Fighting for Women's Rights in Chile: Supporting Women Workers and Promoting Women's Political Participation

Oxfam Great Britain (GB) has been promoting gender justice in Chile since the 1960s - working to build alliances across political and ideological divides, integrate gender justice into broader agendas, and link national work with regional and global work. This 14-page paper from the Oxfam GB publication "Learning for Action on Women's Leadership and Participation" describes Oxfam GB's strategies to increase women's leadership and participation in economic and political sectors in Chile. It looks at the impact of these strategies and presents lessons learned.

In surveys undertaken by Oxfam GB partner Humanas in 2006 and 2007, 88% of the women surveyed said that women are discriminated against in Chile, particularly in the areas of work, sexuality, access to justice, politics, the media, and family life. The background section of the document explores Chile's high levels of social inequality, noting that women working in the agricultural and fish-farming sectors are particularly marginalised, with little opportunity to challenge exploitative practices or to influence political decisions. In this context, Oxfam GB's dual strategy for advocating gender justice in the Chilean and the South American context includes the following mutually reinforcing elements:

1. Increasing the leadership and participation of women workers with precarious employment conditions in the agriculture sector, and encouraging respect of their labour rights:

There is little public awareness of the economic contribution these women make to the success of these high-profile industries, or of the difficult conditions in which they have to work. In Chile, these informal workers have no trade unions because Chilean legislation does not allow it. In response, many small groups of women agricultural workers and small-scale producers have emerged, which have now come under a national network called Asociación Nacional de Mujeres Rurales e Indígenas (National Association of Rural and Indigenous Women), or ANAMURI.

Oxfam GB has supported specific activities carried out by the ANAMURI network to organise, lobby, raise funds, receive technical assistance through non-governmental organisation (NGO) partners, build alliances with other civil-society organisations (CSOs), and contact and build alliances with women agricultural workers in other countries. This report outlines the reasons why "these activities have been successful. The women active in the ANAMURI network have managed to raise public and political awareness of their existence and precarious working conditions, gathering and making public information obtained through their network of members. They have managed to place their demands on the public agenda and negotiate with the ministries of health, labour, agriculture, and women, all of which now recognise their organisation as a valid interlocutor." Several specific examples are offered here.

Oxfam observes that women workers' organisations such as ANAMURI can often be traditional in their hierarchical structure. Oxfam GB has encouraged more participatory approaches to leadership through supporting annual congresses, for instance.

Oxfam GB has also encouraged and supported labour and environmental "observatories" that bring together different workers' organisations, labour-rights NGOs, and environmental NGOs in a particular geographical area to analyse labour conditions and the environmental impact of a particular industry and to raise awareness of these through the media and other communications activities. Lobbying, awareness raising, and dialogue have centred around such issues as harassment and discrimination against women, especially pregnant women and working mothers, and failure to provide child-care facilities when required by law.

Oxfam GB has also sought to promote the leadership and participation of women in mixed workers' organisations and trade unions through the labour and environmental observatory of Chiloé Island, but this has been a challenge. Oxfam has learned that "support and ongoing training is needed by women elected to leadership positions in such male-dominated environments, in order to carry out their work. As a result, Oxfam GB is providing support and training to women workers in the salmon industry. In addition, Oxfam GB recognises that work needs to be done with male leaders within the trade unions..."

Oxfam asserts that working at the local and regional level through observatories has facilitated alliances that have had an impact on specific processes at the local and provincial level (e.g., specific collective negotiation processes). However, the work of the observatories has not yet led to broad, sustainable improvements in the working conditions of workers in the agricultural export sectors, or to respect for labour legislation.

Furthermore, Oxfam GB is supporting the development of a regional (Andean) network of agro-export workers' organisations to promote and defend labour rights. It has also supported women's organisations that have set up public tribunals to highlight abuses of economic, social, and cultural rights. "These public tribunals have generated media attention and increased public awareness, and have also led to cases being brought to trial in several countries, with some success."

2. Increasing women's leadership and participation in politics and decision-making in Chile and in South America more widely:

Surveys carried out in Chile in 2006 and 2007 and supported by Oxfam GB indicated that 52% of women surveyed did not identify with any of the political parties, while 63% showed no interest in obtaining information on the work of their representative in congress. In the 2007 survey, 70% of women respondents identified the principal difficulty facing women decision-makers as a lack of respect for their decisions, due to stereotypical assumptions. Over 80% of the women surveyed thought that there should be laws establishing parity between the number of men and women in decision-making positions in congress, the senate, the judiciary, ministries, provincial governors, the army, and public administrators. Some of the specific challenges that Oxfam GB faces in its work in this area are the lack of communication between women's organisations and other CSOs, and the low overall priority given to issues regarded by women as a priority.

Oxfam GB initiated the creation of, and provides ongoing support to, a coalition of organisations in Chile, including feminist organisations, academics, and governance NGOs. This parliamentary observatory monitors the work of both congress and the senate, and lobbies to improve draft laws and encourage their approval. Amongst the draft laws the observatory has worked on are one which aims to establish minimum quotas for both genders in electoral lists and one that establishes penalties for discriminatory conduct. According to Oxfam, the parliamentary observatory has been successful in raising awareness, in bringing together a variety of actors and organisations working on governance and women's rights and political participation, and in increasing the importance of women's political participation on the civil society agenda.

Oxfam GB has supported several organisations to survey women on their perceptions of the political systems and the level of discrimination in their respective countries, then to carry out a regional seminar to compare results. This process has helped raise awareness across the region of the opinions of women and their exclusion from politics and decision-making. Women's organisations have devised strategic plans to follow up on the results of the surveys and carried out advocacy towards improving respect for the economic, social, and cultural rights of women in individual countries and in the region.

Oxfam GB in Chile has provided key support to an alliance of NGOs operating at the regional level to lobby for an increase in the participation of women with a progressive gender perspective in regional organisations. This included lobbying the Organisation of American States (OAS) regarding the appointment of new judges to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, raising awareness of the need for judges to have an understanding of the specific rights of women. Oxfam GB has also supported regional women's organisations to lobby regional inter-governmental institutions on key regional issues facing specific groups of women, such as migrant workers and paid domestic workers in the region. This regional work "has been successful in what it aims to do: raise awareness among governments and regional organisations, lobby for legal and administrative measures that facilitate an increase in women's participation, and as such encourage, indirectly, changes in the negative attitudes of both men and women towards women's political participation and leadership. This regional work has also been successful in building stronger alliances between organisations in different countries in the region."

Lessons learned:

One of the key learning points that Oxfam GB in Chile has drawn from its work is that different strategies are necessary to obtain concrete improvements in the lives of women. Work on improving labour conditions has a direct positive impact on the lives of some of the most marginalised women in South America. But to have sustainable improvement in respect for women's rights, political systems and cultures have to be changed to enable the increased participation of women. Monitoring and lobbying work by women's organisations and alliances is a key part of that effort. On the other hand, lobbying and political work is more legitimate if it is based on the needs of poor and excluded women, as identified by those women themselves. As such, these strategies complement each other to achieve their common objective.

In addition, Oxfam GB's work in Chile has shown that work at the national and regional levels is mutually reinforcing.

Finally, creating alliances between non-traditional allies (including women's organisations and other CSOs) is key to obtaining positive political changes, although these alliances are fragile and effort is required to maintain them.