Tuesday 02 September
2008, San José, Costa Rica
COLOMBIA:
Women Working Abroad
Keep Provincial Economy
Alive
By Helda Martínez
PEREIRA, Colombia - (IPS)
- The so-called Coffee
Belt region accounts for
60 percent of Colombians
who leave the country,
and the majority of
those leaving are
female. Once they are
abroad, these women
become the breadwinners
of their families, with
the resulting impact on
household income
extending to the
provincial economy.
The Coffee Belt, where
Colombia’s coffee
production is centred,
is made up of the
departments (provinces)
of Quindío, Risaralda
and Caldas, the southern
section of the
department of Antioquia,
and the northern regions
of Valle and Tolima, all
located in the central
Colombian highlands.
A recent study
undertaken in the
region, focusing on one
particular area -- the
Midwestern Metropolitan
Area (AMCO), made up of
the municipalities of
Pereira, Dosquebradas
and La Virginia, in the
department of Risaralda
-- found that of all the
remittances sent back to
the area from Spain, the
main destination for
Colombian migrants, 54
percent were sent by
women.
The study, "Gender and
Remittances: Colombian
Emigration from AMCO to
Spain", also reported
that 14.5 percent of
households in this area
have a least one member
living outside the
country. In 2006, a
total of 3.89 billion
dollars entered the area
as remittances from
workers abroad,
reflecting an increase
of 17.4 percent over the
previous year.
In the country as a
whole, money transfers
from abroad now total
almost 4.5 billion
dollars annually,
equivalent to three
percent of the country’s
gross domestic product
(GDP) and almost 62
percent of foreign
direct investment,
according to figures
from the Colombian
central bank, Banco de
la República.
But in the Coffee Belt,
due to the high rates of
emigration, remittances
now account for 17
percent of local GDP,
says William Mejía,
director of the Human
Mobility Group of the
Alma Mater Public
University Network, made
up of 10 universities.
REASONS BEHIND THE
EXODUS
Mejía directed the field
work for the Gender and
Remittances study, which
was undertaken by the
United Nations
International Research
and Training Institute
for the Advancement of
Women (UN-INSTRAW) and
the International
Organisation for
Migration (OIM), with
the support of the
Colombian Foreign
Ministry and National
Statistics Office
(DANE).
"Emigration from the
region is not a new
phenomenon," Mejía told
IPS, adding, "It began
half a century ago,
during the so-called era
of La Violencia (The
Violence)," the term
popularly used to refer
to the bloody
decade-long civil
conflict unleashed by
the assassination of
opposition leader Jorge
Eliécer Gaitán in 1948.
In the 1960s, emigration
was largely fuelled by
the armed conflict
between leftist rebels,
government troops and
right-wing paramilitary
forces, while in the
1980s, another exodus
was sparked by the
rising violence and
forced displacement
caused by drug
trafficking in the
region.
Meanwhile, "the latest
wave of emigration began
with the economic crisis
that followed the
collapse of the
International Coffee
Agreement in 1989, which
affected the economy of
the Coffee Belt in
particular and the
national economy in
general," the study
notes.
The liberalisation of
the coffee market led to
a steep fall in prices,
causing financial ruin
for coffee growers
around the world.
The situation worsened
in the 1990s thanks to
"the process of
structural adjustment
based on
neoliberal-style
measures promoted by
international financial
institutions," resulting
in increased
unemployment, decreased
buying power, cuts in
social services and
rising violence and
insecurity, a situation
that prompted growing
numbers of people to
leave the country.
While the United States
was traditionally the
preferred destination
for Colombian migrants,
tougher U.S. immigration
laws led to its
replacement by Spain,
which also offered the
benefits of a common
language and more
favourable government
policies at the time.
It is estimated that
close to a million
people left Colombia
during the five-year
period between 2000 and
2005 alone.
THE POWER OF WOMEN
The number of women
leaving the country
continued to grow, until
by the year 2000, they
accounted for roughly 70
percent of Colombians
with legal residency
status in Spain.
Although their share in
emigration has decreased
in recent years, women
continue to have a
significant presence in
the expatriate
community.
The study states that
female emigration from
the Coffee Belt to Spain
has given rise to a
process of "progressive
empowerment" for women,
as both the main source
of income for their
households, in the case
of the female migrants
themselves, and as the
recipients of
remittances, in the case
of those still living in
the region.
"My daughter Isabel
sends me 750,000 pesos
(440 dollars) a month,
which is enough to cover
my medical insurance,
taxes and minimum living
costs," Gloria Calderón
told IPS in Pereira, the
capital of Risaralda.
Calderón lives in an
area of Pereira known as
Cuba, made up of 150
poor neighbourhoods and
shantytowns where 90
percent of the residents
were displaced from
rural areas by violence
and the coffee sector
crisis.
"Isabel left nine years
ago, because after
making a huge effort to
study agronomy, she
looked everywhere for
work for six months,
even in other
departments, but she
couldn’t find anything.
A year and a half after
she left, they called
her from the National
Coffee Growers
Federation for a job
interview, but what good
was it then?" remarked
Calderón, clearly
disappointed.
Her daughter went to
Madrid, where she had
contacts who helped her
out when she first
arrived, the most
difficult period,
because "emigrating is
not easy and luckily
people are starting to
recognise that," said
Mejía.
While people once had an
unrealistic view of what
emigration entails,
"today it is accepted
that it is difficult,
although it is true that
there are also many
positive factors
involved," he added.
Though women and men who
emigrate send home
similar amounts of
money, for women it
means a greater effort,
since they earn lower
wages. Women’s
remittances also tend to
be more regular and
frequent, the study
found.
Isabel’s first job in
Spain was as a caretaker
for the elderly, a
common occupation for
immigrant women. Then
she got herself a
motorcycle licence and
found a job making
deliveries for a
restaurant. Now she is a
taxi driver, and her
next goal is to become a
helicopter pilot,
reported Calderón.
She has also purchased
two taxis in Pereira, as
well as buying a house
there a short while ago
with her partner. "They
want to pay it off
quickly, so that they
have a foundation that
will let them come back
in five years with a
solid base of capital.
They don’t want to end
up like some of her
girlfriends, who left,
saved a bit of money,
came back, and then ran
out, and had to go back
again just recently,"
she explained.
LIVING EXPENSES
According to the Gender
and Remittances study,
money transfers from
abroad have contributed
to the purchase of homes
by the recipient
families, but are more
commonly invested in
repairing and renovating
existing housing,
including homes that are
rented out. Remittances
are also used to
purchase consumer goods,
although the lion’s
share goes to covering
basic living expenses.
While the largest
percentages of
Colombians living abroad
are in the United States
(35.4 percent) and Spain
(23.3 percent), there
are also significant
Colombian expatriate
communities in
Venezuela, Ecuador,
Canada and a number of
other countries,
according to the 2005
census conducted by
DANE.
Colombians can easily
reach Ecuador by
highway. It is less than
a 20-hour drive from the
Coffee Belt.
Nancy Gallego, a native
of Quindío, moved six
years ago to the
Ecuadorean town of Santo
Domingo de los Colorados,
which is popularly known
as "Santo Domingo de los
colombianos" (Santo
Domingo of the
Colombians).
During a visit to
Armenia, the capital of
Quindío, she told IPS
that "there are a lot of
people who go there to
work, to send back
remittances and money to
support their families.
In my case, for example,
I was able to study
nursing, which I could
never have done here.
And even though I like
to come to visit, I
don’t feel safe here
anymore, in my own
city."
One of the region’s
municipalities with the
highest rates of
emigration is
Montenegro, in southern
Quindío, home of the
theme park known as the
Colombian National
Coffee Park. Day
labourer coffee pickers
gather in the town’s
central square on
Saturdays looking for
work, while children
chase after tourists,
asking for spare change.
"The situation is very
tough for farm labourers.
There has been no work
in the countryside for a
long time, and that’s
why people, and
especially women, are
leaving, mostly to go to
Spain," Claudia
Aristizábal, head of
postal services in
Montenegro, told IPS.
"Around Christmas and
Mothers Day, we receive
a lot of shipments of
clothes and toys," noted
Aristizábal, who
estimates the average
remittance for a family
of five to be around 600
dollars.
Women who come home --
mothers, daughters,
wives -- are welcomed
with applause at
Matecaña International
Airport in Pereira.
"Even with the
enthusiasm typical of
wanderers, nostalgia is
a feeling that never
goes away," remarked
Mejía.
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