LAOS:  Land Legislation Disempowers Women - Part 1

VIENTIANE, Sep 21 (IPS) -

 Ki is seven years old but looks more like
three. His legs are bowed and skull misshapen. He looked at me with a
blank stare. The health worker, Kheo, suggests rickets.

Rickets and beri beri or thiamine (B1) deficiency are still far too
common 19th century diseases in 21st century Laos.

The boy gets enough sun. It's the other nutrients, calcium, phosphorus
and dietary oils that are lacking. He is the worst effected of 93
other kids in his village who suffer chronic micronutrient deficiency.
His mother is herself severely stunted, being less than 150 cms tall.

Ki's people are hunters and foragers from the Annamite Ranges in Laos.
His father said the village was moved to enable the Vietnamese and Lao
military to mine gold high in the mountains. Soon they moved again to
make way for Vietnamese-run plantations.

When they landed in the valley of Attapeu, in Lao's south, the
villagers knew virtually nothing about farming. They still don't.
Instead they continue to search for food in the rapidly receding
forest, taking hungry children on up to 12-km hikes.

Lao's rapidly growing population (2.8 percent per annum) the majority
(85 percent) of whom are rural, suffer chronic food insecurity and
hunger. It is generally agreed that 50 percent of Lao children are
undersized, becoming stunted adults. Around 30-50 percent of children
are underweight, girls being generally less affected. Since they help
their mothers with searching for food, they get to eat as they forage.

Amongst women, 40 percent, of whom have been found to be anaemic,
childbirth complications and generally poor maternal health are the
outcomes.

In 1990, a Thai survey reported an infant mortality rate (IMR) of 116
per thousand births. Almost 20 years later a survey undertaken by the
public health unit of the Theun Hinboun Power company revealed an IMR
of 200 in the immediate community, representing a significant
worsening.

"Populations are growing, land area is shrinking. It's that simple,"
said Dr Sean Foley, a human ecologist.

An insatiable hunger for land that is driving economic growth has
usurped Lao's tradition of land being informally owned by women. The
greatest threat to women's power and resources in the rural areas is
posed by land legislation.

Lao's rural transition has involved collective and traditional
structures being transformed into privatisation led by individual land
ownership. The state is exploring every possibility to enrich its
treasury, and land tax offers substantial contributions.

A series of land certification projects resulted in a lot of land
being registered by the 'head of household' which by some ill-thought
out logic is usually a man. As land tax is based on production,
farmers are pressured to plant as many cash crops as possible with an
emphasis on rice and less on a variety of foods as grown by women.

Darryl Bullen, until recently head of public health with the Theun
Hinboun power company, identifies dams as a cause for hunger. There
are more than 60 hydropower projects in the pipeline. A senior
minister envisages Laos as the "battery of Asia".

"Dams really make life hard for people," he says. "They get moved off
land they have farmed. The relocated people generally get crappy land.
So they go hungry."

Lao has a new nutrition policy and draft strategy, created in a flurry
after donor concern surfaced, but as this story indicates, some doubt
that food policy can influence the reckless profiteering at regional
and national levels. Nor will policies make the soil more fertile or
the landscape less mountainous or easily change long held beliefs.

Listed as one of the least developed nations, revenue from taxation is
low and average per capita income dismal. But evidence of wealth is
appearing. A Lao supplying the Beijing Olympics with Lao forest timber
owns one of the number of Lamborghinis to be seen in Vientiane. He
plans an indoor swimming pool in his palatial house.

Land is cheap in Lao. Vietnamese and Chinese plantation owners pay as
little as 5 U.S. dollars per hectare over 10 years to raze forests and
plant rubber and eucalyptus. To mitigate fuel prices rises, biofuels
are also being grown. Toxic and unreliable jatropha, occupies
thousands of hectares of potentially arable land.

Kickbacks for granting land concessions and hotel and casino licenses
are said to be huge.

In June 2009, 200 hectares of prime riverfront land were granted to a
Korean company for a golf resort. In July, the Governor of Sekong
province admitted to the Vientiane Times there was insufficient land
left to feed the people of the province.

The Lao government is investing large amounts of money and national
pride in the December 2009 South East Asian games. The four lane
commemorative road is breaking up before it is completed.

The driver taking me south looked disdainfully at statues, the only
residents of a huge triumphal park near the SEA games site. "That’s
what is taking food from our mouths. When we can eat stadiums and
statues we will be fat."

(*This is the first of a two-part series on chronic malnutrition in
Laos. Part two focuses on cultural factors including food taboos.)
(END/2009)

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