FEMINIST RESPONSES TO DECADES OF DISPOSSESSION AND GLOBAL SHOCKS

If these exports are priced out of the US market with the 44% tariff on Sri Lanka, then a major short fall in foreign earnings can even undermine the import of essential goods

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What will be the future of this mass of exploited women workers who have faced one shock after another, from the Covid pandemic five years ago to the economic disruption three years ago?

The spectre of such a disruption overshadowed the Feminist Economics Conference organised by the International Development Economics Associates (IDEAS) and the Law and Society Trust (LST) on April 5, 2025, in Colombo, titled 'Women, Development and Social Transformation'. However, these global shocks also descend on an international economic system that has for decades become more and more precarious, particularly for women.

The last five decades in particular have seen both repeated and deepening capitalist crises, but also capitalist accumulation that extends and deepens the exploitation of working people, particularly women, over this long period.

Feminist analysis

The conference presenters coming from Asia, Africa and Latin America, along with Sri Lankan Anthropologists Farzana Haniffa and Nida Kirmani presented research on the societal norms and institutional processes that make women workers in both the garment sector and retail sector precarious and subject to abuse.