In the Southeast Asian region, working poor women account for 30 percent of vulnerable and unpaid family workers. The traditional values in society have put women of the lower economic strata namely the working-poor in a vulnerable position, where they are stigmatized for lacking skills and capacity.
The content of this book is upon of the discussion in the Fourth Asian Roundtable on Social Security meeting which was co-organised by AMRC and the University of Philippines in Manila. The book includes country reports on social protection in Asia, overview on the road to social protection in Asia, outcome of the conference, among others. The book serves to provide comprehensive information on social protection for all from the labour perspective in Asia.
In looking at Batam FTZ, Singaporeplays an important role in gaining the economic and political power over the region. The rapid development of the electronics industry and booming economic growth in late 1980s encouraged Singaporeto aggressively open up new production spaces and seek new supplies of cheap labour, land and water from its neighbour, Indonesia. The concept of the logic of territorial power applies here.
The chapter on SEZs in Indiaby Surendra Pratap focuses on two SEZs in Andhra Pradesh, the Kakinada SEZ of East Godavari District and the Brandix India Apparel City SEZ of Vishakhpattanam District. Kakinada SEZ is situated in the East Godavari District on the northeast coast of Andhra Pradesh. It is bordered on the north by Visakhapatnam District and the State of Orissa, on the east and south by the Bay of Bengaland on the west by Khammam and West Godavari Districts.
A study on BPO in the Philippines, by the Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research, Inc. (EILER), focuses on the development of a new variant of the zone which has emerged with the rapid development of information technology. As pointed in this chapter, a new generation of SEZ policies in the Philippineswere introduced in 1995 with the signing of the SEZ Act.
Referring to the four phases of the transformation of the zone, the third phase, the establishment of the SEZ in China, transformed the general understanding of the concept of an economic zone. The zone became a laboratory for economic and political change and explicitly political. The chapter on China SEZs by Apo Leong and Surendra Pratap captures the development of the zone in Chinafrom its earliest days to the latest political developments in 2011.
The paper discusses the development of the zone in Malaysiaas the country pursues its ambition to become the regional hub for the economic growth. In 2007, Malaysiagovernment put into action its plan for the establishment of the economic corridors in five designated regions in Malaysia.
In 1998, AMRC published “We in The Zone” describing the working condition within EPZs in 10 countries, those are Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and China. In general the book describes the situation experienced by most of women workers working in EPZs.