Women's groups participating in the symposium on trade, globalisation and gender have asked for inclusion of gender issues in the agenda of World Trade Organisation negotiations. They also said that products involving women, should be put on a fast track for greater market access. They said that this is important because women represent a large proportion of the workforce specially in developing countries and the negative effects of trade liberalisation are believed to be the strongest in informals sectors such as textiles, garments, handicrafts, marine products, spices etc. Further, trade liberalisation in gender sensitive products should address non-trade barriers including trade defence measures like anti-dumping, subsidies and safeguard actions, they added.
