[sustran] fwd: Faring Badly: The Gender Aspects of Travelling

[SUSTRAN Resource Centre]

Dear sustran-discussers

An interesting article on gender and urban transport issues with a focus on
Bangkok.

The full version of this article can be found at:
http://www.oneworld.org/panos/news/35nov99.htm

PANOS-RESEARCH/1

Faring Badly: The Gender Aspects of Travelling
By Teena Gill

BANGKOK (PANOS) - Every evening as housemaid Jue Petchwong gets off the bus
that drops her home from work she thanks her lucky stars - for surviving
the trip.

While the Thai capital, notorious for its nerve-wracking traffic jams, is
not exactly kind to any of the city’s millions of commuters it is
particularly harsh on low-income women, who make up the bulk of the city’s
teeming migrant workforce.

Among daily hazards Jue has to brave are an inefficient and crowded public
transport service, expensive and often unsafe private transport and
physical insecurity while travelling both during the day and at night.

"I have little choice," says Jue - she cannot afford taxis, and cheap
transport other than buses, such as ferries and motorcycle-taxis are too
unsafe and, in any case, do not cover the areas where she works.

Transportation is a major issue: over 70 percent of the labour force in
factories around Bangkok is made up of women, who also account for a large
portion of the city’s over-one-million workforce in the informal sector.

"The main problems with Bangkok’s public transport system are inadequate
services and relatively high tariffs for quality services," says Dr
Nimitchai Snitbhan, who works on transport issues at the Thailand
Development Research Institute (TDRI), a Bangkok-based policy think-tank.

This is not a problem unique to Bangkok or developing countries.
......

See http://www.oneworld.org/panos/news/35nov99.htm for the full article.
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Distributed for the purpose of education and research.

A. Rahman Paul BARTER
SUSTRAN Resource Centre
Information services for the Sustainable Transport Action Network
for Asia and the Pacific (the SUSTRAN Network)
sustran at po.jaring.my,  http://www.malaysiakini.com/sustran