USAID EVALUATION HIGHLIGHTS NO. 67September 2000Aftermath: Women and W - PDF document

1 USAID EVALUATION HIGHLIGHTS NO. 67September 2000Aftermath: Women and Women’s OrganizationsIn Postconflict Cambodia Center for Development Information and EvaluationU.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Washington Summary EFFECTS OF TWO DECADES of conflict andgenocide in Cambodia on women and genderrelations have been all-pervasive. The war—inparticular, the four-year rule of terror of the murder-ous Khmer Rouge—largely demolished women’s psy-chological well-being, family roles, interpersonalrelationships, economic activities, and participation inthe political arena.In the wake of the carnage, the international com-munity mobilized to help create and nurture a varietyof indigenous women’s organizations aimed at improv-ing the lot of Cambodian women. This was a new phe-nomenon for Cambodia: before the postconflict era,independent women’s groups were unknown.In January 1999, USAID’s Center for DevelopmentInformation and Evaluation fielded a team to Cambo-dia to explore the role of women’s organizations inthat country. The mission was part of a broader studyof women in postconflict societies that included as wellBosnia, El Salvador, Georgia, Guatemala, and Rwanda.Despite their small number (18), the team foundthat women’s organizations have been contributing tothe empowerment of women in various ways. Theyare helping women through vocational training andmicrocredit programs. They are assisting victims ofHIV, of domestic violence, and of trafficking andforced prostitution. They are also beginning to influ-ence the political landscape through voter educationand advocacy programs. As one midlevel trainee toldthe team: “Men cannot abuse women if women knowtheir rights. Now we understand how to work togetherfor justice.”But women’s organizations continue to face manyobstacles. The country has no tradition for civil soci-ety organizations. Nor is the government always sup-portive of women’s organizations. The organizationsdepend upon external assistance for their programs andsurvival, which limits their autonomy and the capacityto fashion new programs. The leadership of theseorganizations is dominated by one charismatic figurereluctant to delegate authority. Most of the women’sorganizations have yet to develop an open manage-ment system in which the staff can discuss issues andproblems freely.Women’s organizations will require continualinternational support to survive and play an importantrole in improving the social and economic conditionsof women and promoting gender equality. Thus theinternational community can help by taking a long-term perspective and providing technical and economicassistance.A Land Ravaged by WarA country of 11 million people, Cambodia, has beena victim of the Vietnam War and the genocidal regimeof the Khmer Rouge under dictator Pol Pot. Few other T 2 countries in recent history have experienced suchagony, wholesale destruction of their social fabric, andutter devastation of their economic and political sys-tems. Between 1969 and 1993, the country sufferedclandestine military operations by the North Vietnam-ese and the Viet Cong, carpet-bombing on a massivescale by the United States, genocide under the MaoistKhmer Rouge, large-scale internal migration, invasionby Vietnam, and recurring guerrilla attacks by the de-feated Khmer Rouge and their allies. Only after 1993did Cambodians begin to live in relative peace. Thatthe country has survived and has begun reconstruc-tion is a tribute to both the resilience of its people andthe generosity of the international community.Unquestionably the worst of the more than twodecades of conflict came with the Khmer Rouge dys-topia of 1975–79. In its first major act, the KhmerRouge ordered the evacuation of the capital (PhnomPenh) and all provincial towns. They forced all resi-dents—even hospital patients—to move to the coun-tryside. The Khmer Rouge summarily executed thosewho resisted or were unable to move. Thousands diedin this forced migration.The Khmer Rouge obsessively distrusted anyonewho could think and reflect. The regime demandednothing less than complete control of its citizens’thoughts, achieved through fear, repression, and in-doctrination. They severed links with the outside worldby denying people access to mail, radio, telephone,and other forms of mass communication. They abol-ished money. They closed schools and universities.Those suspected of working with the previous regimesuddenly disappeared. Perceived as enemies of thestate, the educated—teachers, doctors, and other pro-fessionals—met the same fate. The Khmer Rouge car-ried out systematic ethnic cleansing (against ethnicVietnamese and Chinese) and what has been termedautogenocide. Estimates of the dead during the KhmerRouge’s sanguinary 42-month reign range from 1 to 3million, out of a 1975 population of 7.3 million.The Khmer Rouge attempted to wipe out religion.They also sought to undermine the institution of thefamily. Children were often separated from their fami-lies. When not separated, they were encouraged to spyon their parents. The Khmer Rouge also promoted massweddings in which young men and women were ran-domly selected for marriage. Cumulatively, these poli-cies resulted in a disintegration of the institution of thefamily.While Cambodian society endured horrific suffer-ing on the domestic front, the Khmer Rouge’sirredentist designs on Vietnam would soon lead to tur-moil on an international level. Combined with the per-secution of indigenous Vietnamese, the KhmerRouge’s claims on various parts of southern Vietnamled to heated border clashes in which hundreds of Viet-namese civilians were killed. Cambodia’s easternneighbor retaliated by invading Cambodia. It toppledthe Pol Pot regime on 7 January 1979. Vietnam theninstalled a new, essentially totalitarian governmentfriendly to its interests.Establishment of a new regime failed to bring peace,however. Guerrilla warfare soon erupted, as the KhmerRouge, supported by China, launched operations in thenorth. Thus fueled, the warfare continued for anothernine years, draining the country’s capital and humanresources.With the end of the Cold War, the major powersfinally initiated diplomatic efforts to bring peace toCambodia. Those efforts culminated in the formula-tion of a peace plan in 1989. The plan called on thedifferent factions to disarm and form an interim coali-tion government under Cambodia’s prewar leader,Prince Norodom Sihanouk. It also stipulated that theUnited Nations would establish a body, the UN Tran-sitional Authority in Cambodia, to supervise the gov-ernment and to organize free and fair elections. De-spite many problems, the plan was implemented in1993, with UNTAC succeeding in holding national elec-tions. Voter turnout was remarkably high—90 percent.A constitutional monarchy was formed, with Sihanouknamed as king.Conflict andCambodian WomenIt is evident that the effect of the attenuated con-flict on the lives of Cambodians was all-pervasive. Herewe look at the effect on Cambodian women in fourparticular contexts. 3 Status and Role in the FamilyThe conflict affected the institution of the familyin at least three profound ways. First, the Khmer Rougesought to undermine family cohesion and redefine theroles of family members. They assigned men andwomen the same tasks in agriculture, irrigation, andother activities. They encouraged family members tospy on one another. They organized marriages betweenrandomly selected people without the consent of theirfamilies. The cumulative effects of Khmer Rouge poli-cies on the family have been devastating.Second, the large-scale movements of people re-sulting from carpet-bombing,forced evacuation of cities bythe Khmer Rouge, and aguerrilla war on the Thai bor-der contributed to family dis-integration. Often, husbandsdrifted away under physicaland psychological stress,abandoning their families.And third, the high num-ber of casualties of youngmen in combat resulted in ademographic imbalance.Those casualties created a surplus of women of mar-riageable age during the 1980s and early 1990s.The upshot of these factors is, in general, a dimi-nution in the traditional status of women. Men havefound themselves in a better bargaining position forwives. They have been able to offer lower bride pricesand easily divorce their spouses and find new wives.The decline in status has also led to a high incidenceof domestic violence.Another outcome is an increase in female-headedhouseholds. Women presently head between 25 and30 percent of Cambodia’s households. Such house-holds usually face severe economic difficulties. How-ever, the incidence of poverty is 37 percent in male-headed households, only 33 percent in female-headedhouseholds. One possible explanation: female-headedhouseholds often include relatively prosperous ex-tended families. Another: women may simply be moreadept at developing a wide range of economic activi-ties in the informal sector.Social Contract and Interpersonal TrustDuring CDIE’s fieldwork in Cambodia, manywomen focus-group participants complained about alack of trust and unwillingness to help in time of need.Some recalled with nostalgia preconflict days, whenpeople shared with and assisted friends and neighbors.Poverty seems to be a driving force behind this issue:where there is no surplus, sharing may mean hunger.This problem has had a profound effect onmicrocredit programs in Cambodia. It is noteworthythat the average size of self-help groups for creditranges from three to five—low, compared with otherdeveloping countries. Anumber of women indi-cated they would join onlyimmediate family mem-bers for group credit pro-grams. Because of the dif-ficulty of persuading un-related individuals towork together, creditgroups have establishednew requirements. Rela-tives may be members ofthe same economic group,but they must physicallylive in separate households.Economic Burdens and OpportunitiesThe conflict imposed economic hardships onwomen, but it also opened new opportunities to par-ticipate in the economic sphere. Because of the massmobilization of men into the military, mass killing, andincreased labor demand for war and rehabilitationwork, women were forced to undertake activities andperform economic roles that had been restricted to men.This led to the undermining of the traditional sexualdivision of labor that had characterized Cambodiansociety.During the conflict, women made significant em-ployment gains in the industrial sector. Before thedemocratic transition, most workers—7,000 of11,000—in state industrial enterprises were women.With the transition to a market economy, the owner-ship of many of these enterprises passed into privatehands, and increased numbers of men entered into the ‘Men have found themselves in abetter bargaining position forwives. They have been able tooffer lower bride prices and easilydivorce their spouses and findnew wives.’ 4 labor market. Nonetheless, in the garment industry,which has emerged as the largest industrial employer,women still constitute 90 percent of the work force.The presence of a large number of expatriates, es-pecially UN peacekeepers, also led to a rapid growthin another industry—prostitution. While prostitutionhad existed in the past, it had been hidden. To meetthe demands of the expatriates, many entrepreneursopenly set up brothels, which were soon frequentedby local customers as well, institutionalizing the phe-nomenon. Initially these brothels imported commer-cial sex workers from Vietnam and Thailand, but soonthey were also recruiting from the countryside. Ac-cording to a recent study, more than 14,000 womenwork as prostitutes. Girls under 18 make up more than15 percent of these sex workers.Political ParticipationAs in many war-torn societies, women’s involve-ment in politics increased during the conflict. Althougha few women did occupy important positions in theSihanouk government, the Khmer Rouge were the firstto organize women at the grass-roots level. Early on,Khmer Rouge guerrilla leaders established a women’swing of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. Oncethe Khmer Rouge came to power, the women’s wingassumed more power and prestige and became anotherinstrument of political repression and intimidation.The communist regime that succeeded the KhmerRouge took major steps to enhance women’s partici-pation in the political process. It promoted women toleadership positions in commune solidarity groups.Some scholars have suggested that the regime did somainly because men were reluctant to serve in thesegroups, as officeholders received no salary.The situation began to change during the transitionto democracy. In a major irony linked to the peaceprocess, women’s political participation has declinedrather than increased during the transition. Only fivewomen, for example, were elected to the new NationalAssembly in 1993. It is likely that war fatigue, politi-cal disenchantment, the unstable economic situation,and the reassertion of the Khmer identity with its em-phasis on women’s traditional roles have contributedto this phenomenon.The EmergenceOf Women’s OrganizationsThe emergence of independent women’s organi-zations has been a postconflict phenomenon. The coun-try had no experience with civil society organizations,let alone any created by and for women. Five factorshave contributed to the emergence of women’s orga-nizations:The political opening created by the democratictransition. After more than two decades of totali-tarian and authoritarian regimes, this political open-ing has been an essential, though not a sufficient,condition for the growth of all kinds of voluntaryorganizations, including women’s organizations.nThe presence of a large number of international organizations. In interviews withthe CDIE team, many women leaders acknowledgedthat the impetus for establishing their organiza-tions came from international NGOThe generous availability of resources for women’sorganizations. Viewing indigenous organizations asan essential buffer between state and citizen, inter-national NGOs provided generous financial and tech-nical resources to those organizations. (In recentyears, though, international funds have been dwin-dling.)The growth of gender sensitivity among nationalpolicymakers. It became recognized that the de-velopment of Cambodian society was not possiblewithout the involvement of women. This sensitiv-ity provided philosophical and practical justifica-tion for establishing women’s organizations.nThe return of Cambodian women who had gainededucation or experience in leadership outside thecountry. Having lived outside Cambodia, some-times in Western democracies, these refugees orexpatriates were aware of the contributions thatcivil society organizations can make to differentcross-sections of the population. 5 Impact of Women’s GroupsAs of December 1998, women’s organizationsnumbered 18. These groups have taken on the missionof improving the lives of Cambodian women. Broadlyspeaking, they are involved in three arenas: economicdevelopment, social service, and advocacy and democ-racy.Despite their small number, women’s organizationshave been contributing to the empowerment of womenin various ways. For one thing, they are helping vul-nerable women through vocational training andmicrocredit programs.Credit programs are par-ticularly effective, helpingwomen initiate small in-come-generating activitiessuch as farming, poultryraising, and petty trade.Moreover, access to credithas given women newconfidence and identity.Women’s organiza-tions are assisting victimsof HIV of domestic violence, and of traffickingand forced prostitution. Although only a small frac-tion of the needy women receive assistance, the aiddoes make a difference in the lives of those women.The real contribution of these organizations lies in gen-erating public awareness of these problems. Pioneer-ing efforts of many organizations have helped centerpublic attention on the plight of commercial sex work-ers and the victims of forced prostitution. Their activi-ties have led to the arrest of many brothel owners andthe rescue of young girls enslaved as prostitutes.The organizations have also been raising awarenessof gender issues through the media. The CambodianWomen’s Media Center, for example, produces a televi-sion series, in the style of opera and drama, that exploresgender-related subjects in inventive and interesting ways.These programs question the traditional roles and im-ages of women. More important, the leaders of women’sorganizations are providing important role models thatcontrast sharply with the sexualized and objectified im-ages of women common in imported movies and televi-sion series from the West, Thailand, and Hong Kong.Women’s organizations have also begun to influ-ence the political landscape, though in a limited way.During elections in 1998, a few women’s organiza-tions participated in voter education programs forwomen. One group has begun to address leadershiptraining for increasing women’s participation in poli-tics. By promoting participation, the group is also high-lighting the issue of gender equality. “Men cannotabuse women if women know their rights,” a midleveltrainee told the CDIE team. “Now we understand howto work together for justice.”In brief, women’s organizations are redefining andexpanding the limited social, cultural, and economicroles available to women inCambodian society. Empow-erment remains a critical is-sue for women, whose socialstatus and respect in societyhas been altered by loss offamily, demographic shifts,changing kinship and mar-riage patterns, and awoman’s increasingly bur-densome role as sole sup-porter of her children.Obstacles to Fuller SuccessFor all their merit, actual and potential, women’sorganizations in Cambodia face many hurdles, bothcultural and practical. Broadly speaking, no traditionexists in Cambodia for voluntary organizations. More-over, women suffer from a low social status, whichimpedes their assumption of leadership roles in pub-lic. There is also a shortage of trained and educatedwomen who possess technical and managerial skillsand expertise. Often a section of political leaders andgovernment officials feel threatened by the emergenceof women’s organizations; the officials are not sup-portive of them.Women’s organizations also suffer from many or-ganizational and managerial problems. Most groupsare led by charismatic leaders who are unwilling todelegate authority and power to the midlevel profes-sionals. Consequently, the management styles of theseorganizations are nonparticipatory. Most organizationsalso lack monitoring and evaluation capabilities, ‘In brief, women’s organizationsare redefining and expanding thelimited social, cultural, andeconomic roles available towomen in Cambodian society.’ 6 although many are gradually acquiring them. Someorganizations follow the model of affluent internationalNGOs with a large support staff, air conditioners, andfour-wheel-drive vehicles, rather than the more realis-tic example of local government agencies.Finally, women’s organizations are totally depen-dent on international funding—understandable, giventhe scarcity of local resources. Neither the governmentnor the private sector is in a position to fund them.Economic dependence on international donors makeswomen’s organizations beholden to the internationaldonors, restricting their autonomy and independence.These organizations remain under constant pressureto change their agenda to reflect the apparent fundingpriorities of the international community.Lessons LearnedThe Cambodian experience draws nine majorlessons: Comprehensive, targeted interventions based ona coherent policy framework are needed to help womenand reconstruct gender relations in the conditions ofpostconflict societies. Gender-blind policies and pro-grams are not sufficient to solve their problems.2. The war undermined the sexual division oflabor, creating new opportunities for women in eco-nomic and political affairs. Women entered into vari-ous occupations closed to them earlier. They also heldimportant offices at national and local levels duringthe conflict. After the war, international donors havedeveloped programs to consolidate those gains. Inter-national donors can follow such a course in otherpostconflict societies.3. Education and training of women in refugeecamps can prepare them to assume leadership roles inpostconflict societies. Thus it makes sense for theinternational community to support education and train-ing in refugee camps, enabling them to acquire newskills, experience, and vision to help reconstruct gen-der relations—and their country—upon their return tosociety. Newly founded women’s organizations cancarry out a wide range of programs. Therefore, theinternational community can use newly createdwomen’s organizations to channel humanitarian anddevelopmental assistance in postconflict societies.5. The international community can help establishwomen’s organizations in postconflict societies. Suchorganizations can develop local roots and gain politi-cal legitimacy despite their dependence on internationalresources. International donors should consider multiyearfunding for women’s organizations, allowing thegroups to concentrate on their social, economic, andpolitical development activities.7. Women’s organizations provide an importantsetting for women to gain self-respect and participatein decision-making. Thus the international communitycan support the growth of such groups in postconflictsocieties not only to channel assistance to needy popu-lations but also to empower women socially.8. Women’s organizations often follow the ex-ample of international NGOs in their working condi-tions, spending considerable resources on four-wheel-drive vehicles, spacious offices, and large support staff.Such operations are questionable under the conditionsof postconflict societies. The international communityshould try to foster a realistic and affordable visionamong women’s organizations.9. In Cambodia, women’s organizations have notspecialized. Instead, they undertake similar programs,competing with one another for external resources.International donors can learn from the Cambodiancase and encourage sectoral specialization by women’sorganizations. This Highlights, by Ross Bankson, of Conwal Incorporated, summarizes the findings of Working Paper No. 307, Aftermath:Women in Postconflict Cambodia, by Krishna Kumar, USAID senior social scientist; Hanna Baldwin, of DevTech Systems,Inc.; and Judy Benjamin, of the International Rescue Committee. To access this Highlights from the Internet, key inwww.info.usaid.gov. Click on Publications/Partner Resources, then on USAID Evaluation Publications.