Difference about women workers

DURING a Young Nations Conference in Australia, World Young Women Christian Association representative from the South Pacific, Ruth Lechte, said there were unions in Pacific countries still uninterested in working for the improvement of women workers.

According to an article in The Fiji Times on September 20, 1976, she said some years ago a large difference was discovered between the average earnings of men and women in Fiji tobacco and clothing factories.

“The union movement was totally disinterested in working to remove this discrimination, which, had it been directed against men, would have led to militant and possibly strike action by the unions.”

Ms Lechte gave a paper on women's role in development at the conference, which studied aspects of research for development and development planning in the South Pacific.

She described women in traditional life and agriculture, in the modern sector, in trading and in education.

Colonial administrations throughout the region were largely responsible for the lowering of female involvement in agriculture, she said.

“They promoted 'the productivity of male labor regardless of the previous pattern of involvement by each sex in agriculture.”

She said a United Nations report blamed failure of some development projects on the fact that men had been taught the new techniques but took little notice because their wives were the traditional cultivators.

Their wives, being untaught, continued in the old ways, subdividing carefully improved fields into customary plots.

Western males responsible for planning had reduced the substantial role women held in traditional society in decision-making and were responsible for stereotyping for both sexes, Ms Lechte said.

“There has to be something wrong with economic methods which label

housework, family food growing and fishing as economically unproductive,” she said.

“Neither statistics of national income nor tax authorities regard domestic or subsistence activities in terms of income.”

Planning for future agricultural development should include eliminating sex discrimination in admission to agricultural courses and schools, women in rural areas should be helped to improve their farming methods instead of being overlooked or even replaced in their traditional roles, and perhaps investigate how women in agriculture see themselves, Ms Lechte said.

Meanwhile, most markets in the Pacific were dominated by women.

It seemed modernisation had led man into factories, wage earning and the civil service and women into trade.

They traded to earn money to support themselves and their families.

Educated women entered the professions, particularly nursing and teaching.

Other than that, women were most likely to be employed in the Pacific as waitresses, domestic workers and shop assistants.

The demand for female company or the services of prostitutes also created jobs for women as bar workers, dancers

He said opposition parliamentarians would go along with the idea by agreeing to be included in the pay freeze, but he doubted if lower paid civil servants would.

September 16

MENGITIS, malnutrition, respiratory infection, intestinal disease and mismanagement have been listed by the acting consultant physician at the CWM Hospital in Suva as the major causes leading to the death of an infant.

Dr Apenisa Kuruisaqila was speaking yesterday at the third day of the Fiji Medical Association seminar at Lautoka Hospital. He said one only had to look at Suva, its surburbs and to a lesser extent Lautoka,to know from where the hospitals received their cases of mainutrition, gastro-intestinal diseases and sepsis.

September 17

IF Pacific Islands wanted to promote regional tourism they had to get their airlines organised, the Fiji Visitors Bureau general manager, Paddy Doyle, said yesterday. Mr Doyle put his opinion to representatives at the latest Pacific Islands Tourism Development Council meeting in Tonga at the weekend. “They will have to take the bull by the horns and say there is not enough traffic to support all the small airlines flying in the Pacific,” he said.

“We need one strong airline to feed off the main trunk routes.” Mr Doyle said the logical vehicle for establishing a feasible

According to a United Nations report, majority of women in the

Pacific were more likely to be employed as waitress, domestics and shop assistance. and singers, Ms Lechte said.

Apart from the moral aspects of prostitution, it could be attacked in terms of economic exploitation, she said.

Indian girls in Fiji faced a major deterrent to seeking, jobs which suited their abilities and educational achievements because of a tendency in their community to regard all well-dressed, urban women who worked outside their home as “sexually loose”.

Domestic workers once employed in colonial, expatriate or mission homes now worked for local elites.

They were often members of the extended family, working for their keep in a relative's house while training or preparing for another job.

Village woman made a variety of goods for household use.

Some were now produced as a family home industry and tourist trade growth had expanded the market for goods which were once used only for domestic purposes.

With the exception of carving, women predominated in this field of economic activity, Ms Lechte said.

There was a tendency, however, to regard as trained someone who had been instructed in some school or course while the abilities of women craft workers carried lower status.

Ms Lechte said overseas factory made products could drive home industries and craft workers out of business. air service in the South Pacific was Air Pacific.

September 18

FIJI athletes returning from the first South Pacific Championships at Noumea yesterday criticised the running of the event. One went as far as to say that they were victimised by the Noumea officials especially during the track events.

Fiji 400m hurdler Ilaitia Lewanavanua, said the treatment received from these officials was grossly unfair. This was aggravated by the fact that it was so evident to everyone.

September 21

MORE police dogs, a mobile police station, special Z-car patrols in Suva, the creation of a new police division and the recruitment of three overseas experts to recommend improvement and to train in various fields of police work are some of the plans being implemented in the Royal Fiji Police Force.

The Commissioner of Police, John Kelland, gave details of the plans at a news conference in Suva yesterday.

September 22

THE Prime Minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, will officially open the 19th annual seminar of the Fiji Medical Association at the Lautoka Hospital

■

■