STEPPING OUT
Women Surviving Amidst Displacement and Deprivation in Sri Lanka
by F. Zackariya and N. Shanmugaratnam
Published by the Muslim Womenís Research and Action Forum [Colombo, Sri Lanka] 2002
Acknowledgement
This paper is an initial attempt to trace some aspects of changing gender roles of displaced communities in selected camps and relocated villages in the Puttalam district. It forms a component of a paralles study on, ëForced Migration and Changing Local Political Economiesí by N. Shanmugaratnam (2001) of the Centre for International Environmental and Development Studies, Noragric, Agricultural University of Norway.
We thank MWRAF and in particular Ann Jabbar and Chulani Kodikara for their enthusiasm and support, being readily available to assist in the fieldwork and handling logistics of printing. Sincere thanks also to Menaha Kandasamy for her co-operation during the fieldwork and to Kamalini Wijayatileke for commenting on the draft. We are equally grateful to the women and men of the Community Development Organization in Puttalam who spent time with us throughout the research. We thank the Norwegian research Council for the financial support for the research and Hivos (Humanitarian Agency for Development Cooperation, Netherlands) for covering the publication costs.
F.Zackariya and N.Shanmugaratnam
[December 2001]
Introduction
In Sri Lanka, where a war has been going on since 1983 in the North-East Province (NEP), internal displacement is an endemic phenomenon that changes the lives of women and men in many ways. The number of the displaced exceeds a million at present. The vast majority of them are Tamils. However, considerable numbers of Muslims and Sinhalese have been displaced too. Like in other countries affected by protracted internal wars, displacement in Sri Lanka displays a variety of migratory patterns. Displacements may be single or multiple, short or long term and the distance travelled by a displaced group or an individual before reaching a safe haven may range from a few to more than a hundred kilometres. Displacement may be the result of insecurity felt by individuals or of deliberate expulsion of a particular group by one of the protagonists. The forced migrants have sought refuge in safer areas within as well as outside the war zone in the country. The majority of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) within the NEP and a substantial number of those who have moved into neighbouring areas live in camps, which are officially designated as Welfare Centres (WCs). There is also a trend of permanent relocation among those displaced for long periods, while some stay with relatives and friends (Shanmugaratnam, 2001).
The displaced populations are heterogeneous in terms of socio-economic, gender and demographic statuses and ethnic and religious identities although they all are victims of the same armed conflict. The type of displacement, the pre-displacement endowment and entitlement status and the social networks to which an IDP belongs contribute decisively to this heterogeneity. These factors are among the more important determinants of post-displacement changes in the lives of the IDPs. However, these changes have a lot to do with opportunities available for the IDPs in the host areas and governmental and non-governmental interventions in the form of relief and rehabilitation programmes. The impact of displacement on gender relations and status of women at the household and community levels has its variations and, in this regard, socio-economic conditions and ethno-religious factors play significant roles. Displaced groups strive to rebuild their community structures and identities in the newfound locations. The cultural codes and values that are endogenous to them constitute a vital resource in this endeavour. However, the peculiarities of the socio-economic and spatial context into which the displaced are inserted impact on this process in ways that tend to alter the given gender relations and roles. On the one hand the group has to confront constraints of physical space and the consequences of dispossession, which compel some degree of reordering and redefinition of gender roles. On the other, the patriarchal hierarchies resist changes or modifications in gender relations in ways that undermine the dominance enjoyed by males. But changes do emerge out of this tension as women are compelled to play bigger and, in many instances, different roles to rebuild household economies and as they learn to articulate their interests collectively within and outside the camp community.
This paper looks at some aspects of continuity and change in gender roles in a group of displaced Muslims from the North that has sought refuge outside the zone of conflict in Kalpitiya in the Puttalam district. These Muslims were expelled from their homes by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) in October 1990. They had completed more than eight years as de facto residents of Kalpitya when our final fieldwork was conducted in 1998-1999. The method adopted for this study was that of case studies through individual interviews and in-depth group discussions. We have also drawn on the findings of a parallel study by Shanmugaratnam (2001). After discussing the impact of the constraints of physical space on social relations including gender dimensions, we proceed to expose more specific aspects of continuity and change in the roles of women. In doing the latter, we examine the position of women with reference to their location within the household and their proletarianisation as casual farm workers in a context of high unemployment among the males in their families. Several studies have shown that the status of women within the household and in the community has been enhanced by their ability to find employment outside the home, to own property and to be literate (Sen, 1990,1999; Agarwal, 1994, 1997). Some have drawn more explicit attention to the importance of factors such as class, caste, attitudes and abilities of women and men, social norms, supporting networks, stateís gender policy and gender-progressive NGOs in determining rural womenís bargaining power within and outside the household (Agarwal, 1997). However, while studies on migration in general have tended to neglect gender for a long time (Chant and Radcliffe, 1992), those on internal displacement caused by violent conflicts in recent times have focused on some important issues such as insecurity and marginalisation suffered by displaced women and on the need for institutional arrangements to ensure womenís protection against sexual and other forms of harassment.
The present study, while showing the peculiarities of the post-displacement situations in which gender roles are subject to change, provides evidence of some degree of enhancement of womenís freedom enabled by waged employment and collective efforts. It documents the Muslim womenís endeavours to re-negotiate relations with traditional hierarchies, to form groups and discuss their problems, and to obtain a fairer wage through collective action. At the same time it draws attention to the enduring power of patriarchal values and attitudes within the household, in the community and in labour relations. The womenís continuous involvement in a wider extra-household domain had rendered purdah (exclusion from public space) an untenable practice but it still remained a fundamental value strongly defended by the Muslim men in general and the mosque and community leaders in particular. While highlighting this, we examine its consequences at family and community levels.
The Camp: the Blurring of Public ó Private Boundaries
The first thing that strikes any person entering a welfare camp is the physical compression of community and private spaces. The mosque constructed by the IDPs stands so close to the numerous makeshift huts in which they live. This was quite unlike the Muslim village setting where the mosque occupied a distinct location separated from the residential area to mark its institutional sanctity. The cadjan fences that separated individual huts represented only a symbolic demarcation of householdsí private space. As an IDP commented, ëthere are no family secrets anymore and there is no such thing as private lifeí (Shanmugaratnam; 2001: 30). This statement reflected the IDPsí feeling of lack of private space. The lack of privacy meant many things. On average, a hut was not larger than 150 square feet and the distance between huts was normally 6-10 feet. Ten to twelve families shared one or two wells for drinking water and bathing; six or seven families shared a toilet. With such constriction of physical space it was not possible to keep women physically secluded as in the village of origin. Women became more visible as they had to move around in the camp to attend to daily household chores. This daily routine of life brought women into closer contact with each other and also provided opportunities for greater interaction between men and women. A remarkably unusual outcome of the shrinkage of physical space was that women moved freely in the precincts of the mosque and were even taking their family problems directly to the mosque committee. This had significant symbolic and ideological implications that added to the emerging tensions over gender relations and renegotiation of gender roles. These changes were viewed with alarm, as serious disruptions of normal life by many members of the community. ëAll these happened almost overnight,í said a woman, ëthat left all of us totally unprepared to deal with them. Looking back it is a continuing struggle by everyone to adapt to a way of life that was thrust upon us, and that has made many of our customs and traditions impractical. What was natural to us before has now become somewhat unreal.í The changed circumstances were perceived as dramatic indeed by a community, which had stricter norms of segregation along gender lines and which had a clear differentiation of physical space to ensure such segregation.
Coping with these changes became a challenge to both men and women. The dominant feeling among the males was that the cultural codes and norms were being broken and traditional authority was being undermined. This tension was further exacerbated as women became casual farm workers and breadwinners while men had limited opportunities for employment in the host areas. Even as they moved into public space and took on new roles, women often tended to share the fears that men had about the breakdown of cultural and moral codes. However, their entry into the labour market and interactions with other women and men gave them new experiences that impacted on their consciousness and made them more aware of the post-displacement changes in their lives and status as women. They faced new social and psychological tensions at home and outside. These women felt the need to form their own groups to deal with these tensions and other problems they had in common. They were learning to collectively articulate their needs in the community and workplaces. Their ability to earn a wage had led to alterations and tensions in intra-household relations with varied consequences.
Dealing with Camp Committee and Mosque Committee
ëI have had no formal schooling, and hence I am not educated. But I have learnt a lot by moving and sharing experiences with other women. I have come out into the world to work for a wage, to do things that I have not done before, and handle problems that I have not known before. All these have given me a real education.í- female camp resident.
The camp is a hierarchical organisation in which two committees, both exclusively male, play crucial socio-cultural roles. The camp committee was originally formed as an ad hoc arrangement to administer relief within the camp. However, subsequently, it became a permanent body that extended its role to intervene in intra-camp, inter-family and intra-family disputes as a ëmediatorí. Most of the members of this committee were traditional leaders in the village of origin of the displaced. The mosque committee of the camp played a role identical to that of the mosque committee in the village. Some men were members of both committees.
Women were excluded from the institution of the mosque before displacement but now it was only a few steps away from their homes. Apparently, this physical proximity signified a changed social context that made it easier for the women to take their family problems direct to the mosque leaders. Many women did this when they felt that the camp leader was unable to resolve a problem. The problems taken up included complaints about men consuming liquor, committing domestic violence and stealing wifeís jewellery, and about dowry, separation, maintenance and divorce. Most often it was women ó the harassed party that would take the initiative in meeting the mosque leaders. They went by themselves or with a family member or two. At times, two or three other women would accompany a woman. Women felt that they were not given a fair hearing and very often it was a biased decision in favour of parties known to the leader. ëGenerally when men go they get immediate attention but when women take their problems, they are treated as less important.í
It had become a customary practice for intra-family and intra-camp disputes to be first brought to the camp committee for mediation. Disputes unresolved at this level were taken up with the mosque committee and the latter referred an unresolved intra-family case to the Quazi court [special family court that adjudicates on matters of Muslim personal law]. However, there had been cases where some women had chosen not to follow this procedure. A group of women went direct to the police in a particular case of sexual abuse and, in another instance, a woman had also gone straight to the Quazi court to settle divorce and maintenance issues, ignoring the campís procedure. Such women were considered to be ëtoo outspokení and ënot well-behavedí by people in the camp including some women.
A notable turn of events was signalled in a camp when women who wanted to organise themselves as a group chose not to give in to objections from the mosque committee. They persisted in their demand till the male leaders realised that it was futile to object. Their experience as recalled by some of them in a group discussion demonstrated their ability to negotiate a space for collective action. There were 35 women ó young, middle-aged and not very old ó who were very keen to form a womenís group. They had heard about other womenís groups too. They started talking amongst themselves about the benefits they may gain if they could discuss their problems together, shared their sorrows and explored ways of dealing with them. One of them summed up the experience.
We were all working as casual labourers in the onion fields, harvesting onions, weeding and doing other farm work to earn some money to feed the family. We had problems as farm workers, and as wives and mothers. Women with problems were unable as individuals to deal with camp and mosque leaders and with the employers.
One day after the evening prayers, the mosque committee had called a meeting in the verandah of the mosque. The mosque committee in the course of their meeting mentioned that women were roaming about, didnít obey the men, were going about their work and that men felt insulted and inferior as they were not in a position to control the women. Some women who were eavesdropping heard everything and conveyed it to us. Some of us talked about this with our husbands and brothers.
Our group called a meeting and there were 22 women present that day (3 years ago). Others could not come because of some unavoidable problems. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the problems faced by women. There was agreement among us that the men were jealous that we had become strong enough to speak out and they were afraid of losing the power they had over us. We felt that the time had come for us to assert our rights and to tell our men that we did not want to be treated like slaves but as human beings. There was strong consensus that we also had the right to gain knowledge.
The mosque committee was unhappy about our getting together. But the meeting helped us to consolidate the group and we decided to continue with our work and to openly express our disapproval of any objections from the men or the mosque committee in the future. One day after Friday prayers the mosque committee announced that women could hold meetings and that women also had some rights. Now there are 52 women in our group.
The women regarded this as a major achievement. This was a process in which they learnt to speak a language they had not spoken before. ëIf they had refused us permission, we would have gone on a protest marchí, said an older woman. Another said, ëwe will stand up against injustice whether it is men, women or the mosque committeeí. The women felt the need for a forum to discuss problems they faced in a changing social context in which they were no longer confined to the domestic domain. Displacement had led to their proletarianisation as casual farm labourers and also brought them face to face with agencies dealing with relief and rehabilitation. Proletarianisation had extended their extra-household domain to a hitherto unfamiliar territory in which they experienced a discrimination against which they had to fight without any support from the men and the camp and mosque committees. They discovered the need to close ranks as women workers in order to resist the unfair terms of employment. And in this endeavour they would encounter muted protests from local women workers whose employment opportunities had diminished due to the influx of the IDPs. The local women who depended on casual farm employment for their livelihoods saw the displaced women as unfair competitors. In their view the displaced could afford to accept lower wages because they received free food rations.
Entry into the Rural Labour Market and the Struggle for a Fair Wage
As already noted, becoming casual farm workers was a new experience for the displaced Muslim women from the north. Kalpitiya, where the majority of the displaced stayed, was going through a commercialisation of its agriculture. This generated an increased demand for seasonal farm labour, which was in short supply until the arrival of the IDPs. Now there was a surplus of labour. The commercial farmers preferred to employ displaced women instead of men, as wages for female workers were universally lower than for males. The deprivations and the cash needs of displaced families compelled their women to enter the labour market. Further these women were prepared to accept wages lower than the existing rate for female workers, thereby depriving local women of casual employment opportunities. The local workers complained that the IDPs were in a position to accept lower wages because they received free food rations. While this was a fair criticism, it may be pointed out that the displaced often told us their need for cash had increased and it was not possible to manage with the low wages they received. In fact many of them pawned their ration cards or sold a part of their rations to raise money to meet urgent needs.
The men, while being compelled by the circumstances not to prevent the women from working as farm labourers, had no objection to their lower wages. They seemed to believe that inequality in wages between men and women workers was fair as the work performed by the latter was not ëmenís workí. Some men said that they were not inclined to go for such low paid work as they felt it undermined their status.
Displaced womenís participation in the rural labour market was quite small in 1990. It increased steadily from 1991 and by 1998, more than 60 percent of the women in the camps were casual workers. Their average daily wage in 1991 was Rs 50, and it increased to Rs 100 in 1998. They worked from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. with tea and lunch breaks of less than two hours. Their workday exceeded the standard of eight hours including a lunch break as prescribed by the countryís labour regulations. They worked at least for nine hours a day excluding tea and lunch breaks. However, as workers in the informal sector, they had no protection from the labour regulations, which applied only to employment in the formal sector. In the early phases, women did not think of complaining about the long workday or the low wages. They accepted even delayed payments and felt grateful that local farmers preferred to employ them. On the other hand, they suffered from a sense of shame about going out of the camp to work as farm labourers. They were worried that they would become subjects of ëgossip by others aroundí. Apparently, their self-esteem was affected. They never thought that a fair wage was their right and that they could bargain for it. The following statements from a group of women capture socio-cultural constraints that conditioned the initial phase of their lives as casual workers.
At that time we were grateful that farm owners offered us work and we were able to earn some money. We put up with a lot of verbal harassment by the farm owner too.
There were few of us who would go to work and we always went in a group.
It was very difficult for us at the beginning and we would hide our faces from the public eye especially when we saw our relatives.
When a farm was far away, the owner provided transport in his tractor from the camp to the farm and back. We thought this was a good thing as we felt safer and hoped that people would not gossip about us going out.
Our wages were very low and we were harassed at the work places, we also took our young children along with us as we could not leave them behind. We cooked for the family before we left the house early morning.
Some children also missed school especially the girls.
We had no sense of time and the owner verbally abused us.
There were local women who also worked with us and we had no problems.
Such were the conditions these women farm workers had to cope with as breadwinners of displaced families. However, over time, they learnt to confront the socio-cultural barriers and to value their role as income earners in the family. They were able to overcome their sense of shame and face the community with confidence as they became conscious of their self-worth. They came to understand that the farm owners were taking mean advantage of their helplessness as ërefugeesí. Casual farm labourers in Sri Lanka are normally atomised as workers and have little or no collective bargaining capacity. However, these women workers were able to develop a collective consciousness as workers due to their peculiar circumstances. Normally women from a particular camp travelled as a group to the farm where they worked. There was constant interaction among them both at the workplace and in the camp. They had opportunities to discuss their problems and the steps they could take collectively. These opportunities were greater for those who worked on the same farm throughout the season. The opportunity for collective bargaining with the employer was better for those who worked on larger farms. Women described their successful struggle for a wage increase in one particular farm.
We women work in this poor village doing all kinds of menial work to earn our daily living. The casual labourers are not paid a fair wage, men are paid Rs 150 and women Rs 90 per day. Women are paid lower wages for the same work. We discussed this amongst ourselves and that we were paid less for the same work, and the mudalali {farm owner } has not given us an increment yet in spite of us asking him. He gives lame excuses. He always says, ëwe provide transport for you and we have to spend for diesel.í He also wanted us to work 20-30 minutes extra every day.
We decided to ask the owner to pick us from our camps at the said time, to allow us to have an interval [break] and to be taken back after eight hours of work. We also decided to demand an increment of 10-20 percent and if it was not granted, to threaten to go to work in another farm. We plucked up all our courage and sent a delegation of 12 women to talk to the mudalali. These women told him that ëwe are suffering in the sun for your sake, you have to increase our wage. You have to give us transport at the said times and we need a lunch break. If not we will find other places to workí. He refused at first but later gave in and our wages were increased from Rs 90 to Rs 100 and then to Rs 110 in stages as promised.
These women had won their first struggle for wage increase, although the increase itself was not so significant in real terms. Moreover, there were situations of distress that compelled women to accept lower wages. Such distress sale of labour power was common among families that pawned their ration cards and had as a result become vulnerable to food insecurity. However, the more important outcome of the struggle was that the women had begun to learn to think and act collectively. They knew that the IDPs were not a homogeneous lot. While they had to work for a wage, there were some others among them who did not have to. On why they had to work, the women were very clear that they had no other choice:
Are those men and women who look down upon us, because we have become labourers, going to feed us? Those women who are saying that we are not observing purdah are looked after and maintained by their husbands, but we have husbands who have no work or cannot maintain us or they have abandoned the family. How can we sit and wait to see the family starving?
When the mosque committee in a particular camp issued a ruling that women should stop going for casual work, all of us who did casual work met the committee members, explained our own poverty situation and the hardships we are facing as women with men abandoning their family obligations. We asked them to be more realistic when they issue religious rulings that women should observe ëpurdahí and remain inside the house.
As Housemaids to the Middle-East
Once the women had established a new trend and created the space to move out of their homes to work on farms, it was only a matter of time before many of them used this as a step towards other avenues of employment. Many displaced women from the north were now prepared to migrate to Arab countries for employment as housemaids. This was a completely new phenomenon that had entered their lives. Persons from agencies recruiting women to work as housemaids in the Middle-East were frequent visitors to the camps. They promised to secure ëwell-paid employmentí to young and middle-aged women. Many women were attracted by such offers, and they were encouraged by the men in their families to make use of the opportunity. The men themselves were reluctant to seek employment in the Middle-East as the agents demanded payment of Rs 70-80,000/= which many could ill afford. For women, however, an incentive was openly offered for those applying for jobs in Saudi Arabia that there would be no fee levied. Instead, the employing company was prepared to make a payment to the women housemaids when selected. But some women were not aware of this and sub-agents charged their normal commissions.
The demand for jobs in the Middle East was high. Nearly 75 percent of the displaced women applied for employment in the Middle-East and approximately 25-30 percent of them were successful. Even here, several women were cheated by the sub-agents in the locality and agents who offered jobs on false pretexts, charged the applicants their normal commission and then disappeared. Women also related stories of harassment and sexual abuse by agents and sub-agents as well as issue of false visas. In spite of the exploitative environment in which women had to work as housemaids, women who had gone abroad preferred to go back again as they said at least it gave them a steady income which could sustain their families. A new trend observed of late was to send young girls who had dropped out of school, sometimes in their teens, to such jobs abroad.
By all accounts, the life of a housemaid in the Middle-East is known to be hard. In general, housemaids in the Arab countries are expected to follow the ëIslamic codeí as enforced by their employers. ..
Dealing With State and Non-State Agencies
Unlike their counterparts in the war zone, the IDPs in Kalpitya did not have to face the state or anti-state armed forces in their daily lives. The state functionary, the displaced women often came into contact with was the village administrator ó the Grama Sevaka (GS) in Kalpitya. Another institution they regularly related to was the cooperative store that supplied their relief entitlements. They interacted with the principal and teachers of the school attended by their children. These were new experiences indeed. However, several women went further and actively involved themselves in the work of NGOs and CBOs that addressed womenís problems.
In the early stages, the GS had been in personal contact with the displaced by visiting the camps but later this changed as the camp committee took over some of his responsibilities such as registration of family members and issue of letters to camp residents for various purposes. The GS was usually considered a very powerful person especially on the issue of ration cards . Before the establishment of camp committees, he visited the camp to register the displaced for provision of relief and compensation payments. Without a letter of certification from the GS, no resident of the village could obtain a national identity card. Every family had a ration card with information such as the name of the household head, the number of children in the family and their ages and the name of the camp. Usually the wife collected the rations and, more recently, her photograph was also included in the ration card.
The womenís assessments of their experiences with the GS were unanimously negative. They found him to be authoritarian. There were many instances where he had even asked the women to go away and asked their men to come. Women have their own way of dealing with food entitlement issues and men usually kept out of such things. Although we reproduce a single case here to highlight the degree of humiliation women had to endure, this was not an isolated incident.
Mariamís story:
I decided to move from my previous camp to another camp here one year ago. This area belongs to another GS division. When I went to meet the present GS for registration, he chased me away saying ë you are not married, you donít have a family.í I then brought all my documents and showed them to him. He was still refusing to register the family and continued to harass me by asking me to come again and again every week. One day finally I decided to ask him if he was going to register me as living in the camp here and give me the ration card or I would go to a higher authority and get my card. He gave me the card but threatened me saying that he could cut the rations. He has now transferred the registration to the AGA in another area [Kalpitiya] and now I have been deprived of my rations for the last three months. I have to go again to Kalpitiya and explain to the AGA and get it transferred to where I am living now. This is how they treat us displaced women.
For the displaced people the GS represented ëthe stateí and they felt almost totally powerless to disagree with him or show any form of protest. This was a relationship which reflected the disempowerment of the displaced vis a vis the state bureaucracy. The camp committee did not seem to be an effective mechanism to restore some degree of human dignity in the relations between the IDPs and the GS. In fact many IDPs felt that the camp committee had become a subservient ally of local functionaries who indulged in corrupt practices in distribution of relief. Such a situation reinforced the powerlessness of displaced women. Since the displaced women had to relate to the GS as individuals at different times for different purposes, there was hardly any prospect for organised collective action.
Rations were not always regularly issued by the cooperatives and in the past there were instances when rations were delayed sometimes by nearly two months. Although IDPs were aware that at times delays were created because the cooperative illegally supplied the food stock to some local traders, they dared not protest as they feared victimisation and that they might lose their ration cards. Indeed, the ration card was too precious to be lost as it served as mortgage to obtain loans. From the information gathered, we came to know that at any given time, 60-70 percent of the displaced people might have mortgaged their ration cards to raise loans for various purposes such as buying school items for the children, medicines, clothes or for settling other debts, etc. As a woman put it, " for us poor women the ration card is as good as gold."
Many NGOs and CBOs began to work amongst the IDPs in Kalpitiya. Most of them were involved in emergency relief. However, some intervened with longer-term rehabilitation and training programmes. The Rural Development Foundation (RDF) was a major NGO with a long-term involvement in the welfare of the IDPs. The leaders of the RDF were themselves displaced Muslims from the north. Some of them were working with the same organisation in the north before their displacement. The RDF was able to quickly extend its relief activities to Puttalam with the aid of these persons, some of whom were also school teachers. As the RDF expanded its activities, some displaced women were recruited to the staff as field workers. These women were engaged in organising womenís health groups and ëtraditional skillsí training within the camps. These were some of the earliest efforts to focus on women as target groups for particular activities. These interventions led to discussions among some concerned displaced groups on the need to address fundamental issues such as gender awareness, womenís education, early marriage and domestic violence. Social awareness and mobilisation of women were gradually taken up by new groups such as the Community Development Organisation (CDO) which emphasised womenís decision making and leadership. These were issues that had hitherto not been seriously addressed by the other NGOs although they had womenís participation on their agenda.
Through a conscious but slow process, the CDO was able to mobilise women spokespersons and expand their membership. These women, through active interactions with other women were able to discuss problems related to education of young girls, early marriage and school dropouts, Muslim personal laws, divorce and maintenance issues including domestic violence (Zackariya and Ismail 1998). Gradually the displaced women were becoming more aware of such issues and were addressing them within their own families. In some camps, support groups of women emerged to negotiate on intra-family affairs. The RDF also became more aware of the need to work on these issues and initiated similar activities. One of the positive effects of all gender related interventions was the sensitisation of the male staff of RDF and some other NGOs to take womenís problems more seriously. However, there were other groups working among the IDPs including women that were actively engaged in defending traditional religious values and behavioural codes for women.
Male Perceptions of Displaced Womenís Increasing Visibility
It is evident from the foregoing analysis that displaced women had entered spaces and into socio-economic transactions which were forbidden by the codes of purdah. As noted earlier their entry into the rural labour market had brought them into a wider extra-household arena and made them more visible in the social environment. Their movement in groups on open tractor-trailers to the worksite away from their camps became a daily sight during the cultivation season. To many local men this was an unmistakable sign of breach of ëcultural codesí that Muslim women were supposed to observe. It was common to hear from local men that freer physical mobility of the displaced women was a bad example for their own women. A certain local notable who claimed to speak for the local community told us that, local women went out for only two reasons: to attend weddings and to see the doctor. Displaced women, he said ëalways want to go out. When they cannot get work here, they want to go to the Middle East to work as housemaids. This kind of behaviour is definitely a bad influence on our women as they may also want to do the same things.í He went on to say that the customs, practices and mentality of the Muslims from the north had been too strongly influenced by Tamil culture.
Salmaís encounter one day at the cooperative stores was an instance of humiliation caused by a local man. She recalled it and said that it was not unusual for displaced women to be treated like that by some local men.
That was a day set aside for the displaced to collect their rations from the cooperative. As usual I joined the queue early morning as this day is always a crowded day and everyone would go very early so that they can come back home soon.
There was a local person from the area who is also a member of the Mediation Board who walked in and went up to the head of the queue and wanted to collect some items on his food stamps. The cooperative manager told him that it was a day for the displaced and they would issue rations only for them and that locals should come on another day. Then he said angrily ë why is that? donít we have a stomach to feed, is it only the refugees who have a right to get food?í I looked at the manager and said, ëplease, why donít you let him also get his food, after all it is only one person.í The manager was almost giving in to my plea and then I asked that person to join the queue behind us. But immediately he insulted me and said ë it is after you refugees came here that women are roaming all over, now you have a big mouth, you are reduced to refugees because of Godís curse and lets see what you can do.í I got quite worked up and replied, ëyes we may be refugees but we are also human beings and if we make a mistake, we admit it and correct ourselves. You are a member of the mediation board, and of what use is it if you donít know how to conduct yourself first? Is it the cap you are wearing that has given you the right to talk about religion?í Next I turned to the cooperative manager and told him, ëyes, we donít have to change the rule, you should issue rations today only for the displaced.
However, we also came across local men who did not use such strong language when they spoke about displaced women. Another local notable was more positive about the participation of displaced women in the labour market. He said that the displaced were inevitably driven by poverty to become farm labourers and that this has helped the local economy too. Local women from poorer families did work as farm labourers. Although they did not generally go out of the village, nor did they move in large groups as the displaced women. Of course women from the richer families did not work as farm labourers and they observed purdah as stated by the local notable referred to above.
What were the perceptions among the displaced men about the freer mobility of displaced women?
It was evident that their perceptions were more varied than those of the local men and these variations have been taking place over time. Initially, most displaced men were not in favour of women going out to work. This attitude changed in a rather short time as many men were unable to find regular employment and farm owners preferred to employ women. As already noted, the dire need for cash was the major factor that compelled displaced men to not prevent women from working outside. Moreover, displaced men even encouraged their wives, sisters and daughters to find jobs in the Middle East. However, the same men, with some exceptions, took it for granted that the women who found employment in Kalpitiya would continue to perform the usual household chores. The following statements from women are indicative of the perceptions and attitudes of their male family members:
My parents are proud of my own involvement in outside work and my development, but my husband often makes sarcastic comments such as, ë so you think you are going to develop?í
My brother says, ëif you are going to do things on your own, I will not be able to find a man for you. No man will want a woman like that as his wife.í
My husband is proud of me, but his people ask him why he has let me do things the way I want.
My husband encourages me to get involved with other women in social work but he says, ëprepare my food and send the children to school and then go.í
Some men said that girls would not be respected if they go out and others would start gossiping, so it will bring shame to the family.
The Intra-Household Domain
How has the entry of the displaced Muslim women into a wider extra-household arena as breadwinners and social actors impacted on intra-household relations?
Our observations of nearly 75 families showed that new tensions had entered the domestic domain and they turned more intense where the men were unemployed or underemployed and women were the main breadwinners. Unemployment had undermined the economic power enjoyed by men as ëthe maintainersí of the family. Their feelings of frustration found expression in various forms including domestic violence in several instances. They adopted various means to assert their superior status and preserve the domestic power relations. Physical violence was not a universal means although it had occurred in more than a third of the households. Invocation of ëfamily norms and valuesí along with the religious code, belittling the contribution of the working woman to the household economy, and direct verbal abuse were the most common tactics used to remind the woman of her ëplaceí.
Around 20-25 percent of the working women spoke with us more openly about intra-household inequalities. Employment and extra-household socialisation had helped them to see domestic relations in a different light. They gained a better understanding of the domestic power structure. While employment had enhanced their position to some extent, it did not give them sufficient strength to question the husbandís authority on many matters. Moreover, casual employment had its limits as a means of livelihood and individual freedom. It gave the woman some bargaining strength within the household but this was constrained by extra- as well as intra-hosuehold factors. First of all, the employment itself was temporary and based on informal contract. There were times when the women faced unemployment due to crop failure and the decline of the ëonion boomí (Shanmugaratnam, 2001). The uncertainty of casual farm employment was a source of economic insecurity to the women as well as their families. It was also a cause of the weak ëfallback positioní (Agarwal, 1994) of the women. Gender relations within the household, while being patriarchal in structure, had their variations too as reflected in the quotes above on menís attitudes. There were cases where women feared to question male authority while in some families women were able have their say. Male-female cooperation was more evident in some families while conflict appeared to be stronger in others. However, most of the women seemed to have chosen not to show any active resistance to the domestic power structure. The most common view expressed was that they did not want to be blamed for causing ëdisruptions within the familyí. Like the others, these women continued to play the roles they used to play as housewives and mothers putting the familyís interest before their own. In fact it was this priority of the family interest over the personal that drove displaced women to become waged workers in the first place. The same priority was the main cause behind displaced womenís migration to Arab countries for employment as housemaids.
On the other hand, several women were outspoken about the need as well as their inability to bring about changes in the attitudes of men on the value of womenís work. Their silence within the family was not necessarily a sign of voluntary submission but an uneasy compromise to avoid drastic consequences. ëWe have to shoulder many responsibilitiesí, said a woman, ëbut when we have problems the men easily say that it was our fault. The slightest fault on my part is enough for him to harass me and start beating. Men should be educated to shed their authoritarian attitudes.í
An important conclusion that emerged from our individual and group discussions with working women is that almost all of them regarded taking care of the family as their primary responsibility. They regarded their earnings as family income. They spent their wages almost always on the family ó for the children and for food. This was not a result of their lack of perception of their own self- interest or self-worth, but more to manage the small incomes in a way that would secure the future of their children, especially in the displaced environment, which was highly insecure and uncertain. In spite of the hardships they already had to bear, through sheer force of habit women always tried to save money through the traditional cheetu system . They would resort to temporary short- term loans to tide over difficult days and deal with the shopkeeper to buy food on credit. They were always the first to reduce their consumption for the sake of the husband and family.
Domestic Violence in the camps took many forms from the psychological to the physical. As commented by a woman, " I think men have become more violent after we came here, because they are frustrated with no proper jobs to do and their own devalued status here amongst the locals. Men have also started drinking after coming here. We never had this problem before." Another said, sometimes others from the womenís group would try to intervene and stop the beating and then the man would feel ashamed. But most of the time the women try to cope with it alone as they are worried about the children."
NGO workers estimated that at least 35% of the women were subject to domestic violence. Women in such situations often found themselves without much support from parents or friends or from community groups. As explained earlier on, it was mostly women who went to meet the camp leader or the mosque committee trying to resolve family disputes. But the redress they got from these institutions was of a very temporary nature and again often biased in favour of men. The legal mechanism that was available was the Quazi court where again women were not given a sympathetic hearing and mediation procedures were always prolonged and long drawn. Thus, both the formal system and the ëinformalí arrangements did not provide any alternative means of support to such women. In this instance, women going to the Middle East to work as housemaids may be seen as an escape ó away from the family bondage. Although it is not easy for women to make this decision, it gave them some psychological óemotional satisfaction that they were able to maintain the family and fulfil childrenís obligations.
In the area of domestic violence, womenís resistance did not take the form of open confrontation. The displaced women were fully aware of the power and authority that men exercised, but once again it was more by design than by default that they did not decide to leave their homes unless the situation became really ëunbearableí, as one woman put it.
Conclusion
In this paper, we examined aspects of post-displacement situations of Muslim women from poorer families that had been living for nearly eight years in camps (Welfare Centres) in Kalpitya, Sri Lanka. Several changes have taken place in the lives of these women and their families. These changes have redefined gender relations in some ways. Yet the continuities are strong too. A major consequence of displacement was the entry of women into extra-household arenas hitherto unknown to them. Patriarchy and discrimination dominated these arenas in which the displaced women were struggling to earn a wage, learning to think and act collectively, confronting hierarchies and negotiating socio-economic spaces amid deprivation. The spatial constraints and living conditions of the camp represented a major change from the village context from which the Muslims were expelled. In the changed socio-geographic setting, the boundaries between private and public spaces became blurred. The practice of purdah was no longer tenable as the Muslim women had to regularly spend a part of the day outside the domestic domain and interact with men and women in various transactions. On the other hand most women used the 'dress code' {hijab} as a tool to facilitate their entry into the public domain and thus gain 'social acceptability'. This was important to the displaced women for their own self- esteem within the displaced community and also with the locals.
The women were forced into local labour markets by the deprivations suffered by the families and the lack of employment opportunities for men. The increased supply of casual labour caused by the influx of the IDPs drove wages down. In addition, the rural employers (who were farm owners) adopted the gender-based discriminatory practice of paying lower wages for women workers. The employers preferred to hire displaced women instead of men because it cheapened production costs. The informal and patriarchal employment relations at the workplace exposed the Muslim women to more extreme exploitation and job insecurity.
Of course, the combination of informalisation and feminisation of labour is not an exceptional but a major phenomenon in different sectors of the economy in Sri Lanka. However, it had its peculiarities in our study area. The main contextual features have already been described. Initially, the displaced women accepted without protest the low wages offered by local farm owners, as their families were badly in need of cash. Further, the availability of emergency relief in the form of free food rations made it easier for the displaced women to accept below-subsistence wages. However, this had adverse consequences to the local poor who depended on casual farm employment for their survival. The displaced women gradually became conscious of the exploitative terms of their casual employment. We came across a group that succeeded in negotiating a minor wage increase. Of greater significance was the fact that these women learnt to act collectively and face their male employer with confidence. These and other women benefited from awareness creation and other training programmes on gender relations conducted by organisations such as the CDO, which focused on displaced womenís problems. Their entry into and experience in a broader extra-household arena, paved the way for many displaced women to migrate to Arab countries for employment as housemaids. However, their work remained undervalued and they had a lowly status as farm labourers in the local community.
What was the impact of these changes on intra-household relations? This study shows that there is no simple answer to this question. We would argue that womenís exploitation had increased in the domestic domain when all the circumstances are considered. As wage earners who brought cash income to the family, the women gained an enhanced status within the household. In many families, the working woman had reasonable control over the money she earned and, as a rule, family needs took precedence over her personal needs when it came to spending the money. The men recognised the significance of contributions of their wives, sisters and daughters to the household economy. However, the same men, with some exception, expected the women to continue to do household chores as before. And the women did continue to bear that burden. Many of the men were capable of often invoking ëcustoms and traditionsí to condemn the women for not being ëproper Muslim womení. Unemployed husbands tended to be harsher and there were several cases of domestic violence. The wives in such families generally adopted a strategy of avoiding open confrontations. Such compromise was the result of some basic considerations. The womenís fallback position was not sound enough to challenge the domestic power structure beyond a point that may lead to a break up of the family. Secondly, most of them wanted to avoid being seen by others as the cause of ëdomestic problems and the violent behaviour of the husbandsí. This concern had prevented many women from choosing a more assertive course of resistance within the household.
We may conclude that the displaced and proletarianised women had gained some freedom in the sense that they could not effectively be socially secluded as in the past. They had also learnt to act collectively in the extra-household domain. However, their work burden and exploitation had increased and, in the domestic domain, most of them are compelled by circumstances to show only passive resistance to the oppressive power structure. Furthermore it is still an open question if these women will be able to sustain their 'sense of freedom' given the fluid nature of their existence and circumstances.
References
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Agarwal, Bina. 1997, Bargaining and Gender Relations Within and Beyond the Household, Feminist Economics 3(1): 1-51
Chant, S. 1992, Gender and Migration in developing Countries, Belhaven Press, London and New York.
Chant, S. and S. A. Radcliffe, 1992, Migration and Development: the importance of gender, in Chant (ed) 1992.
Sen, Amartya. 1985b. Well being, Agency and Freedom. The Dewey Lectures 1984, Journal of Philosophy.
Sen, Amartya. 1990. "Gender and Cooperative Conflicts," in Persistent Inequalities, Women and World Development edited by Irene Tinker, Oxford University Press.
Sen, A. 1999, Development as Freedom, Oxford University Press
Shanmugaratnam, N. 2001. Forced Migration and Changing Local Political Economies ó A study from north-western Sri Lanka, Social Scientists Association, Colombo
Zackariya, Faizun and Ismail, Zulfika, 1998. "Early Marriage and the Cycle of Violence in a displaced situation," in Confronting Complexities: Gender Perceptions and Values, Centre for Womenís Research, Colombo.Return to New collection at South Asia Citizens Web
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