2000 - Special Washington & New-York

My name is Young-Hee Shim. I have been teaching sociology and women's studies for about 20 years in Seoul, Korea. I represent Korean Institute for Alternative Social Policy of Korean Women's Association United.

Today, I came a long way from Korea to talk to you about the general policy of your institution, based on their impacts on Korean people, especially on Korean women. In short, I am deeply concerned with your policies, protest your institution for these, and I strongly ask your institution to change the general direction of your policies to be more sensitive to women and the poor.

1. The Policies of the IMF and their Consequences in Korea

As you know, Korea underwent a severe financial crisis suddenly in late 1997, and asked for a bailout loan to your institution. And your institution granted the bailout loan on various conditions based on the agreement between your institutions and Korean govemment. Since then, for about three years, Korean economy was under the IMF management system, which left serious effects on Korean economy and Korean people.

Most of the conditions and demands of your institutions to Korea was based on the so- called 'global standards' of neo-liberal capitalism. Among them, the most visible were 1) liberalization of foreign trade and opening up of the stock market for foreign capital, 2) macro- economic policy focusing on suppressing growth-oriented economic policy, 3) monetary policy, emphasizing tight control on money supply and the higher interest rate, 4) the structural adjustments, focusing on the downsizing of "chaebuls," or conglomerates, and the increase in flexibility of the labor market, etc. And they say there are some hidden agreements, though they were not made public to Korean people.

As a result of the implementation of these policies of IMF, Korea began to undergo a severe change. What happened was that with the intervention of your institution, the crisis in Korea, which was first a financial crisis, was magnified into an economic crisis, and then finally to a socio-cultural crisis. The most conspicuous impact appeared in the domination of the stock market by foreign capital, the collapse and/ or shutdown of firms, and the layoff of their employees. Thus unemployment rate went up, and the poor became poorer. In the meanwhile the rich became richer with higher interest rate, etc. And the social disparity and conflict increased. Furthermore, with the effects of foreign cultures young generations seem to have weaker and weaker identities as Koreans.

I don't think Korea is a unique case in these effects. There are many other countries which had been on your bailout programs and most of them, I think, have had similar experiences as Korea.

2. Impact on Korean Women

The impact on women was especially serious. These impacts could be seen in women's job insecurity, their family, and their body. As to women's job insecurity, many women were laid off with structural adjustments. In Korean society where patriarchy is strongly upheld in terms of both the institution and ideology, there is a widespread belief that men are the bread-eamer of the family. Thus women were the first to be laid off. Of those who were laid off from the regular jobs, some were employed again but only on temporary or contract basis.

Their working environment also deteriorated. Sexual violence and sexual harassment at the workplace increased, since women workers did not want to raise the issue with a risk of losing their jobs. Thus many of the gender equality measures, achieved in the last ten years' hard efforts, were turned backward to the starting point, or almost nullified.

As to the effects on their families, with a sudden layoff of the husband, many women had to become a bread-earner for the family and had to work outside. But the jobs they could get were not weIl paid, stable, or highly respected, but those most people would not want to do. Even some women had to be prostitutes to make money. B,ut this did not mean that these women were free of domestic work. Actually lots of gains in the system cornes from the unpaid, invisible work of women, but they are not appreciated.

Furthermore, family violence increased with the rise of anger and frustration among the unemployed husbands. This was especially so in Korea, since Korea is avery patriarchal society. And some middle-class wives had to do "emotion work", trying to be very careful not to break the tsi or the self-esteem of their husband, as the head of the family. Thus in Korea we see that patriarchy is not weakened, but is reinforced with neo-liberal capitalism. This mutual reinforcement of neo-liberal capitalism and patriarchy is not a unique phenomenon in Korea, but can be found around the world. As a sociologist and as a feminist, I am deeply concerned with these phenomena and I strongly protest your institution for these consequences.

3. Our Demands

Thus I ask your institution, as an international organization, to consider the following:

1) Your institution should change the faith in neo-liberal capitalism and develop a new social program based on equity, justice, and communitarian value, giving up the objective of patronizing or dominating the world not only economically but also politically and socio-culturally.

2) Your institution should integrate the gender perspective in your macro-economic policies as weIl as in your programs and projects. And you should allocate more resources for women.

3) Your institution should be more transparent and accountable in negotiations with the states and in policy making, implementation and evaluation, so that civil society and ordinary people would know what's going on.

4) Your institution should not impose privatization of human development so that women as weIl as men, the poor as weIl as the rich, can have a universal access to fundamental human rights such as health, education, housing, etc.