BWI: No recovery without gender equality
(Photo: European Commission)
BWI Statement on the 2021 International Women’s Day
Gender equality has suffered a massive setback from the responses to COVID-19 pandemic, with women carrying heavier burdens of care work and suffering from greater loss of employment and increased levels of gender-based violence. As the world draws up ambitious plans for economic recovery, it is only right that women should be prioritized in recovery programs.
According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), women workers, who have long suffered from a wide gender pay gap, lost more wages than men as a result of employers’ responses to COVID-19. The gender-poverty gap also continues to worsen. The United Nations (UN) Women warned that COVID-19 will millions more into extreme poverty this year. This will bring the number of women and girls worldwide living on USD 1.90 or less, to 435 million.
To top it off, gender-based violence is at an all-time high. While violence against women before COVID-19 is already an appalling reality suffered by one in three women worldwide, the pandemic has unleashed a new wave of violence against women and girls, particularly domestic violence.
On this International Women’s Day, women trade unionists and workers are uniting to demand that plans for economic recovery must be made with a strong gender lens. A better future for all requires that we apply gender equity to employment generation programmes and in the delivery of social goods. We must not miss the opportunity presented to us by this critical moment in our history to build a gender-equal better future. Without gender equality, there is no real road to recovery.
BWI also takes this opportunity to recognise the bravery, heroism and martyrdom of women leaders who fight to defend democracy from authoritarianism in Myanmar, Belarus, Hong Kong, Phillipines and many other places. BWI believes that the struggle for democracy is a struggle for gender equality. We pay tribute to the women who have lost their lives in the struggle for democracy and support those who continue fighting. Their courage is a continuing inspiration to women trade unionists.
As BWI fulfill its week-long campaign to mark this year’s International Women’s Month, its affiliates reiterate their call for COVID-19 recovery strategies and programs that address the issues that caused women workers to be more vulnerable to the crisis and lead to better economic and social lives for women.
BWI and its affiliates demand an equal and better future for all that includes:
- Better work opportunities for women in the building and construction sector and the wood and forestry sector;
- Ensure that there is equal pay for equal work;
- Address the specific needs of women in occupational health and safety;
- Apply gender equity to vocational training and professional skills development;
- Addressing gender-based violence and ratifying ILO Convention 190 to end violence and harassment in the world of work.
Together, let us build an equal and better future.