Tape #504 - Women Migrant Farm Workers

My name is Jerry Howell and I work at USDA's Food and Nutrition Service and I'm a Nutritionist there. This particular workshop this morning is women in agriculture development and we are going to have one speaker this morning and than there will be an opportunity to have your questions answered. Our speaker is from Indonesia and I'm going to be introducing her but if you have a question, we need to ask you to either come forward and we will hand you the mike so that your question can be recorded. All the sessions are tape recorded that so that people can purchase them later. If you don't wish to come up to the mike than we will repeat your question and than answer it. After the questions regarding the presentation, there may be some opportunity for further discussion and if we have an opportunity to do that than Ann Eflan, from USDA's Economic Research Service will moderate some discussion on any further issues.

Our speaker this morning is Wyoo Annie Witiotti, and she is a teacher of Social Economics and on the Agriculture Faculty at Wityagami University in Malang East Java, Indonesia. She does her concentration in Women's Studies. She is a member and researcher in the World Development Foundation which is a non-governmental organization in Malang East Java. The title of her presentation this morning is Profile and Motivation of Women Migrant Workers in Red Chile Farming. So please welcome our speaker.

Good morning. Thank you. This is an honor to be here to be able to present my research in Indonesia. The title of my presentation is Profile and Motivation of Women Migrant Farm Workers in Red Chili Farming.

{?} country most people live in rural areas and earn their living from an agriculture sector. Since population growth is one of the main factors causing poverty it is a necessity to increase the ability of the agriculture sector in asserting workers. In this case, they all are farming in Flopian countries. In Indonesia, not only serves as a food producer to fulfill the population needs, but also as an umbrella for labor force to get jobs. The greatest percentage of Indonesian people is working in the agriculture sector, namely men and women, forty-eight percent and forty-one percent--they spec differly. The great number labor force in Batu subdistrict, Malang regency is dominated by women constituting fifty-four percent, while for men is just fifty-three percent. Dolangajo Village located in Batu subdistrict, Malang regency, is situated in the slope of Panagaman Mountain. This area has agriculture area leading to the recreational side of hot weather. The area is about 1,561 hectares and majority of plants cultivated is horticulture plants, such as potatoes, ordinary chili, cabbage, apples, tomatoes, onions, garlics, carrots, etc.. Therefore, land owning farmers need a lot of permanent workers to cultivate the land. However, the land owners often have difficulty in finding workers from inside the village or around the village, since in general the have their own lands and they prefer to go home every day. As a result they land from other areas in addition to the local workers. The workers from other areas outside of Batu district are than called migrant workers. There are two types of migrant workers, status, free daily workers and permanent workers. Free daily workers go home everyday, so they live far away. Permanent workers are migrant workers who stay within the village. This paper will describe the part case of women migrant workers who worked for Mr. Slamit. He is one of the rich farmers, who has 15 hectures of land and he cultivated most of his land, with ordinary chili plants. At the time, Mr. Slamit has 60 workers consisting of 20 women and 40 men. From the 20 women, 8 percent were permanent workers, and the rest were daily workers. From the 40 men only 15 percent became permanent workers. Land owning farmers had to bring workers from various areas to free them from activities. Most of them are from out of Milan Regency. At first, the employers usually look for workers from distant areas and when they need some more workers than they just ask their employees to look for workers in their home town. They found most of the migrant workers come from the same village or they have relatives (table 1 or present original town of the women migrant workers). The greatest percentage of the origin of migrant women workers are prepare and sumbatrombust. Maybe 20 percent each, and than followed by consumer managing and prejon and supramaria, 10 percent each.

From the 20 women migrant workers, eight percent were from {areas?} became permanent workers. They stayed together with the 15 men workers, mostly from the same original town. For accomodation of the workers, Mr. Slamit provided a place in the land. The place is made from wood, where the size of 5 X 7 made a square. This office divided in three rooms for those who lived with their spouse. This place is usually called a warehouse. Besides the warehouse, Mr. Slamit also provided a mussola which has double foundation, to pray and to sleep for men workers. For consumption, they arranged their own food. They established two groups and each group consisted of 12 people and had one kitchen. The cost of the consumption was sat together and Mr. Slamit, provided 6 ounces of rice per person. Grouping is usually based on their original towns, the reasons are that they would feel free, because they are relatives with each other, and they have the same pasts. As migrant workers, they rarely go home to save money, they just go to their home towns once in two or four months.

A profile of women migrant workers

Few from some aspects such as demographic social cultural and economic aspects. It turns out that women migrant workers have certain characteristics. The characteristics of women migrant workers moved out from the road signs since they have to live far away from their own family or even village. Consequently, the few are different from those people who live in their original environment. Productivity migrant home workers is influenced by their rates in the field, as a sector heavily dependent on physical strength the group was made based on workers aides. Productive workers are usually under thirty years-old. The distribute of women workers is presented in table 2. You can show that 95 percent of migrant women workers is under fifteen years-old. It was interesting to find that there was a worker 65 years-old. However, she looks younger than her actual age. It is understandable that the workers in the agriculture sector should work hard viewed from their working condition and types of activities. That is maybe an error, because in the village they don't regard her birth. They should work under huts. They also should work under hot sunlight from 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. with a little time to rest to have breakfast at about 8:30 until 9:00 a.m. In general, the women migrant workers are involved in various activities from land cultivation to processing, including breeding, planting, carrying, and harvesting. The difference in working between man and women is on the kind of activities. The man workers have more various activities, but in line with gender inter-analysism women are still loaded with various tasks, such as preparing food for others while the men are taking rest.

Level of education is one of social cultural aspect interesting to explore since this aspect deals with women's religious quality, rights, and ability to actualize themselves. A serious problem face is education. Women with low-level of education results in low-level of productivity, limitation in getting job opportunity, level of incomes, etc. Experiences from rurals, the migrant women workers have low level of education. In average, their education is elementary school. Besides formal education the women migrant workers have never gotten elucidation on farming. Compared with the men workers it turns out that their level of education is not so different. But the men workers have better access to a education elucidation of agriculture. Low-level of education and skill made them willing to work any job, including red chili farming, which needs good stamina and physical strength. So, they had to be migrant workers. From the 20 women migrant workers, 80 percent has marriage status, 10 percent unmarried, and 10 percent widow or widower. At the same time, from 8 permanent women workers, living in the place of accomodation, four persons are married, one person are widowed because of her husbands death, two persons, single. For married persons, two persons live with her husband and children, one person came together with her husband and one son, and more person lived with her husband with two girls or two daughters. Many task to choose {?} and friends on women migrant workers either those with permanent or daily workers for they have to live apart from their family and they have difficulty in meeting their biological needs because of the condition of the place they live in. For daily workers, the problem is that they have to do household chores after working in the field. Activities of the women migrant workers in the red chili farming is the women workers, especially the permanent ones, were actively involved in various kinds of jobs in agriculture from land processing to harvesting like the men, but the men were already active in jobs. The types of activities of migrant women and men workers are as follows in table 3.

Working Experience

As happens with women in any other village, working for women is not uncommon. Parents through processes of social decision have planned working values on the children since their childhood. The fall for women migrant workers working in an agriculture sector is not the new thing, though some of them once worked as workers in factories, dealers, and servants. Present are women workers that have earned their living before becoming migrant workers in an agriculture sector. Most of them, fifty percent once experienced as temporary workers in agriculture sector in their home towns with income of about one thousand to about three thousand a day. Some of them, 30 percent once were servants with income of 30,000 to 50,000 per month. More ever, there are some workers who once worked as tailors with the income of 2 dozen rupples to 4 dozen rupples per piece and as factory workers with the income of about 30,000 rupples to 40,000 rupples in pound.

Motivation as Women Migrant Workers

There are a lot of factors that motivated women to earn their own living. The main important factors was narrow land farm. From the sixteen households of migrant workers there was around 81 percent with no lands, the rest have just small land farm. This small land wouldn't be able to give enough incomes for their families with five members. It made the whole members of the families, either man or woman, responsible for earning some money to fulfill their needs. From some expansive research, it was found that motivation of women to be migrant workers and earning their living is to meet their needs, narrow land, farm, and to have their husband. It is recognized by 84 percent respondent and than helping husband in earning living is classical work, which is always spoken by women as wives, whatever job and salaries they get. It is implied that there is internalization of gender in the women themselves. The second reason is that their salaries as workers in an agriculture sector is their home town and not continues. They usually get seasonal work and after that they have no jobs. They find that they have to look for jobs outside their hometowns either as permanent or free workers. For permanent workers they feel satisfactory because they may hope permanent incomes. Though the incomes are under average compared to those in their hometowns. In their hometowns women workers and men workers may get 3,000 rupples to 5,000 rupples respectively by working from 7:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., while in the study women and men workers only earn about 2,500 rupples to 2,700 rupples, plus 6 ounces rice per person, respectively by working from 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. There are fourty-five percent women migrant workers realize that they don't have other skills to find out other jobs instead of this worker. Children tended together with their parents, some young woman had to quit their job because they had to follow their husbands.

Relationship Among Workers

Workers who work far away from their hometown generally feel closer each other. Especially since they usually came from the same areas. This relationship was much closer if they are relative of friend. The situation can be seem among those who live in the place provided by the employer. Relationship among daily women migrant workers. Daily paid migrant workers came from short distant places and didn't get jobs from the employer continuously everyday, but in certain times for {?} during land preparation and harvesting. The equipment for daily workers was made for permanent workers can not handle farm work. These daily workers were usually picked up from one area provided by the employer. There find they are very cohersive, it was reflected, if there are some demand for workers, they would contact each other. The relationships among permanent are closer compared to those of daily workers because permanent workers they share a house or warehouse at the center of farm land. Moreover, most of them come from the same home, home town, and are relatives or close friends. When going home, sometimes to their relatives, they often go together or in turn and ask them to give something to their relatives. This closeness is not just limited to physically but also emotionally. They will have one and each other especially when their is a friend who gets sick. Farming workers besides making relation among members of families living in a house but also among those living in the place. To get spare time they visit one and each other to catch anything almost every afternoon.

My Conclusions and Citations

{?} Red chili farming requires a lot of labor. These labors were mostly from outside the village and they are generally relatives each other, close friends, and families. The role of women workers were really significant especially in taking care of plants and harvesting of the chilis. Most of the women workers have married those that choose and they can not live separately from their families. In addition, women workers have additional work such as preparing dinner and breakfast. The main factors are for women to be great work to help husband, narrow land, farm, and know they could have jobs. Since the role of women is really significant it was suggested that all parties aware of the about gender equalities. Therefore, equal salaries between men and women with the same job can be created. To improve women quality agriculture expansion is expected to give information {?} to women workers since the {?} involved in farming. Also it is suggested that employers should guarantee medical care for workers in addition to place to live.

Slide Presentation

This is the profile of women migrant workers

The location of the study is close to a tourism area, such as Selecta, this area has beautiful scenery, gold and a lot of entertainment facilities, including swimming pools, hot water, etc. The name of the village is Tolonglago. One hundred killometers from Surabaya, 600 killometers from Takata, and 500 killometers from Gan Pasa Pali. Maybe a lot of people know Bali, but they don't know Indonesia. Their farm labor for agriculture and they have to take some labors from outside. This area has a cropping parten this "On Yun."

This is the place where the permanent workers they all live, this house is divided by three rooms and the size 5 X 7 meters square. Two rooms for two families and the other rooms for {?}. The men workers stay in the Musala. Musala has double function as a place for praying and sleeping. Sleeping by four men.

Kanchu and Matchin 23 people they stay in small houses. For their consumption they share the cost. Almost every 12 persons share one kitchen. Women workers are responsible to cook while men workers take a rest.

Permanent workers rarely go home to their original town. They will visit their relatives once in two to four months or even once a year.

Besides Mr. Slamit, there are many farmers like him. They save the ones for the permanent workers. Permanent workers are picked up by minute drops. Distribution of women migrant workers can be seen in {table 1?} This women worker think their attitude are happy. They have to start working at 6:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. And also in this place they live with other people. Usually in there original village they may start working at 7:30 a.m. Most of women workers graduated from elementary school. This is elementary school in Indonesia, it is the same with men workers, but men workers usually get additional training information from agriculture extensions. So women migrant workers, will take any work which needs good stamina and strength. This is a family, wife and husband, and her children. For permanent workers, this is really a difficult situation because they have to separate from their husband and family, especially their kids and their biological needs. Consequently, sometimes they divorce and their kids are not taken care well or her husband or herself commit adultery. Their problems are they still have to cook while their husband have to {vine forage ?} or to watch their livestocks.