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p In spite of the fact that women are playing a bigger and bigger role in social production, and in spite of the formal recognition of their rights, their social and economic position remains extremely difficult.

p The participation of women in the economic activity of different countries depends on such various factors as scientific and technical progress, the percentage of employed among the population, the increase of the population, the density of urban population, the growth of unemployment, and so on.

p Among the working women of Latin America those employed for seasonal work continue to form a considerable percentage.

p As a general rule, the percentage is higher in non-agricultural sectors (Argentina, Brazil, 235 Venezuela), and lower where a large part of the working women are engaged in "arming (Bolivia, Haiti, and Central America). And it must be borne in mind that due to the remnants of semifeudal relations very often the participation of women in agricultural production takes the form of unpaid labour of the wife of a farm-hand, a land tenant, or a worker on a large private-owned farm.

p Peasant women and women agricultural workers have the hardest lot of all. The backward system of land-tenure hinders the development of agriculture and dooms the peasants in their millions to poverty and ruin. Practically all the land fit for cultivation is held by a relatively small group of local latifundists and foreign companies, and the bulk of the peasantry are deprived of land and have to work as farm-hands and agricultural workers.

p The majority of farms use antiquated farm implements which makes the toil of the peasants and their families unbearably exhausting. As a result of the agrarian crisis, the peasantry discards millions of women to join the army of the unemployed looking for jobs. The toil of village women remains harder than that of women employed in industry, and their organisation much weaker.

p In spite of the relatively rapid growth of industrial production and the noticeable changes taking place on this basis in the structure of the economically active population in some Latin American countries, the problem of finding a job is especially acute for peasant women and women agricultural workers. A good half of the working population in this area is connected with farming and the related branches of industry.

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p The position of the farm-hands who form a considerable part of the working women on the plantations of Central America, Haiti and Equador is especially hard. Pre-capitalist forms of exploitation are still practised in hired women’s labour: reopate (debt bondage), various kinds of compulsory labour, work for food, or even work without any remuneration as auxiliary labour force of the head of the family.

p In Latin America on the whole the percentage of women wage workers in agriculture is small, but showing a constant tendency to grow.

p At the present time the problem that is gaining especial importance is not so much the enlargement of the number of women involved in economic activity as the need to change the very character of their involvement and, in particular, the absolute and relative increase in the number of women engaged in non-agricultural work.

p The disparity between the growing role played by women in social production, on the one hand, and the increasing infringement on their labour rights, on the other, is becoming more and more pronounced in Latin America. In this respect, the most acute problem is the unequal pay for the same amount and quality of work done by men and by women.

p In recent years quite a number of constitutional and legislative acts have been passed, declaring or recognising the principle of equal pay. But in practice this principle is not carried into effect as it does not suit the private interests of the enterprise owners. In all the countries of Latin America, even in those where the ILO Convention (No. 100) Concerning Equal Remuneration for Men and Women Workers for Work of Equal 237 Value has been ratified, discrimination continues to be practised.

p Unequal pay—which is the chief form of discrimination affecting all women wage workers—hits them hardest economically and, besides, it indirectly brings about some other forms of discrimination (the size of allowances, pensions, and so forth).

p The demand for putting into practice the principle of equal pay for equal work concerns all working people and not just women, and is one of the main demands advanced by progressive women’s and trade union organisations.

p In Latin America discrimination in the field of labour takes, in the main, two forms: the rates of pay for women are much lower than for men for the same work, and women are employed for work that is hard but low paid as it does not call for high professional skill. Because women as a whole are denied the chance of receiving a special education and consequently a high work rating, many entrepreneurs devise special " women’s" jobs which are by no means "women’s”, and for which women are paid considerably less than men doing the same work.

p The problem of eliminating discrimination against women in the field of education and vocational training made the subject of the Latin American seminar, organised on the initiative of the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF) and held under the auspices of UNESCO in Lima (Peru) on October 25-28, 1974. There were representatives from 54 women’s organisations, and the position of women in the field of education was thoroughly reviewed. In her speech, for instance, the representative from Brazil stated that 46 per cent of the population in 238 her country was illiterate (half of them women). Of this number, five million girls and women aged 13 to 29, could neither read nor write at all.

p In the survey of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America on Education, Human Resources and Development in Latin America it was said that at the end of the 1960s these countries numbered 64 million people (i.e., 79 per cent of the continent’s able-bodied population) whose level of education did not even come up to three years of elementary school. Potentially, they already belonged to the illiterate part of the population. To this number should be added another 50 million people who cannot read or write, and 33 million children who have no chance to go to school.

p The position of the working mothers is perhaps the hardest. In most Latin American countries women are entitled to only 50 per cent of their wages for pregnancy and childbirth leave. The inadequacy of the grants and fear of being discharged from work make women conceal the fact that they are pregnant for as long as possible and go back to work too soon after childbirth to the detriment of the baby’s health, to say nothing of their own.

p In Paraguay, to have enough food for the family parents are obliged to send their children out to work. And this is the main reason why so many pupils drop out of school. From every hundred children starting school no more than ten reach sixth form. Textbooks are in short supply. The salary paid to a village school-teacher is one of the lowest in the country, and yet eight thousand trained teachers cannot iind work.

p The members of the seminar were greatly impressed by the speech of Cuba’s delegate Aleida 239 Legón who described the .successful campaign lo eliminate illiteracy, launched after the victorious Revolution in her country raise the general educational, political and cultural level of the women, and draw them into Ihe work of building up a new society.

p Today, Cuba’s women have access to all levels of education: from elementary schools to university. Some 50 per cent of all elementary school pupils are girls. In the senior forms girls make up 56 per cent of the student body, 16.8 per cent in technical and vocational schools, and 43 per cent in the institutions of higher learning.

p The number of young women going in for the natural sciences is on the increase and comprises 48.9 percent of the students attending this department. While hardly any women went in for the technical sciences before the Revolution, today they make up 18.4 per cent of the future engineers. Young women comprise 27.3 per cent of the students training for agronomists and veterinary surgeons, 38.9 per cent of the future economists, and 45.2 per cent of the doctors.

p The seminar drew up a number of recommendations which, if put into practice, would help create conditions for involving women into political, socio-economic and public life of their respective countries. In the summing up it was stated in particular, that discrimination in the matter of the women’s right to choose their own profession could be liquidated only provided that radical changes were made in the socio-political structure of society.

p The seminar in Peru was also an impressive demonstration of solidarity with the peoples of Chile, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia and other countries under military-dictatorship regimes.

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In recent years the question of achieving genuine equality for women has assumed prominence in the work of international, regional and national democratic trade unions, women’s and other mass organisations of Latin America. The struggle for total liquidation of all and every form of discrimination against women is no longer a purely "women’s" problem, and is gaining with every day in political importance for all the working people of Latin America.