Journal of Asian Women’s Studies Vol. 18

KFAW Report

Reports on KFAW Research Activities
at the 20th Kitakyushu Conference on Asian Women
The Kitakyushu Forum on Asian Women (KFAW) holds the Kitakyushu
Conference on Asian Women every fall. The 20th Conference was organized under thetheme “Women Now in the World―Viewing the World from Kitakyushu” on November
28th and 29th, 2009. On the second day, a KFAW researcher and KFAW visiting
researchers and their co-researchers reported on the results of their research andexchanged opinions with participants. The abstracts of the presentations are as follows.
1. Achievements and Challenges in Promotion of Female Education: A Case ofKerala, India by Masako Ota*
The State of Kerala, which is located in the southwest of India, stretches
south-north and faces the Arabian Sea. It is endowed with rich greenery and is popular
as a tropical resort among tourists. It is also widely known as the “Kerala Model” in thefield of Development Studies. This is because Kerala has achieved a high level of social
development in such fields as education and health, despite being at a low level ofeconomic development.
Life expectancy at birth for India is 62.6 years for men and 64.2 years for women,
while Kerala records 71.4 years for men and 76.3 years for women. The infant mortality
rate for India is 55 per thousand live births. The corresponding figure for Kerala is 13,
which is lower than that of Brazil (31) and Russia (14). In particular, the highachievements in education are noteworthy. Almost all boys and girls in Kerala areenrolled in primary school and only 3% do not complete ten years of education.(1) The
literacy rates are 94.2% for men and 87.9% for women, which is equivalent to levels inSingapore. In India as a whole, around six out of ten children drop out of school before
reaching the 10th standard. The literacy rate is 65% and the gap in the rates between
men and women is as high as 18.3%.(2)The backgrounds to these high achievements have already been reported by many
researchers. They point out four main reasons. Firstly, rulers of Princely States werevery keen to educate people. Secondly, during the same period, Christian missionaries
promoted education, especially education for girls. Thirdly, the matrilineal system of* Senior Researcher, Kitakyushu Forum on Asian Women (KFAW)(1)

Ten years of education means completion of high school. At the end of the 10th grade, students take aboard examination which is considered as an important qualification in the Indian education system.
(2)
Sources: UNDP (2008) Human Development Report 2007/08. New York: UNDP. and Ministry ofFinance, Government of India (2009) Economic Survey 2008-2009. New Delhi: Government of India.

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Journal of Asian Women’s Studies Vol. 18

inheritance was widely practiced: it attached importance to girls as well as boys.
Fourthly, after independence, the Communist party took office and aimed to establish anequal society by vigorously pushing through land reforms and social policies, including
education and health.
There is no doubt about the high level of female education achieved in Kerala interms of various educational indicators. However, an attempt was made to research on
the present issues in female education, the changes education has brought about forwomen, and what challenges remain in realizing a gender-equal society. For thisobjective, fieldwork was conducted in Kerala for nine days in September 2009 throughvisits and interviews with officers of the Education Department, Government of Kerala,teachers and students of government and private schools from the pre-primary level tohigher education, researchers on gender and staff of NGOs working with women.(3)In these interviews, many people responded that there are no differences between
men and women in Kerala, but challenges similar to those women in Japan and othercountries are facing appeared to exist. The educational level of women in Kerala has
become higher, and more women have started working outside the home. Both singleand married women are now in the workforce not only in Kerala, but also in other statesand overseas. As a result, women’s economic power has been recognized. This has leadto an increase in their mobility and changes in expectations and conditions in themarriage market.
Nonetheless, there remain deep-rooted conservative cultures and practices, such as
the male-dominated society, rigid gender-roles, and a marriage system which favors
men. Furthermore, women who want to pursue careers are struggling with expectations
on economic contributions and balancing work both outside and within the household.
This is a similar situation to the one that many women in the world are facing at present.
When asked about the future development of gender issues in Kerala, one female
researcher said,“Unless men change, the situation will not change.”
It takes a long to transform society. However, in order to realize a gender-equalsociety, everyone, men and women alike, has to make efforts to become aware of genderissues. It is of vital importance for the Kitakyushu Forum on Asian Women to continue
its activities towards the creation of a just society by developing linkages with womenin Asia and other regions.

(3)

Under the research theme of this fiscal year, “Empowerment of Women in Asia,” visits were made tothe states of Kerala and Andhra Pradesh in India. The survey in Kerala was a part of a research project
which was headed by Associate Professor Noriko Hattori of Hyogo University of Teacher Education andfunded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan.

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Journal of Asian Women’s Studies Vol. 18

2. Child Health under Conflict and Disaster Condition in Sri Lanka from the Pointof View of Gender by Ikuko Seki* and Naomi Imamura**
All over the world marginalized women and children suffer injury and death
resulting from war. Despite the fact that children are the next generation, such tragedies
occur all around the globe. War and natural disaster alters the nature of community andfamily, and we believe that this disruption in lifestyle affects the mental and physicalhealth of children.
Nurses involved in international rescue tend to focus on the health of adults who
can make pleas themselves; however, they need to pay their attention to the mental
health of children, because children are affected by their environment but are incapableof making pleas themselves.
Therefore, in July of 2009, we conducted a survey of junior high school students inTrincomalee District in the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. It was six
months after the end of the 25-year war was declared and approximately five years after
the 2004 Sumatra earthquake and tsunami occurred. In our presentation, we report on
the results of the survey as well as general information on Sri Lanka.
General Information on Sri Lanka
Map 1. Map of Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, previously known as
Ceylon, means “resplendent land.” In 5thcentury B.C. Sinhalese migrated from
north India and established kingdoms. In
the beginning of the 16th century, it wascolonized by Portugal, Holland, andEngland. Sri Lanka obtained their
independence from England in 1948.
Conflicts between Hindu Tamils andBuddhist Sinhalese have been occurring
since the second century, and continued
throughout the kingdom period andcolonization period. Such conflicts still remain today, complicated by the additional
post-independence ideological conflicts.
Sri Lanka is located in south Asia, 7,500 km west of Japan. It has a total area ofapproximately 65,600 ㎢ (thirteen times the size of Fukuoka Prefecture) and a
population of approximately 20 million (four times that of Fukuoka Prefecture). The
form of government is a republic. Its capital is Sri Jayewardenepura Kotte, but its*

Visiting Researcher, KFAW/Professor, The Japanese Red Cross Kyushu International College ofNursing**
Co-researcher, KFAW/Graduate Student, The Japanese Red Cross Kyushu International College ofNursing26

Journal of Asian Women’s Studies Vol. 18

administrative center lies in Colombo. The climate is tropical monsoon. Its majorindustries are agriculture and textiles. Its main commodity is black tea and it is the thirdlargest producer of tea in the world.
The main ethnic groups are Sinhalese, Tamils, and Sri Lanka Moors. Its main
languages are Sinhala, Tamil, and English. Its school system consists of five years ofprimary school, four years of secondary school and two years of higher secondaryschool, two years of high school, and four years of university education. Compulsory
education is eleven years, for which the school attendance rate is 90%.
Sri Lanka is divided into nine provinces and 25 districts. Trincomalee District islocated on the eastern coast.
Table 1. Health indicators for Sri Lanka and Japan
Maternity
InfantUnder-five
mortality
Immunization
GDP perLife
mortality
mortality
ratio
againstcapitaexpectancy
rate
rate
(permeasles/DPT(US$)(years)(per 1,000(per 1,000100,000(%)
live births)
live births)
live births)
Sri Lanka
4,595
71.6
12
1458
98
Japan
31,26782.3
34698
Sources: UNDP (2006), Human Development Report 2007/08, WHO (2009), World Health Statistics
2009.

3. Transnational Migration from Southeast Asia to East Asia and theTransformation of Reproductive Labor by Reiko Ogawa*, Frank Tsen-YungWang†, Hsiao Chun, Hannah‡, Liu, and Kim Eunshil§
The three countries and regions in East Asia namely Korea , Taiwan , Province ofChina and Japan have a great similarity in terms of population demography : low fertility
rate and aging society . The change in demographic structure and other factors has lead tothe recent transnational flow of migration from Southeast Asia to supplement the shortageof workers both in productive and reproductive labor . This phenomenon is particularly
salient in the field of reproductive labor where the ‘importing’ of the body of the Southeast
Asian women either in the form of international marriage and/or care workers is taking
place . East Asia has become a migration market for the Southeast Asians through twodynamics <feminization of migration > and <globalization of reproductive work > wherethe care work has increasingly becoming shouldered by migrant women. The research aims
to compare the policy, institutions and discourses among Korea,*Visiting Researcher, KFAW/Associate Professor, Kyushu University Asia Center
Co-researcher, KFAW/Associate Professor, National Yang Ming University (Taiwan, Province of China)‡ Co-researcher, KFAW/Assistant Professor, Shih Chien University (Taiwan, Province of China) § Coresearcher, KFAW/Professor, Ewha Womans University (Korea) (was not present at the Conference)†27

Journal of Asian Women’s Studies Vol. 18

Taiwan , Province of China and Japan as well as the social support systems for
migrant women and problematize how these societies deal with care andreproductive labor under the demographic transformation.
Compared to the Western countries where the migrants encompass different sectorsof the society, East Asia has a shorter experience in receiving migrants. The issue ofhuman rights and citizenship of migrants is also an emerging issue but has not yet being
widely discussed as part of the political agenda. While the migration streams are both
the reflections of structural conditions in the capitalist economy and individual decisionof migrants, it is equally important to recognize that gender differences in migration are
the outcome of different gender roles that has been constructed in determining which
occupations male and female are likely to enter.
In Japan, since the 1980s a large number of ‘entertainers’ were introduced under the‘entertainment visa’ which brought contestation especially among feminist groups thatthe system wittingly allows human trafficking and sexual exploitation. After 20 years,
many ex-entertainers are settled as wives and mothers of Japanese nationals and now
increasingly turning into care work as a more socially respectable occupation. While theex-entertainers are struggling to shift from entertainment to care work, a new batch ofnurses and caregivers from Southeast Asia started entering Japan under the Economic
Partnership Agreement (EPA) underpinned by different logic of promoting free trade.
Mediated by the state, care work now became a frontier of globalization without
reflection on the gendered nature of the state.
In Taiwan , Province of China, there is a strong discourse in maintaining ‘ family care
’ and care for one’s elderly is seen as a major doctrine in traditional Chinese family ethics .
By allocating ‘care ’ in the private sphere , the state minimizes its role in the provision ofelder care which paved the way for care to go to the market . Since 1992 the importation of
migrant household workers has become a source of cheapest and affordable care due to theretrenchment of the state expenditure in establishing adequate nursing homes. However ,the entitlement of migrant care workers is extremely restricted as they are excluded fromthe protection of Labor Standard Law and there is a need for social policy that guarantees
the human right of migrant workers . The comparison between Japan and Taiwan ,Province of China provides an excellent example between the role of the state and themarket in mediating the migration of care workers and their incorporation into the socialwelfare regime.
Aside from the migrant care workers, the issues of foreign brides which wittingly orunwittingly undertake care are discussed. The economic disparity between East andSoutheast Asia created flows of foreign brides to marry husbands with wider age gaps in
Taiwan, Province of China, Korea and Japan where the line between migrant care worker
and marriage migrant become blurred.
In Taiwan, Province of China, the foreign brides from mainland China and Southeast
Asia are increasing within the past decades. In order to provide support to foreign brides,
County Family Services Center for Foreign Spouses was establishedsince 2004 with currently

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33 centers operating all over Taiwan, Province of China. Through action research, the roleof social work in providing social services to foreign brides has been discussed . The staterun system of social services has an equivocal effect of becoming sites of control by thestate to exert its power over the bodies of foreign brides as well as providing space andresources for social workers to support the foreign brides.
In Korea, from the early 1990s marriage migrants from China and Southeast Asian
countries came to marry to men living in rural areas where single men were left alone
without wives. Here marriage is supposed to solve reproductive labor for families inneed. Korean government does not permit foreign women to migrate to work in
reproductive sector except Koreans from abroad and marriage migrant women. In termsof policies for migrants, marriage migrants are the only people for Korean government
to consider as their subject for policies while migrant workers are supposed to leave
Korea after their work contract. Since 2001 the government began to consider marriage
migrant women seriously under the idea that they are reproducing Koreans andproviding cares for Koreans and brought them as target group for supporting polices. Asof 2009, 100 multicultural family centers are established to help marriage migrant
women to understand and assimilate Korean society better in terms of educating Korean
language, child care and way of life in rural area; living in all over Korea.
The overall research examines and compares the nature of flow of Southeast Asian
women to East Asia and discusses the prospects of incorporation of Southeast Asian
women into our ‘imagined community.’

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