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by Marina Fe B. Durano, International Gender and Trade Network-Asia


Introduction

The impetus for “progressive liberalization” in the trade in services has prompted a serious look at the impact of this policy on various services sectors. Among the sectors that women and feminists have chosen to study is the audio-visual2 services sector. This paper begins to unravel the implications of various trade agreements under the World Trade Organization (WTO) on women and, more importantly, on cultural transformation that promotes gender equality.

The essay begins with an identification of the elements of the different trade agreements that have an impact on the structure and character of the audio-visual services sector. The identification includes the issues and debates that have occurred around the policies applied to this sector.

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SERVICESWith an apparent agenda to control the kind of workers that are allowed to enter their boarders, developing countries - the United States, the European union and Japan - push for the Mode 4 framework under the WTO's General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS). Mode 4, one the modes supplying services under GATS, refers to the movementof “natural persons” to cover all individuals temporarily moving from one WTO member country to another because of work. Rich countries claim Mode 4 will be beneficial to countries of the South.  But this has been debunked. Ellen Sana, executive director of the Center for Migrants Advocacy, who spoke at Beijing+10 Meets WTO+10: Women’s Rights Activists Take Aim at the WTO , an event organized by the International Gender and Trade Network, noted that Mode 4 favored highly skilled work force like lawyers, accountants. "WTO commodifies human beings.  They’re not even talking about the rights of the workers, just the services they provide" she said.

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Non Agricultural Market AccessFor the past 10 years, 164 Filipino workers lose their jobs daily as a consequence of the country’s compliance to the World Trade organization’s (WTO) agenda of free trade.

“Between 1995, when the country became a member of the WTO and 1994, six firms a day closed for ‘economic reasons,’ displacing some 164 workers. Of these, 58 lost their jobs due to the closure of their firms while 106 were retrenched when their companies reduced their workforce,” reports IBON Foundation

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Non Agricultural Market Access


By D.L. Doane

For the poor, the world has always been an insecure place. However, with bad economic conditions loosening community ties and straining family-based mutual aid, insecurity and anxiety inevitably increase. Insecurity also increases under economic conditions that 'split' the economy, favouring those with access to education, financial and other resources, but hurting those without this access and connection.


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Representatives from each of the eight regions of the International Gender and Trade Network developed these policy positions in preparation for the WTO Sixth Ministerial. The positions specifically address the WTO Agreement on Agriculture and Food Sovereignty; Non-Agricultural Market Access and Autonomous Industrialization; General Agreement on Trade in Services and Social Reproduction; Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights and Knowledge Reproduction; Special and Differential Treatment and Trade-Related Technical Assistance. In order to hammer out a fairer system of global trade for both men and women, IGTN has drawn out the following analyses and advocacy positions on the most critical issues in Hong Kong for human rights, employments, livelihoods and entitlements: