Women-headed households common occurrence in NE
The Centre for Poverty Analysis (CEPA) last week conducted a half day study session and discussion on a research carried out for 10 months in the Trincomalee and Batticaloa Districts to understand policies and implementation practices at a national and district levels with regard to SMEs.
In the war-affected areas there are a large number of women headed households and many of them have been persuaded to become entrepreneurs. In this context Ms Nadeeja Abeysekera, Senior Programme Officer, World Vision Lanka said she was not happy to transform all these women to entrepreneurs as it is not what is really happening in the post-war areas and in the South.
She said that women-headed households in not a new big thing, but they are catching up every day despite being affected by war, as many men as well as women are leaving the families. “So single headed household is very common and they are surviving,” she added.
Though life is difficult these women are succeeding, she said and indicated that it all depended on the individual and commented that they should not be categorised as women-headed households as it is not a ‘big deal’.
The other side of the story, she said is that a lot of women who have started small, making products in packets are going to the market and are not really failing.
They should be lifted out of the poverty line to make them normal people, she said. The most important thing she said is to ‘break that ceiling’, even after 10 years of war. There are examples of similar or worst affected countries like Vietnam and Cambodia where they encountered real genocide and Sri Lanka could use these examples, she said.
Ms. Abeysekera urged: “Remove that tag and move on. We have to actually stop using this kind of stories”.
There are so many tragic experiences in the field where several of the family members have perished with the war, but she said that there are very strong women who are defying such tragic and traumatic situations. “They overcome the pressure and move-on”. So as social workers they (we) should not repeat those stories – “That is not the true thing. Sri Lanka is really recovering and proceeding,” she said.
She indicated that these women are creating some kind of stability in the market and they are picking up (in business).
The research by CEPA Café on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises as backbone of the economy where the government is actively pursuing the growth of SMEs and the exercise is targeted to help create an entrepreneur based economy. In carrying out this research CEPA has teamed up with the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium (SLRC).
The research report enumerated at policy level that enterprise promotion should be encouraged as a key state and development policy and as a pathway to reconciliation, through economic development of directly war affected areas. At the academic level the networks were formed through SME entrepreneurships to create linkages that build sustainable peace.
The findings showed that women often do ‘what they have to do’ in order to survive the material and spatial disruption they encountered in war and post-war times. Adverse effects from a post-war financing drive have left many persons working on several jobs. A reliance on micro financing, and the habit of serial and multiple loan-taking from a variety of sources has led to a culture of debt that is normalised by the intense financing of the post-war years, while a lack of access to physical markets and a lack of access to ongoing up-skilling is driving debts.
The research report indicated several examples and in one example ‘Priya’ an elderly woman living in a village in Trincomalee who is the President of the Rural Development Society has indicated that everyone in her village is self-employed, as shop-keepers, running laundries, making spices or animal husbandry.
But the acuteness and complexity of widespread poverty forced these women to engage in multiple livelihoods to secure financial independence and they do multiple jobs to avoid obtaining loans.
A 47-year old lady who makes her living by sewing garments in a village in Trincomalee has indicated that as they did not have large capital they run into debt and are compelled to purchase their needs at the prices that the seller offered, but if they have money they can buy at cheaper sources.
She has said: “I couldn’t stitch dresses for children as I do not have a machine to stitch designs”.
A female from a Trincomalee village has indicated that she has obtained a ‘Samurdhi’ loan of Rs. 75,000 to pay back in monthly instalments of Rs 2,500 and settled the loan. Her daughter has received a loan of Rs. 500,000 from a private bank and with that money her daughter has migrated to Australia. The daughter has received another loan of Rs. 100,000 which was to be paid back in Rs. 7,100 monthly installments. The loans have been settled.
Senior Research Professionals of CEPA – Ms Gayathri Lokuge, Atarah Senn and Anupama Ranawana made presentations while Ms. Ghulani Kodikara reading for her PhD on poverty and doing research on law as a source of women’s struggle in Sri Lanka also made presentation.