Martha D’Souza was not happily married. Mother of four children, her husband was the only
breadwinner for the family. Due to alcoholism, he abused Martha daily. However,
with his income, she could run the family expenses. After his death, she had no
income coming into household and had to manage the expenses by doing domestic
chores for the families in the village. There are many women who will be able
to relate to Martha. These are micro problems which lead to the big question of
how much importance is given to these livelihood issues.
With a price hike in almost every commodity, it is a huge
challenge for women of even affordable families to go over their budget. A mere
walk into the market to buy basic food items like fruits, vegetables and ration
can cost over thousands of Rupees. Rekha Pandit from Santa Cruz, manages her
home with her elder son and her own salary. “You can no longer survive on one
person’s salary. My entire income goes for the rent and with his salary, I pay
the bills and buy ration. Everything is cooked at home and neither of my
children eat out. In the morning, I pack their tiffin and cook food and leave
for work. Besides spending all the money in a month, I still save Rs 500 for
next month. Sickness and guests come anytime and we have to be prepared to
shell out more money at that time,” explains Rekha.
Women are facing poverty and livelihood issues. Though there are
subsidies for women, the amount of those schemes is hardly enough to tackle
these problems. Women living in poverty are more vulnerable to exploitation and
even sexual harassment at work can be linked to this problem. Those who cannot
afford to lose the job will continue being abused. Sabina Martins, convenor of Bailancho
Saad, recently had a meeting with women from Bardez in Mapusa as they could
not even afford to travel to Panjim. The meeting brought several issues due to
finance to light.
“Women’s biggest problems are related to their livelihood.
Children and women are abused due to poverty. There is a section of people who
live a very lavish and flamboyant life in Goa but that doesn’t mean there is no
poverty. There are urban rich and poor as well as rural rich and poor. For a
single mother, she has to manage the bills and the basic commodities with her
income. Cooking gas itself cost Rs 760 and with electricity and water bills and
ration, it is not an easy job to maintain their finances. Each woman has a
problem and there are no blanket solutions to them,” says Sabina.
She further adds, “For working women too, if the husband is
abusive, he will beat her and take away all her money and finish it on alcohol
without considering about her and their children. It is important that women
are economically empowered and not socially dependent on violent people. The
government has to take responsibility to find out whether everyone has the
basic necessities of food, clothing and shelter. The current amount that the
Government is giving women in the form of schemes is very small compared to
what the commodities cost and cannot provide a decent livelihood.”
There
are husbands who pay heed to financial problems but the burden is often left on
the shoulders of the women to stock up the home and attend to the needs of the
children. We often hear the terms of healthy eating or go green, but for that
you need to spend money on fruits and vegetable regularly. These families are
surviving on the basic ration items like rice, dal and atta.
