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THEME: Women’s weaving activities have benefited from market information and related training.
IFAD has been involved in promoting women’s weaving activities in Lao PDR among Lao Lum, Lao Theung and Lao Soung ethnic groups. The activities are being implemented by the Lao Women’s Union (LWU). A study undertaken in 2000 in the context of an IFAD technical assistance grant to the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) produced some relevant lessons about market relationships and gender impact.
Lao Lum women have traditionally done weaving for household use. Weaving skills are passed down from mother to daughter. But with the arrival of cheap, ready-made clothing on the market, many women stopped weaving. When the area opened up to Thai markets, merchants introduced new designs for woven material, and women found that they could sell as much as they could produce.
While markets existed, women faced two main constraints: skills to produce the new woven materials and access to looms for weaving. The new weaving techniques and designs could no longer be passed down in the family, but had to be learned from village outsiders who were familiar with them. LWU therefore organized group training sessions of around one month each, and helped trainees acquire looms. The training strategy has a built-in multiplication approach, with trainees required to teach others. Members of trainees’ families assist in building the frames for weaving.
The weaving activities spread particularly rapidly in the Lao Lum villages, where they had a traditional basis, but are also having some success in Lao Theung and Lao Soung villages. It is reported that even some men are now weaving. The study noted several impacts of women’s weaving:
- Women are spending as much as 12 hours a day on weaving, sometimes with daughters and even husbands helping to prepare the threads for them.
- Many women who used to work in the fields, or go to the forest with their husbands to collect and process forest products, now rarely do so, except when prices for woven materials drop (usually during February to May).
- Women who weave cloth of the new design can earn relatively well, even if they sell to the merchants who supply them with raw material (earning about 300–400 baht per piece or somewhere between 6 and 12 US Dollars depending on the volatile exchange rate during the study period).
- The profit margin is better if women sell the products themselves at the Thai border, than if they sell in the village (with the women earning about 8-10% more).
- Women’s mobility has increased owing to travel to border villages, with some women going as frequently as once a month.
- Women make the journey to do the actual marketing, although their husbands will sometimes accompany them on the trip. (Often they also buy the cheaper consumer goods while they are at the market.)
- Women are unable to stock their woven materials because of lack of capital, thus being forced to sell those ready for the market during the low demand season instead of waiting for the better market prices of November and December.
- Husbands are reported to do more household work, especially cooking. Some men have also taken over the previously female tasks of raising small livestock, such as chickens and pigs, thus freeing up their wives’ time for weaving.
The study noted that it is usually the women in these villages who keep the household money. It is reported that when men want to buy something, they have to ask the women for cash. Therefore, it is likely that women’s earnings from weaving also affect family well-being.
The study has highlighted the value of highly targeted training and of market-oriented promotion of women’s income-generating activities, in this case, weaving. Increased women’s income has had an impact on household division of labour and women’s mobility and empowerment.
Adapted from:
Kyoko, Kusakabe, & Swe, Yee Yee. 2000. Northern Sayaboury Rural Development Project – Lao PDR Strengthening Gender Initiatives in IFAD Projects Case Study. Rome: IFAD.
