Matthew Kopka, ContributorTHIS IS the continuation of an article carried on Thursday on the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on Jamaican women who have lost 12,000 jobs between 1993 and 2001.
And a report by the United States-based Women's Edge Coalition seems to be forecasting further gloom for them. They could lose 12,000 more in the next four years if the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) is enacted as currently written, the report stated.
The report, 'The Effects of Trade Liberalisation on Jam-aica's Poor', shows that while jobs for Jamaican men may increase, Jamaican women face serious job losses, both in the short and long term.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND GENDER INEQUALITY
Losses in jobs and earning power for women have strong repercussions because Jamai-can women head up half of all households and devote a larger portion of their incomes to raising and educating children than men do. The report calls on the Jamaican Government to protect the economy from such losses, renegotiating parts of the FTAA and future treaties so that harm to the Jamaican economy is minimised. It reinforces recent studies showing that the impacts of economic development tend to be highly unequal and impact women in ways that undermine their advancement toward gender equality.
NAFTA AND AFTER
At their height in 1995, Jamaica's Free Trade Zones (FTZs), areas where multinational companies operate without paying Jamaican duties or taxes, employed 36,000 women. But NAFTA's impact was immediate - Jamaican exports to the U.S. declined by 12 per cent in 1996 with many U.S.-based textile companies relocating from Jamaica to Mexico. "Between 1995 and 1997," the report states, "Jamaica lost 16,000 jobs in the FTZs." Through the late 1990s, it goes on to say, Jamaica lost 30,000 jobs to Mexico.
The report begs the question whether the battle that poor countries like Jamaica wage for low-paying jobs by multinational firms is in the end a game in which corporate enterprises have all the advantages, moving whenever other poor countries beckon with the promise of still lower wages. With the advent of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, the report suggests, more jobs for women will be lost, as many as 9,000 for women in agriculture by 2009 if the agreement were adopted today. The report projects loss of another 10,700 manufacturing jobs - almost half of all jobs remaining in manufacturing nationwide.
The projected job losses will be offset by emigration, with women representing 55 per cent of those leaving. But though the ongoing exodus of Jamaicans to foreign countries reduces the unemployment rolls, the report says, it represents a greater loss in human capital to Jamaica than is commonly acknowledged, including loss of the country's investment in their education. While much is made of the value of remittances to Jamaica by those who find work elsewhere, the losses include considerable emotional upheaval and breaking of family bonds, an historical pattern that dates to slavery.
RENEGOTIATE TO BENEFIT JAMAICA
The report is based on a new investigative tool the Trade Impact Review created by the Women's Edge Coalition and designed to examine the effects of altered trade relationships on poor countries. Policymakers can use it, according to the report, to "expand on the areas where the poor will benefit and modify trade language that would harm the poor, particularly poor women, the majority of the world's poor."
The report urges the Jamaican Government to renegotiate parts of the treaty that would affect it negatively. It demands that the U.S. bargain in good faith and provide assistance in areas where populations are hurt by trade provisions. The authors note the U.S. spent $556 million on projects to increase trade with developing countries in 2001, and routinely conducts impact assessments of trade policies on the environment and labour.
"If they [the U.S.] want trade policies to benefit the poor," the study says, "they cannot afford not" to study the potential impacts of trade agreements on them.
TRADE LIBERALISATION A SLIPPERY SLOPE
The report was formally presented to the Jamaican Govern-ment officials late last year, but according to CAFRA member Donica Dowie, the organisation has not heard from them.
"We are hoping to get the relevant parties together again," she said, to discuss possible official responses to the findings.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Among the recommendations made in the report:
A full-scale trade impact review should be conducted before the FTAA is completed and ratified. Governments must study the effects of trade liberalisation on those living in poverty, especially women, who constitute 2/3 of those in poverty in the world. Workplace nurseries, after-school care, better transportation, and more flexible work hours would all benefit Jamaican women in the workplace. International Labour Organ-isation standards on informal work must be implemented in Jamaica. Jamaica should be compensated for immigration losses to the U.S., either directly or through job training, educational exchanges, and internship programmes. Jamaica should place a ceiling and tariff on milk powder imports to protect its milk producers. Health care, basic education, water, and electricity should be exempted from services negotiations under all trade agreements. Jamaica's right "to regulate and to promulgate" its own laws governing trade-related issues should be reasserted in the FTAA text. Women-owned businesses should be exempted from regulation under such agreements. Both the U.S. and Jamaica need to strengthen respect for labour rights.Both countries must assert the legal dominance of human rights over trade. 
