Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

The eighth CADTM South Asia regional workshop was successfully held in Colombo (Sri Lanka) from February 18-19, 2020 with participants from Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Morocco, Belgium and France. Around forty delegates, representing social movements (peasants’ movements, feminists, trade unions, students, etc.), came together for this two-day long programme. Among the topics that received much attention was the issue of micro credit that is causing mass indebtedness in the region. The meeting adopted several action agenda to actively fight the issue of private and public debt, as part of a destructive capitalist system. The workshop brought out the perspective of victims of the debt scam and of activists mobilising around the demand for an audit of the public and private debts in order to repudiate illegitimate debts.

Below is the presentation by Nalini Ratnarajah, member of South Asia Alliance of Poverty Eradication (SAAPE) from Sri Lanka. Nalini spoke about feminisation of debt caused by micro-credit since it specifically target women.