Namrata Sharma

Over the last few decades, microfinance has proved to be a very important contributor to poverty alleviation. Microfinance provides financial services to the poor. The microfinance industry has established the fact that the poor people are bankable and credit worthy and is providing financial services to the segment usually left unserved by the mainstream financial sector. There is still a big demand for financial services for the poor people in the world, and it will take a lot more effort to meet the demand wholly. However, it will not be an exaggeration to say that the sector has commenced commendable work in servicing the poor people, particularly women, with very much needed financial services.

Effective tool
The microfinance sector mainly provides financial services to women and has proved to be an effective tool for empowerment as the majority of the members/clients of the sector are poor women. But the question now is — have the women become the owners of the industry? The need of today is for the women to be the users, managers and owners of the industry. This can happen only if they become visible and are heard. Also it can happen when the majority of women participating in microfinance can make decision over the use of household assets and not just a fragment. Based on my own practical experiences from working in Nepal, India and Kenya, setting up microfinance institutions, doing research and conducting training in the sector, I have realised that gender issues are very important in this sector like all other sectors, too.
Microfinance which was started more from a welfare approach of various governments as part of their poverty alleviation strategy has now become an industry striving towards financial sustainability. Majority of the clients are still women as they are seen to be disciplined with financial transactions. The industry claims to empower them however questions are being raised as to whether the microfinance industry has done enough to achieve an overall empowerment of its clients? Or is it actually making women a mere tool for improving the livelihood of the overall household? And why have the women not become owners and controllers of the industry especially as they make more than 90 per cent clientele?
The case of a woman member of a microfinance organisation in Tamil Nadu, India always stays in my mind. “Earlier I was neglected, but now they know that money comes from me, so my respect has gone up among family members” she told me. This lady got married then joined Bullock Cart Worker’s Development Association (BWDA), a microfinance institution based in Villipuram, Tamil Nadu. Started as a trade union, it now has a separate microfinance operation. She says that she has always been working hard and now is working even more but after joining BWDA, she is treated differently by her family members and her self-esteem has gone up. As she did not have a child, her husband and in-laws neglected her. Her husband married another woman and she was ill-treated. She had to live with her brother and his family. There too her status was very low and neglected.
With her involvement in BWDA, she began to prove her mettle, becoming a group leader. She also started taking loan and bringing money into the family. She opened a snack shop and started making regular income from which she started paying the rent, electricity and water bill at her brother’s house. This, she proudly, claims has increased her status in the family. “I need to work more to repay my loan on time so I wake up earlier in the morning and also take up more work in the evening,” She told me smiling. She also stressed on the fact that although her income benefited other members of the family, it was her lone responsibility to repay the loan. She did not mind the extra work, as for the first time now she personally felt satisfied as her family members were finally treating her with respect.
During a meeting with members of microfinance services in different parts of the world, most of them say that they benefited from the programme as it mainly helped to increase their self-esteem and generate respect for them, both in the family and the community. Those who had taken loan also said that they had to take the overall responsibility of repaying the loan even though most of them said that the loan was used by the husbands in their business. In some cases, the women agreed that husbands and other family members helped in the repayment, but in general the responsibility of repaying the loan always fell on them.

Women’s responsibility
Therefore, they had to make sure that they worked more to repay the loan. Here, it must be noted that although the benefit of the loan went to the whole family and women had to work harder to repay it, there was usually no help in their household chores. If there were girl children in the family they helped, otherwise the household chores like cooking, cleaning, child care remained mainly the women’s responsibility no matter what income they brought from outside.
Women also mentioned that they had “heartaches” until they repaid the loan on time as it was a prestige issue not to default. Some women mentioned that they get up at four AM in the morning to finish the household chores before going to work as agricultural labourers. They also mentioned that they do extra shifts in the afternoon and evening and still have to return to complete the household chores. Therefore, in the name of empowerment the work burden of women has been increased by programmes designed by governments and donors which now need to be reviewed and revised.

(Namrata Sharma is a senior journalist and women rights advocate.namrata1964@yahoo.comTwitter handle: NamrataSharmaP)