It is no secret that the US would like to oust radical left-wing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez from power. So it came as no surprise when US President George Bush ordered the imposition of partial sanctions against Venezuela on September 10, claiming that the South American country of 25 million inhabitants is a "source, transit and destination country for women and children trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation".
Media reports suggest that the US sanctions would consist of voting against the approval of loans — totalling US290 million — requested by Venezuela from the Inter-American Development Bank and aimed at combating poverty.
Although US sex tourism companies are renowned for promoting travel to South=East Asia for sexual encounters with women and children forced into prostitution, Bush claimed that the Chavez government isn't doing enough to curb the trafficking of women and children for the sex industry.
For decades Venezuela's capitalist elite has bled the country's wealth, above all its oil export revenue (Venezuela is the 5th largest oil exporter, mainly to the US), leaving 80% of the population impoverished. Washington hates Chavez because his policies are benefitting the poor at the expense of the US-backed capitalist elite.
As a consequence, poor women have been among Chavez's strongest supporters. In April 2002, when the capitalist elite, acting with support of the US government, carried out a military coup against Chavez, it was women from the poorest neighbourhoods of Caracas who were the first to mobilise to demand the return of their elected president. Filling the streets, the working-class poor, supported by the army's rank-and-file, defeated the coup-makers, enabling Chavez's return to power.
It has been poor women who have most benefited from the Chavez government's new education and health campaigns, funded by the state-owned oil industry, which accounts for 30% of the country's GDP and 50% of government revenues.
"All across this oil-rich and poverty-riddled country, the state oil giant, PDVSA, the country's economic engine, is embarking on a radical and wide-ranging social spending program that includes building homes, running literacy programs and developing agriculture", PDVSA's president, Ali Rodriguez, told the March 11 New York Times.
The state-owned oil company, Rodriguez added, "is increasing its social spending from less than $40 million in previous years to $1.7 billion this year... PDVSA used to function as a transnational company only interested in maximising oil sales. Now, PDVSA is working with other state institutions to reduce Venezuela's exceedingly high rate of poverty."
The Chavez government's anti-poverty programs have resulted in an additional 1.5 million children in school getting three free meals a day, at least 1 million illiterate adults learning to read and write, 1.5 million more people with access to safe drinking water, 10,000 Cuban doctors providing free health care in the poorest communities, food subsidies (or food vouchers) for pregnant women before and after birth and 2 million hectares of land distributed to small farmers, with women heads of household (60% of households) being prioritised for land distribution.
Women are becoming central to economic change in Venezuela. "We are building an economy at the service of human beings, not human beings at the service of the economy. And since 70% of the world's poor are women, women must be central to economic change to eliminate poverty", Nora Castaneda, president of the women's development bank, Banmujer, remarked in April 2003.
Created on International Women's Day, 2001, Banmujer is based on developing cooperation among women. Credits, with government subsidised interest rates, can only be obtained if women get together to work out a project which is both viable and what the local community wants and needs.
"If 65% of people in the world are living in poverty and women are 70% of the world's poor, dealing with women's poverty is the central issue for the economy", said Castaneda.
Banmujer also provides free counseling to women on issues such as sexual and reproductive rights and political participation and empowerment. It also teaches women about domestic violence, which is prone to rise when men feel displaced as providers.
The participation and leadership of women is key to the process of carrying out agrarian reform in Venezuela. Women are the majority in the land, water and health committees that sort out how the millions of people who built homes on squatted land can be given legal title to the land they occupy, how water supplies are to be improved, and what health care services are needed.
Tamara Pearson
From Green Left Weekly, September 22, 2004.
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