by Usha Jesudasan

Usha Jesudasan talks to some women who have been helped by the Working Women's Forum (WWF) to rebuild their lives and come to terms with the double burden of being poor and female.

"Through the Sangam (WWF) my own life was saved. I lived with such sadness, really even that dog had a better life and better food. I met many poor women like me, who had never heard of women's sangrams before, who had never been out of their homes. Now when I see how women live and feel, how much we suffer for just being born women, how ignorant we are, I know we can be strong too. I feel all women everywhere are the same — together we can make a family," says Ambalakai. For a decade, the Working Women's Forum (WWF) has been a growing, successful movement in the slum areas of Madras, and in certain home industry areas of Tamil Nadu, Karnaraka and Andhra Pradesh. While women as a sex are discriminated against badly, women in slum areas are even worse off, for not only do they lack the basic amenities required by human beings — shelter, decent housing, potable water, sanitation —but they also live under severe social conditions. Many are deserted wives, or second or third wives, one parent families with no regular income. There is a distinct lack of male contribution towards anything. Alcoholism among the men is rampant. Abuse, domestic and sexual violence are part of their daily lives. The women tolerate unhygienic and deplorable health conditions, for they know of nothing better. They are illiterate, exploited, powerless, and terribly vulnerable. Their ignorance shrouds them in cultural myths, social conventions and unproductive expenses such as weddings, festivals and ritual offerings. The women are further physically incapacitated by poor nutrition, continuous reproduction, hard labour and natural disasters which easily overtake their lives.

There is a certain harshness about the quality of life in a slum. Wages are low, work hard to find, child labour an accepted part of the system. There is never any reserve food. Women work as vendors, hawkers, servants and producers of petty home made crafts in such pathetic conditions of squalor, poverty, and exploitation. They live in a constant debt trap, with no hope of saving or redeeming their mortgaged possessions.

To relieve some of this suffering, especially the exploitation by middle men and moneylenders, the WWF began
their work mainly as a credit group, unionising women from the informal sector. Group leaders were recruited from the slums who then initiated loan groups on a very low interest basis. These groups formed the basic unit of the Forum's organisation and sustained cooperation and interest at the grassroot level.

Realising that for a woman economic independence went hand in hand with family planning and nutrition education, the WWF recruited health workers too from the slums. The advantage of having leaders from the slum communities itself was to enable the women not only to identify themselves with each other but also to understand that some problems and situations can be overcome with support. The poor always feel that health and nutrition is a birthright only of the rich, and there is a negative attitude towards everything. The health workers, many of whom had increased their own awareness of nutrition and health after they underwent the training programme at the Gandhigram Institute of Rural Health, battle against traditionalism, pessimism, and aggressive male chauvinism.

Ponmati, as gold as her name suggests, is one such health worker in Vyasarpadi. She has 300 families on her roll and looks after the women as if they were a part of her own family. She visits them regularly, advises them on matters of health and nutrition, family planning and often on marriage guidance too. As she lives amidst them, in an emergency they run to her. Very often when labour starts at night, Ponmathi takes the woman by auto or rick shaw to the hospital, spending her own money. Because some of the girls are young or on their own and frightened, she stays with them, buys them something to eat and stays all night either until relatives come or the baby is born. It is not part of her job description, but it flows from the endless supply of kindness and compassion within her.

Would she change to another organisation which paid more? "Not at all" she replies, "This is women's work — look how much the women have benefited, and how they are helping each other. Pushpa was a miserable little woman crying and fighting all the time, but now she is a leader, encouraging others, living healthier, using herself as an example."

Pushpa says: "My first child died within a week of being born. Ponmathi was the health worker in my area; she came to me and explained that for my next child I should look after myself, eat better food, be immunised and keep clean — but I wouldn't listen to her. I was a real 'kaatu poochi' (jungle insect). I was afraid of hospitals, injections and I was lazy. My second baby also died; I became like a mad woman. I ate, slept, cried, and fought with all the girls around. Ponmathi came to see me again and this time I listened to her. She took me to the hospital every month because I was so scared, showed me how to cook drumstick leaves, took me to the nutrition classes and so on. I did everything that she said because I wanted a child very badly. I had tried my way but my children died, so now I listened carefully. What is life without children? My son was born safe. Then she told me about the loop, and I was scared of that: what if it went and got stuck somewhere in my neck or throat? So I tried the pill, but I kept forgetting to take it and I became pregnant again. My next baby was a girl so I went for a sterilisation. As my husband was without a job, Ponmathi asked if I would like to train as a health worker. My husband agreed to it as he saw how much our life had changed, so he let me go to Gandhigram. Now using my own life as an example, I teach others who are afraid of hospitals."

Has her economic independence changed things in the family? Laughingly she says "Yes. I tell my husband to go to hell! I don't give him drink money from my savings. It's my house too, so he can't ask me to get out. I provide the food and I look after the children. But he's happy I'm not at home crying and fighting like before."

How does she see the WWF of which she is an active, vocal member? "The group meetings are a time when women
can come together to learn, to share their worries, to laugh, and just to be together. We all suffer because we are women, some suffer more than others, but now we know how to cope. We must care for each other like how Ponmathi cared for me, and teach all our women that unless we care for ourselves, no one else will."

Through their grassroots approach to family planning, the WWF have given many women the knowledge, the facilities and the strength to take decisions controlling their fertility. Many now see the advantage of having smaller, healthier families. Some like Nagamma have slowly become steadfast in standing up for economic independence and are prepared to face challenges, knowing that there is a body of women to support them.

Deserted by her husband when her baby was only a month old, rejected and wounded, Nagamma decided to commit suicide. There was no way she could find work with such a small baby and without food how could she live? "Cradling the baby in my arms, I sat dry eyed on the tracks of a railway line near my home. But nothing came for an hour and the baby began to cry as she was hungry. What could I do? I took it as God's sign for me to live — and with this realisation I became aggressive and determined to make a life for my child. A long time ago I had pawned my earrings for 200 rupees, and now the moneylender was after me. I had no money for food so where was I to go for the interest money? If I was lucky, sometimes one of the girls would give me a banana or some tea, otherwise I just starved. Standing at the temple one day I prayed to God asking him to save me and my child. On the way out Pattanam, who was a health worker, saw me weeping and came to talk to me. She told me about WWF and how I could get a loan and start again. But another loan! I was frightened, but Pattanam said that this was a women's sangam and that the interest was very low to enable girls like us to live decently. So I joined, with ten others, and got a loan for 500 rupees. I paid off my other loan, got my earrings back, and with the rest, bought an iddly cooker, firewood, and rice and masala. I set up my little stall near the same place where I once tried to end my life. Business started picking up and I was able to repay my loan. I attended nutrition classes to help in my cooking. Come inside and look, everything is covered, no flies sit on my iddlies." She is adamant about not allowing her drunken husband to return to her now that she is better off. "This is my house," she says of the little shelter planked together. The one concession she makes is to look after her aged mother-in-law "because she too is a woman who once suffered like me."

Ambalakai, who has four daughters wailed, "In our days there was no one to tell us about family planning, and so on. If I slept with my husband I got a baby, if I didn't sleep with him I got a beating, so I never knew which was better. These young girls are lucky."

Valli's husband left her during the early stages of her second pregnancy. Unable to bear it she went to her health worker and asked for an abortion as she couldn't manage two small children and also work in a building site. She was too scared to tell her in-laws. The health worker arranged to have the abortion done in a hospital, after a check up, and also kept Valli's secret. Valli also decided to get sterilised just in case her husband returned. With a small loan from the WWF, she began a bangle shop, making a profit of about seven rupees a day. Her husband, hearing that she was doing good business, returned and forced her to hand over the business to him — which soon went bust. So she took another loan, determined this time to control everything herself. Now she sells garlic, and with the small profit she makes is able to survive. She is no longer in debt. In what ways has Valli's life changed? An abortion that wasn't injurious to her health, the low interest loans which set her on the road to economic independence, as well as freedom from fear of another pregnancy. The Working Women's Forum, in identifying with these poor women, has not only raised consciousness of health and family planning, but has spread a new ideology of womanhood and sisterhood, which is not only understood, but desperately needed and valued.

Source:

HEALTH for the Millions Dec. 1989, no.6, vol. XV
Published by: Voluntary Health Association of India 40 Institutional Area,
South of ITT New Delhi, India 110 016 tel: 668071

Usha Jesudasan is a freelance journalist who lives in Madras