UNICEF on E. Europe's women
It's been downhill under capitalism
By
Teresa Gutierrez
On Sept. 22, UNICEF issued a report on the situation for
women and girls in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
The report, titled "Women in Transition," documents how the
setbacks to socialism have affected the 150 million women and
50 million girls who live in Central and Eastern Europe.
The study found that the status of women has eroded
dramatically with the introduction of the capitalist market
into these countries.
Women face higher unemployment and lower real income than
men do. Access to childcare has been reduced. Education and
health services have deteriorated.
The study found that more teenage women are having children.
Abuse of drugs and alcohol is on the rise. The level of
anti-woman violence--from domestic abuse to rape--has also
increased.
And life expectancy for women has shortened in 16 of the 27
countries studied.
According to "Women in Transition" some 26 million jobs have
been lost in the region since 1989. Women held 14 million of
the lost jobs.
Furthermore, the new jobs being created in the private
sector--which are better paying--are held mainly by men. Women
work more in the public sector, where jobs are scarcer.
More women are being forced to work part-time. Some hold
full-time jobs that exist only on paper and pay marginal
wages.
The report made some comparisons about the status of women
in these countries during socialism. It recognized that women's
situation overall was significantly better before than in the
current period.
In the political arena, for example, women's participation
in parliament dropped dramatically after the first so-called
democratic elections. Where women were once well represented,
today the average proportion of women in parliaments is less
than 10 percent. In some countries--such as Kyrgyzstan--it is
as low as 1 percent.
Women in transition to what?
The title of the report suggests that the status of women is
in transition. But the question must be asked: a transition to
what?
The mouthpieces for imperialism try to portray capitalism as
the favored system for the entire planet. They have championed
the defeat of socialism in Eastern Europe as a victory,
especially for democracy, they say.
What is left out of the discussion are the basic human
rights to a job, health care, education, union wages and so
forth.
Reports on conditions for women right here in the richest
country in the world prove that women in the former socialist
countries can only expect more poverty and exploitation.
For example, according to a Summer 1999 report of the
Commonwealth Fund, "despite a robust economy and low
unemployment rates, more women lacked health insurance in 1998
than in 1993."
One of four women under age 65, or 21 million women, do not
have health care in this country. The figure rises for
low-income women; more than one-third--35 percent--are
uninsured.
The minimum wage, now $5.15 an hour, has declined in
purchasing power over the past 30 years. For women that is a
real blow. Over 60 percent of the workers who currently earn
the minimum wage are women, according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics.
Social conditions for women in Eastern Europe today show
that the only way to turn back the tide of reaction is to fight
for the right of women and all workers to control their own
destiny by first controlling the means of production.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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