tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/economic-exploitation-26021/articleseconomic exploitation – The Conversation2017-05-02T14:39:42Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/752502017-05-02T14:39:42Z2017-05-02T14:39:42ZHow Pakistani and Indian women confront marital economic abuse<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165701/original/image-20170418-32713-cyh1bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">via shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Although <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137570468">disputes over finances</a> are known to be common in South Asian families, relatively little is known about the prevalence and severity of economic abuse of women from these backgrounds. </p>
<p>In a <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2017-15493-001/">new study</a>, I spoke with 84 mothers with dependent children from Pakistani Muslim and Gujarati Hindu backgrounds in Britain, India and Pakistan about their household finances and economic well-being. The women had a range of occupational backgrounds and the majority of them were living with their husbands or with <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2011.02047.x">extended family</a>. Out of the 84 women, 33 reported one or more forms of economic abuse.</p>
<p>I found that many women are suffering from economic abuse in silence, although they do not accept it as a natural or cultural phenomenon. Some are fighting back in their own way, but their battles are limited by the socio-economic and legal resources available to them. </p>
<h2>Tight control</h2>
<p>Economic abuse, which is recognised as a type of <a href="http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/vaw/violenceagainstwomenstudydoc.pdf">domestic violence by the UN</a> and also by the <a href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100418065544/http:/www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/2003-cons-domestic-violence-cons/domesticviolence2835.pdf?view=Binary">UK</a>, <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20130301005246/http://wcd.nic.in/wdvact.pdf">India</a>, and some provinces in <a href="http://www.af.org.pk/Acts_Fed_Provincial/Sindh_Acts_since_2002/Sindh%20%202013/The%20Domestic%20Violence%20%28Prevention%20and%20Protection%29%20Act,%202013.pdf">Pakistan (for example Sindh)</a>, can come in <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/172219916?selectedversion=NBD51044205">a number of forms</a>. For example, husbands can prevent their wives from acquiring or using financial resources, refuse to contribute to household expenses or exploit their wives’ earning and belongings. </p>
<p>The actual <a href="http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/media/london-metropolitan-university/london-met-documents/faculties/faculty-of-social-sciences-and-humanities/research/child-and-woman-abuse-studies-unit/Review-of-Research-and-Policy-on-Financial-Abuse.pdf">prevalence of economic abuse</a> in England and Wales is not known but research suggests that around 50% or more of all women in abusive relationships experience financial abuse. </p>
<p>The women I spoke to reported suffering <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2017-15493-001/">several forms of economic abuse</a>. Ruchi*, a first-generation British Gujarati homemaker explained to me how she was unable to earn money due to the restrictions placed on her by her husband. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>He said ‘you can only work if the timings are like 11 to three’. So finish all the work at home first before going to office, then be home for children when they come back! </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Other women also told me it was impossible to be economically independent – especially those living in Britain who faced discrimination from employers because of their ethnicity and migration status. </p>
<p>I heard from women whose <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/D/bo20848810.html">customary marriage gifts</a> had been exploited by their husbands and in-laws. This included a dowry or gold, given to them by their parents and in-laws at the time of their wedding and considered for their exclusive use. Iffat, a homemaker in Pakistan, said she was asked to sell all her gold to pay for documents for her husband’s employment. She told me her husband promised to return all her gold but did not, and instead spent it on another woman who he was having an affair with.</p>
<p>Falak, who lives in the UK, remembered how she paid for everything while her husband was sending his earnings to Pakistan to his parents and building properties which were in his name. She told me: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was working, he was working, but it’s sort of his money was for him and his family back home and I provided for myself and for the children. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Household finance remains a taboo, therefore much of the economic abuse remains hidden. One of the women I interviewed in the UK, Hoora, was earning a large amount of money from her consultancy work which her husband used to pay for bills as well as buy a property in his name. She did not feel she could discuss her financial concerns with anyone: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was a subject where I, my parents didn’t really talk to me, I never had a discussion to say who pays what until a particular auntie who was friends of his family [asked me] … And even then I couldn’t tell her my discomfort that I had to pay them all. </p>
</blockquote>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165704/original/image-20170418-32696-imsf38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165704/original/image-20170418-32696-imsf38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165704/original/image-20170418-32696-imsf38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165704/original/image-20170418-32696-imsf38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165704/original/image-20170418-32696-imsf38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165704/original/image-20170418-32696-imsf38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165704/original/image-20170418-32696-imsf38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Women often suffer from economic abuse in silence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">via shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fighting back</h2>
<p>Many of the women I spoke to had adopted various overt and covert strategies to fight economic abuse. Shahida, a second-generation British Pakistani professional, had been responsible for all household expenses for the first seven years of her marriage. One day, she demanded an end to it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I said, 'I am not paying everything for house. I feel for the children and for the shopping you should be paying half’. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>After a lot of struggle, her husband eventually agreed to pay half of the food shopping costs, allowing Shahida to buy healthier food for her family. </p>
<p>Mehak, a first-generation British Pakistani homemaker who has lived with her in-laws since her marriage, used a more indirect strategy. She did not have access to a bank account, so the child benefit for her four children was accessed by her husband. She managed to convince her husband that they should move out of his family’s house because the children need more space. She recalled: “I didn’t use to have much control before and that used to frustrate me that I can’t do anything special for my kids.” As soon as they moved out, she told me he gave her access to the child benefit.</p>
<p>Wherever the women I interviewed were based – in Britain, India or Pakistan – they faced substantial barriers, such as a lack of resources, access to legal guidance and family pressure, which prevented them from seeking support to fight against domestic violence, including economic abuse.</p>
<p>Women from Pakistani and Indian communities need to be supported in their fight against economic abuse not only through provision of a range of legal and financial services but also through addressing wider gender, socio-economic and ethnic inequalities that make women vulnerable to economic abuse in the first place. </p>
<p>* <em>All names in this piece have been changed to protect the anonymity of the women interviewed.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75250/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Punita Chowbey receives funding from NIHR CLAHRC Yorkshire and Humber and Joseph Rowntree Foundation. </span></em></p>A new study has interviewed South Asian women who have suffered from economic abuse.Punita Chowbey, Research Fellow, Sheffield Hallam UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/734732017-03-02T10:51:39Z2017-03-02T10:51:39ZThe story of the funky drummer: the most exploited man in modern music<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158774/original/image-20170228-13104-6vw9xl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former James Brown drummer Clyde Stubblefield playing in 2005.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/pavdw/5580394474/in/photolist-9v7YRQ-8Ub1MB-8Ue6ud-8Ub1mi-8YgFJk-Kz7qj-716jCM-71ae3b-716oCa-4JeKPi-8Ue6zh-71agGf-716avX-71aaEm-716o2V-716m6v-71amrA-71abY3-716omx-716cnp-8xgYzy-696M6J-vpmahQ-usSYnd-71am2A">Paul VanDerWerf/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Give the drummer some”, said the voice of funk soul pioneer James Brown as it rang out above his band on the 1967 recording of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bztE5IbQOo">Cold Sweat</a>. The drummer in question was Clyde Stubblefield who <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/arts/music/clyde-stubblefield-a-drummer-aims-for-royalties.html">was said to be one of the most sampled and exploited musicians of all time</a>. </p>
<p>His playing on Cold Sweat established the rhythmic template for funk and is rightly regarded as being pivotal in the history of popular music. But it was his work on Brown’s Funky Drummer that would echo through the ages. A 20-second drum loop that would go on to be sampled <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/clyde-stubblefield-james-browns-funky-drummer-dead-at-73-w467805">on over 1,300 songs</a>, from <a href="http://www.whosampled.com/James-Brown/Funky-Drummer/sampled/?cp=11">Public Enemy and Beastie Boys to George Michael, Britney Spears and Ed Sheeran</a>. </p>
<p>So why did a musician who created one of the most memorable pieces of music of all time end up dying in relative poverty?</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"833285234204487681"}"></div></p>
<p>Stubblefield’s position in music history is assured. But the fact remains that he was never properly compensated financially for his talent and innovation. He died on February 18 but before the end of his life had unpaid medical bills of $90,000. Before he died, Stubblefield revealed that his bills were settled by the late great Prince in an act of charity. He was one of the drummer’s greatest fans. So questions are now being asked as to what it was that Stubblefield was actually “given” by his employers and by the generation of musicians that seemingly so often took his labour for granted.</p>
<p>Stubblefield worked with James Brown from 1965-1971 having previously been the sticksman for soul legend Otis Redding. He was no newcomer to the music business and it was normal practice for musicians like Stubblefield to be paid a one-off fee for the recording. Despite making a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_55a_Sje0lY">critical contribution</a> to the record, he would not have retained any of the rights to his performance or his compositional contribution. Stubblefield spoke about Brown in the <a href="https://vimeo.com/9958864">PBS documentary Copyright Criminals (2009)</a>, saying: “He didn’t tell me what to play … I played what I felt but he owned it.” </p>
<p>His story may have gone unnoticed by the wider world were it not for the recording of Funky Drummer on November 20, 1969. It was a minor hit for for The Godfather of Soul. But five minutes and 34 seconds into the song, Stubblefield embarks upon a solo drum feature that launches both him and his drumming into the future, becoming a primary source in hip-hop’s development. </p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Funky Drummer drum loop.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This 20 seconds of music is propelled by a very straight and repetitive semiquaver/16th note hi-hat pattern with the bass drum emphasising the first two quavers/eighth notes of the bar. However, it is in the snare drum part where Stubblefield makes the magic happen. Its roots come from the New Orleans marching band tradition and it blends syncopations, ghost notes and rimshots into a compulsive rhythmic mix. The snare bounces off and against the straighter parts creating an addictively danceable beat that would prove irresistible to legions of hip-hop producers, DJs, rappers and pop artists. </p>
<p>“Breakbeats” (looped two-bar audio snapshots known as samples) from the solo became one of the rhythmic foundations of hip-hop and were used hundreds of times on tracks by artists including Public Enemy, LL Cool J, Ice Cube and Run DMC. The affordable new sampling technology such as the E-mu SP-1200 percussion sampler that emerged in the mid 1980s made this possible, building on the vinyl mixing innovations of hip-hop innovator DJ Kool Herc.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Public Enemy - Fight The Power.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, in the excitement surrounding the new hip-hop culture and associated technologies, few stopped to think about paying or crediting the artists who were being sampled. Stubblefield said:<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/arts/music/clyde-stubblefield-a-drummer-aims-for-royalties.html">“People use my drum patterns on a lot of these songs … They never gave me credit, never paid me. It didn’t bug me or disturb me, but I think it’s disrespectful not to pay people for what they use.”</a> It wasn’t long before the sample was being picked up by pop and rock producers – and so Stubblefield’s uncredited influence grew and grew.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5HswEQWMV24?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Ed Sheeran - Shirtsleeves which also samples Funky Drummer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In another <a href="https://vimeo.com/995886">interview</a>, Stubblefield spoke about how the samplers sometimes tweaked his drum part, adding: “They can change the tone … they’ve got so much technology today they can make the speed go up … whatever they want to do with it, and I won’t even know it’s me … I prefer to get my name on the record saying this is Clyde playing … the money is not the important thing, just to get myself out in the world.”</p>
<p>Stubblefield was not alone in having his work sampled and reassembled into someone else’s creative vision. 1960s funk outfit The Winston’s “Amen” break from their track Amen, Brother, performed by drummer GC Coleman, has been used by acts as varied as NWA and Oasis and has been the basis for many hits. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32087287">Coleman also died homeless and broke</a> in 2006 without ever having been paid a cent for his efforts.</p>
<h2>Unsung heroes</h2>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/BQqgjIdgyND","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Stubblefield and Colman were working in an era when it was hard for even big name artists to get the money they were owed – so for mere session musicians it would have been impossible. The music business is built upon the exploitation of copyrights and neither musician had any ownership of their most important work.</p>
<p>In some ways, that is still the accepted lot of the session musician. You sell your creativity and instrumental or vocal skills for a one-off fee. But without these musicians’ extraordinary rhythmic imaginations, the records that we have all been dancing to for the last 30 years would have been lacking that crucial funk factor. We should take our hats off to these unsung heroes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73473/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrian York does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The recently deceased funk drummer Clyde Stubblefield created arguably the most sampled drum track in the history of popular music – but he rarely got the credit, or the payment, he deserved.Adrian York, Senior Lecturer in Commercial Music Performance, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/541912016-03-30T14:52:53Z2016-03-30T14:52:53ZEbola and Zika epidemics are driven by pathologies of society, not just a virus<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115593/original/image-20160318-4456-nrf54r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An Ebola training exercise at Madigan Army Medical Center's Andersen Simulation Center, in the US.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Liston/Army Medicine/ flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is a foundation essay. These are longer than usual and take a wider look at a key issue affecting society.</em></p>
<p>The global health threats posed by recent viral epidemics, such as avian flu, <a href="http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/flu-guide/h1n1-flu-virus-swine-flu">H1N1</a>, <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/">Ebola</a> and <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/zika/about/index.html">Zika</a>, have been happening too frequently to be dismissed as coincidental. </p>
<p>Unless the global public health community invests in and develops better health systems that provide for the poor, such viruses will continue to spread and have severe effects.</p>
<p>The mosquito-borne Zika virus was declared a global public health <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2016/emergency-committee-zika-microcephaly/en/">emergency</a> by the World Health Organisation in February 2016 due to an increase in the number of microcephaly cases in areas where the virus was found. Microcephaly is a birth defect where babies are born with abnormally small heads. A <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)00273-7/fulltext">causal link</a> between in-utero exposure to the Zika virus and microcephaly has not yet been proven.</p>
<p>This is the first time since the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-ebola-emergency-idUSKBN0G80M620140808">Ebola epidemic</a> hit Africa in 2014 that the World Health Organisation has declared a global health emergency. Although the speed with which the organisation reacted has been welcomed, mounting an emergency response is not sufficient to manage the spread of viral epidemics like that of Zika. </p>
<p>In the case of the <a href="http://apps.who.int/ebola/en/ebola-situation-report/situation-reports/ebola-situation-report-18-february-2015">Ebola outbreak</a>, after a long delay, the World Health <a href="http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2015/executive-board-ebola/">Organisation</a> called for an urgent change in three main areas. These included: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>rebuilding and strengthening national and international emergency preparedness and response;</p></li>
<li><p>addressing the way new medical products are brought to market; and </p></li>
<li><p>strengthening the way in which the World Health Organisation operates during emergencies.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>But the response has not been far-reaching enough to prevent similar viral outbreaks. The Zika virus is proof of this. Environmental, social and economic factors cause populations not previously affected by a particular disease to be exposed to its virus. To tackle such outbreaks in future, these factors must be addressed. </p>
<h2>Containing the spread of a virus</h2>
<p>Outbreaks happen for two reasons: the daily conditions that negatively affect the health of a country’s inhabitants have not been addressed; and there are weak national health systems in place. There are several structural drivers that influence these, resulting in outbreaks and determining their severity. These include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the way populations move and migrate. This is compounded by generally poor access to (weak) health-care services, especially for migrant populations. </p></li>
<li><p>hybrid viruses that appear in food processing factories and increase the chances of human-animal interactions. </p></li>
<li><p>increased interaction between human and forest animals. This happens as indigent populations are forced deeper into forested areas to look for food.</p></li>
</ul>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115594/original/image-20160318-4450-1ji6ct4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115594/original/image-20160318-4450-1ji6ct4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115594/original/image-20160318-4450-1ji6ct4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115594/original/image-20160318-4450-1ji6ct4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115594/original/image-20160318-4450-1ji6ct4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115594/original/image-20160318-4450-1ji6ct4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115594/original/image-20160318-4450-1ji6ct4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A transmission electron micrograph of the Ebola virus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Frederick A Murphy/ CDC Global/ flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This increased interaction is thought to be behind the spread of Ebola. Human beings were never the primary target of the virus. It is believed the virus was primarily found in a few species of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/23/ebola-outbreak-blamed-on-fruit-bats-africa">fruit bats</a>, which live in the tropical rainforests of central Africa. </p>
<p>Although central Africa has been the site of all earlier major Ebola outbreaks, it is hundreds of kilometres from the epicentre of the latest epidemic, which took place in West Africa. The geographic spread may be explained by poverty forcing people deeper into the forests in search of food, where they came into contact with the fruit bats or other animals infected by the bats.</p>
<p>How is the recent explosive Ebola outbreak explained? The answer lies not in the pathology of the disease but in the pathology of society, and the global political and economic architecture. </p>
<h2>Economic exploitation is partly to blame</h2>
<p>The spread of the Ebola epidemic was the result of poverty and the ruthless exploitation of the region’s natural resources. Those afflicted, at least initially, were typically the poorest – those forced, by scarcity, to look for food in the forests, where they came into contact with animals harbouring the virus. </p>
<p>Economic exploitation also resulted in under-resourced and weak health systems that could not contain the spread of the virus.</p>
<p>Take Sierra Leone, for instance. Its iron ore mining industry has rapidly expanded, fuelling economic growth in the country of 20% in 2013, according to the <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2013/cr13330.pdf">International Monetary Fund</a>. Interest in its largely untapped mineral resources sparked a flood of investment a decade after the end of the devastating 1991 to 2002 civil war. The country’s economic growth rate is ranked among the highest in the world. </p>
<p>Yet in 2010 the country’s mining industry contributed almost 60% of exports but only 8% of government revenue. In 2011, only one of the major mining firms in the country was paying corporate income tax, while none of the top five was reporting profits despite a boom in mineral exports. </p>
<p>Similarly, both Liberia and Guinea have been heavily targeted by foreign companies. Liberia currently has the highest ratio of <a href="http://globaledge.msu.edu/countries/liberia/economy">foreign direct investment</a> to gross domestic product in the world. This largely is the result of foreign ownership of rubber production companies. </p>
<p>In Guinea, the area affected by Ebola attracted agribusiness shortly before the outbreak. In 2010, the British-backed <a href="http://www.farmlandgrab.org/post/view/18263">Farm Land of Guinea Limited</a> bought huge tracts of land for maize and soybean cultivation. And an Italian energy company has bought more than <a href="https://farmingpathogens.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/neoliberal-ebola/">700,000 hectares</a> for biofuel crops.</p>
<p>These countries’ dependence on extractive industries such as mining and logging, and financial losses due to tax evasion have left them impoverished and contributed to under-investment in – and the severe weakness of – their health systems. </p>
<h2>Weak health systems</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
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<span class="caption">Volunteer burial teams in Guinea disinfect themselves after carrying the body of an Ebola victim.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">UN Photo/Martine Perret</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>It is no accident that the Ebola epidemic affected three of the poorest countries in the world. </p>
<p>Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone number 175, 179 and 183, respectively, out of 187 countries on the United Nations’ <a href="http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hdr14-report-en-1.pdf">Human Development Index</a>. Their health systems are ineffective and almost nonexistent in many regions, affecting management of diseases. </p>
<p>In Sierra Leone, for example, in the four months following the outbreak of Ebola, 848 people were infected by the virus and 365 died. And in an <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-08-11/the-ebola-outbreak-shows-why-the-global-health-system-is-broken">average four months</a>, the country sees about 650 deaths from meningitis, 670 from tuberculosis, 790 from HIV/AIDS, 845 from diarrhoea and more than 3,000 from malaria. </p>
<p>Such deaths have been occurring for decades, but with no previous focus on these countries. </p>
<p>Furthermore, in these three countries there is a persistent crisis of human resources, with a serious deficit of health workers, especially in rural areas. This is a result of long-term underproduction and continuing migration. More Liberian and Sierra Leonean medical doctors work in the US and UK than in their home countries. </p>
<h2>How to solve the problem</h2>
<p>As a start, it is important to focus on crisis response. The World Health Organisation had a feeble initial response to Ebola, in part, because of cuts of more than 50% in its outbreak and response budget – the very budget line needed to respond to Ebola. This dropped from US$469 million in 2012/2013 to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/08/08/can-the-world-health-organization-lead-do-we-want-it-to/">US$228 million</a> in 2014/2015, mainly because member states, particularly rich ones, failed to pay their financial contributions.</p>
<p>But managing viral epidemics requires that authorities look beyond the immediate crisis response. A major and sustained investment in human resources is required. Initially, this will require greatly increased donor assistance. </p>
<p>In the medium term, there is an urgent need to strengthen health systems in the region. Although talk of “health systems strengthening” has become commonplace there is little evidence of this in several African countries.</p>
<p>But the most sustainable solution requires fundamental changes to economic and power relations between these countries and the capitalist economies and enterprises that continue to bleed them dry, often with the collusion of local officials and elites. </p>
<p><em>Amit Sengupta, associate co-ordinator of the People’s Health Movement, was involved in the formulation of this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54191/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Sanders receives funding from the South African National Research Foundation. He is affiliated with the People's Health Movement, a global social movement. </span></em></p>To tackle Zika and other viral outbreaks, we need to focus not only on the pathology of the disease, but also on the global political and economic architecture.David Sanders, Emeritus Professor, School of Public Health, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.