos showed IPS the gas stove she has inside her house, with a cylinder that lasts approximately 40 days.
But when the gas runs out and she can’t afford to refill the cylinder, she has to cook with her wood stove. In her courtyard she has a table in a makeshift shed, where she keeps the wood and a metal structure that holds her pots and pans.
Official figures indicate that 5.9 percent of households in this Central American country use firewood for cooking.
However, in rural areas the proportion rises to 12.9 percent, while 84.4 percent cook with gas and the rest use electricity and other systems.
Ramos, 44, has no steady job and as a single mother, scrambles to provide for the needs of her two children.
Twice a week she cleans upscale apartments at a resort near her home, in Los Blancos, a well-known beach on El Salvador’s Pacific coast, also in La Paz. When she does well she cleans two a day, earning 24 dollars.
Sometimes she also washes other families’ clothes.
“Right now I have run out of gas, I have to use firewood,” she said. A cylinder of liquefied gas costs between 12 and 14 dollars.
She generally collects firewood on the banks of the estuary, from the branches of mangrove trees, since hers and other poor families live in a shantytown located between the Pacific Ocean and the Jaltepeque estuary, one of the country’s main wetlands.
Poverty affects 26.6 percent of the population at the national level in this small Central American country of 6.7 million inhabitants, according to official figures. But in rural areas the proportion rises to 29.6 percent, and of these, 10.8 percent live in extreme poverty.
At her house in the coastal village of El Zapote, Ana Margarita Ramos luckily has a yard where she has set up her wood stove, thus reducing her exposure to smoke, in a country like El Salvador where many women suffer from respiratory diseases due to the effects of cooking with firewood. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
Cutting costs with firewood
Meanwhile in San Salvador, the country’s capital, Cecilia Menjívar runs her small tortilla-making business partly by using firewood, which she collects from tree branches around the Los Héroes community where she lives.
She also uses wood left over from construction sites and sometimes buys it as well, at a cost of one dollar for about three “rajas” or axe-cut tree branches.
Tortillas are round flat bread made from corn dough, which are baked on metal plates generally heated with the flame from liquefied gas.
But Menjívar does not use gas to cook the 68 kg of corn she uses daily to run her business, as she can’t afford it.
“That’s why we prefer firewood. We don’t like it, first of all because of the damage to our health, and also because our clothes are impregnated with the smell of smoke and the walls of the house too, they look dirty,” Menjívar, 58, told IPS.
“We do it to save on the cost, which would be very high, and we wouldn’t make any profit,” she added, while behind her the 68 kg of corn for the day rattled in a boiling pot, black from the wood smoke.
Tortillas are part of the staple diet of the Salvadoran population. Most households cook their food on gas stoves, but they don’t make their own tortillas, because it is a complex and time-consuming process.
That is why so many women, like Menjívar, go into the tortilla business to meet the high level of demand, cooking the corn on wood stoves, usually located in the open air in their courtyards.
But during the May to November rainy season, they cook the corn inside the house, in a back room.
Because of the amount of corn and the size of the pot, the improvised wood stove made of wood and a metal structure has to be set on the floor.
The tortilla business has shrunk, she added, due to the increase in the cost of corn, which climbed from 15 dollars per quintal (45 kg) to 32 dollars.
“With this business we earn enough to buy our food and other basic things, but not for other expenses,” she said.
One of Ana Margarita Ramos’ two sons, in El Zapote, a coastal settlement in southern El Salvador, stands near the firewood that is always on hand in case they can’t afford to buy liquefied gas. About 13 percent of rural Salvadoran households cook with firewood, which poses serious health risks. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
Chronic bronchitis and pneumonia
Menjívar said that she fell ill with pneumonia in 2022, and she did not rule out that the cause could have been precisely the smoke she has been inhaling for decades, although she pointed out that the doctors who treated her did not inquire about it.
“Since I was a little girl I have been exposed to smoke, because my mother also used to make tortillas using firewood,” she said. “When she couldn’t find dry branches, my mom would burn anything: old shoes, old clothes or paper.”
When she got pneumonia, she had to stop working for three months, and she had to leave the business in the hands of her teenage daughter.
Burning firewood releases toxic gases and polluting particles that end up causing ailments that in medical terminology are grouped together as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pulmonologist Carmen Elena Choto told IPS. These gases include carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide.
“We also see other harmful particles, there may even be hydrocarbons, because they not only burn wood, but also dry cow dung, corncobs, paper, anything to make the fire,” said the expert.
Damage to the bronchi, or chronic bronchitis, and to the alveoli in the lungs, or pulmonary emphysema, are some of the diseases associated with exposure to smoke, including tobacco smoke, she added.
“Due to the burning of biomass (firewood and other products), the most frequent disease is chronic bronchitis,” said Choto, and older women are the main victims.
People with bronchitis have a constant cough “or wheezing or shortness of breath because there is obstruction due to mucus plugs in the airway,” she said.
Patients, she added, feel tired and suffer from dyspnea or shortness of breath from low oxygen levels, which in severe cases requires hospital care.
Menjívar began to feel these symptoms after spending years making tortillas.
“I felt very tired, I suffered from hot flashes, I was short of breath, I felt like I was having a hard time breathing,” she said.
After she was diagnosed with pneumonia, Menjívar stopped working for three months.
“That’s why I try to stay farther away from the smoke now,” she said. “But the smoke spreads through the house.”
For her part, Ramos, in her coastal village, has put her stove in the yard outdoors, to reduce exposure to smoke. She worries that she could suffer from asthma, like her sister.
A resident of the coastal hamlet of El Salamar, in the municipality of San Luis La Herradura in southern El Salvador, cooks pasta for lasagna on an ecological stove called a “rocket”, which is much more efficient in producing heat and emits less smoke. This kind of stove has been used for decades in rural communities in the country, with good results in alleviating the health risks posed by wood stoves. But they have not become widespread, due to a lack of government investment and campaigns to encourage their use. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
Eco-stoves, an alternative
One possible answer to reduce exposure to smoke, especially in rural areas, is the spread of eco-stoves, which due to their combustion mechanism are more efficient in producing energy and release less smoke.
These stoves have been around for decades in developing countries, including El Salvador, but they have not yet become widespread enough to make a difference, at least in this country.
There are socio-cultural aspects that hinder the expansion of the stoves and lead to the continued use of wood-burning stoves, environmentalist Ricardo Navarro, of the Salvadoran Center for Appropriate Technology, a local affiliate of the international organization Friends of the Earth, told IPS.
For example, he mentioned the practice by small farmers of placing corn or beans on bamboo or wooden platforms on top of wood stoves, so that the smoke prevents insects from eating the food.
“The problem is that sometimes we approach the issue as an energy or health problem, without considering these socio-cultural aspects,” Navarro said.
While cooking on one side of her wooden tin-roofed house, Mercedes Marcahuachi describes her long day’s work to meet the needs of her household and of the soup kitchen where she serves 150 daily rations at the low price of 80 cents of a dollar, in one of the settlements of Ventanilla, a “dormitory town” of Lima, the Peruvian capital. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
by Mariela Jara (callao, peru)
Inter Press Service
CALLAO, Peru, Jul 03 (IPS) – At five in the morning, when fog covers the streets and the cold pinches hard, Mercedes Marcahuachi is already on her feet ready to go to work in Pachacútec, the most populated area of the municipality of Ventanilla, in the province of Callao, known for being home to Peru’s largest seaport.
“If I don’t get up that early, I don’t have enough time to get everything done,” the 55-year-old woman tells IPS as she shows us the area of her home where she runs a soup kitchen that she opened in 2020 to help feed her community during the COVID pandemic and that she continues to run due to the stiffening of the country’s economic crisis.
Emerging as a special low-income housing project in the late 1980s, it was not until 2000 that the population of Pachacútec began to explode when around 7,000 families in extreme poverty who had occupied privately-owned land on the south side of Lima were transferred here by the then government of Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000).
The impoverished neighborhood is mainly inhabited by people from other parts of the country who have come to the capital seeking opportunities. Covering 531 hectares of sandy land, it is home to some 180,000 people, about half of the more than 390,000 people in the district of Ventanilla, and 15 percent of the population of Callao, estimated at 1.2 million in 2022.
Marcahuachi arrived here at the age of 22 with the dream of a roof of her own. She had left her family home in Yurimaguas, in the Amazon rainforest region of Loreto, to work and become independent. And she hasn’t stopped working since.
She now has her own home, made of wood, and every piece of wall, ceiling and floor is the result of her hard work. She has two rooms for herself and her 18-year-old son, a bathroom, a living room and a kitchen.
“I’m a single mother, I’ve worked hard to achieve what we have. Now I would like to be able to save up so that my son can apply to the police force, he can have a job and with that we will make ends meet,” she says.
Marcahuachi worked for years as a saleswoman in a clothing store in downtown Lima, adjacent to Callao, and then in Ventanilla until she retired. Three years ago, she created the Emmanuel Soup Kitchen, for which the Ministry of Development and Social Inclusion provides her with non-perishable food.
Pachacútec, a poor settlement in the port municipality of Ventanilla, has 180,000 inhabitants from different regions of the country and districts of Lima, the Peruvian capital. The conditions of poverty and precariousness increase caregiving work, typically associated with women due to gender stereotypes. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
The community soup kitchen operates at one end of the courtyard that surrounds her house and offers 150 daily food rations at the subsidized price of three soles (80 cents of a dollar), which she uses to buy vegetables, meat and other products used in the meals.
Marcahuachi feels good that she can help the poorest families in her community. “I don’t earn a penny from what I do, but I am happy to support my people,” she says.
Her daily routine includes running her own home as well as ensuring the 150 daily food rations in the Emmanuel settlement where she lives, one of 143 neighborhoods in Pachacútec.
Various studies, including the World Bank’s “Rising Strong: Peru Poverty and Equity Assessment”, have found that poverty in Peru is mostly urban, contrary to most Latin American countries, a trend that began in 2013 and was accentuated by the pandemic.
By 2022, although the national economy had rallied, the quality of employment and household income had declined.
Mercedes Marcahuachi is a resident of Pachacútec, a large area in the province of Callao on Peru’s central coast characterized by poverty and inequality. During the pandemic she set up a soup kitchen in her home, to feed the poorest local residents in her neighborhood, which is called Emmanuel. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
In Pachacútec, in the extreme north of Callao, the hardship is felt on a daily basis.
Only the two main streets are paved, while the countless steep lanes lined with homes are stony or sandy. Cleaning is constant, as dust seeps through the cracks in the wooden walls and corrugated tin-sheet roofs.
In addition, food and other basic goods stores are far away, so it is necessary to take public transportation there and back, which makes daily life more expensive and complicated.
But these are unavoidable responsibilities for women, who because of their stereotypical gender roles are in charge of care work: cleaning, washing, grocery shopping, cooking, and caring for children and adults with disabilities or the elderly.
This is the case of Julia Quispe, who at the age of 72 is responsible for a number of tasks, such as cooking every day for her family, which includes her husband, her daughter who works, and her four grandchildren who go to school.
Julia Quispe, 72, continues to care for and feed her family, including making the long trip to the market to shop and feed her husband, daughter and grandchildren. She does so at the cost of her own poor health. But this resident of Pachacútec, a poor area near Lima, the Peruvian capital, responds that she has “never worked”, when asked. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
She tells IPS that she has uterine prolapse, that she is not feeling well, but that she has stopped going to the hospital because for one reason or another they don’t actually provide her with the solution she needs.
Despite her health problems, she does the shopping every day at the market, as well as the cooking and cleaning, and she takes care of her grandchildren and her husband, who because of a fall, suffers from a back injury that makes it difficult for him to move around.
“When we came here in 2000 there was no water or sewage, life was very difficult,” she says. “My children were young, my women neighbors and I helped each other to get ahead. Now we are doing better luckily, but I can’t use the transportation to get to the market; I can’t afford the ticket, so I save by walking and on the way back I take the bus because I can’t carry everything, it’s too heavy.”
But when it comes to talking about herself, Quispe says she never worked, that she has only dedicated herself to her home, replicating the view of a large part of society that does not value the role of women in the family: feeding, cleaning the house, raising children and grandchildren, providing a healthy environment, which includes tasks to improve the neighborhood for the entire community.
Moreover, in conditions of poverty and precariousness, such as those of Pachacútec, these tasks are a strenuous responsibility at the expense of their own well-being.
The steep streets of Pachacútec are sandy or stony, which means there is constant dust in the homes, and women have to spend more hours cleaning in this densely populated settlement of Ventanilla, a coastal municipality neighboring Lima. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
Recognizing women’s care work
“Poor urban women have come from other regions and have invested much of their time and work in building their own homes, caring for their children and weaving community, a sense of neighborhood. They have less access to education, they earn low wages and have no social coverage or breaks, so they are also time poor,” Rosa Guillén, a sociologist with the non-governmental Gender and Economics Group, tells IPS.
“For years, they have taken care of their families, their communities, they do productive work, but it is a very slow and difficult process for them to pull out of poverty because of inequalities associated with their gender,” she says.
She adds that “even so, they plan their families, they invest the little they earn in educating their children, fixing up their homes, buying sheets and mattresses; they are always thinking about saving up money for the children to study during school vacations.”
From the focus of the approach of feminist economics, she argues that it is necessary for governments to value the importance of the work involved in caregiving, in taking care of people, families, communities and the environment for the progress of society and to face climate change, investing in education, health, good jobs and real possibilities for retirement.
“Living here makes you feel like crying but what would that get me, I just have to get over it,” Ormecinda Mestanza, a resident of Pachacútec since 2004, tells IPS. She commutes daily to the Peruvian capital of Lima to work and earn a living, in trips that take between two and three hours. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
Ormecinda Mestanza, 57, has lived in Pachacútec for nine years. She bought the land she lives on but does not have the title deed; a constant source of worry, because besides having to work every day just to get by, she has to fit in the time to follow up on the paperwork to keep her property.
“It makes you want to cry, but I have to get over it, because this little that you see is all I have and therefore is the most precious thing to me,” she tells IPS inside her wooden shack with a corrugated tin roof.
Everything is clean and tidy, but she knows that this won’t last long because of the amount of dust that will soon cover her floor and her belongings, which she will just have to clean over again.
She works in Lima, as a cleaner in a home and as a kitchen helper in a restaurant, on alternate days. She gets to her jobs by taking two or three public transportation buses and subway trains, and it takes her two to three hours to get there, depending on the traffic.
“I get up at five in the morning to get ready and have breakfast and I get to work late and they scold me. ‘Why do you come so far to work?’ they ask me, but it’s because the daily pay in Pachacútec is very low, 30 or 40 soles (10 to 12 dollars a day) and that’s not enough for me,” she says.
Wood and corrugated tin roofing are the materials used in most of the houses in Pachacútec, an area in the north of the province of Callao, adjacent to the capital of Lima, as is the case of the home of Ormecinda Mestanza, who constantly worries that when it rains her house will be flooded by leaks in her roof. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
She managed to buy the land with the help of relatives. After working for a family as a domestic for 30 years, her employers moved abroad and she discovered that they had lied to her for decades, claiming to be making the payments towards her retirement pension. “I never thought I would get to this age in these conditions, but I don’t want to bother my son, who has his own worries,” she says.
And among the parts of the country with a poverty rate above 40 percent is Callao, a small, densely populated territory that is a province but has a special legal status on the central coast, bordered to the north and east by Lima, of which it forms part of its periphery.
The municipality of Ventanilla is known as a “dormitory town” because a large part of the population works in Lima or in the provincial capital, also called Callao. Because of the distance to their jobs, residents spend up to five or six hours a day commuting to and from work, so they basically only sleep in their homes on workdays, and very few hours at that.
Guillén says it is necessary to bring visibility to the workload of women and the fact that it is not valued, especially in poor outlying urban areas like Callao.
“We need a long-term policy immediately that guarantees equal education for girls and boys, and gives a boost to vocations, without gender distinctions, that are typically associated with women because they are focused on care,” says the expert.
She adds that if more equality is achieved, democracy and progress will be bolstered. “This way we will be able to take better care of ourselves as families, as society and as nature, which is our big house,” she remarks.
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