GENDER EQUALITY
AROUND THE WORLD
GENDER EQUALITY
AROUND THE WORLD
Articles from World of Work magazine 1999-2006
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE • GENEVA
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First published 2007
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Gender equality around the world: Articles from World of Work magazine 1999-2006
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FOREWORD
Since the first issue in 1992, the ILO's World of Work magazine has become an
effective instrument for sharing knowledge and raising issues related to gender
equality in the world of work. The magazine has sought to portray how the
ILO responds to such issues, both through its activities at headquarters and,
even more importantly, through support to its tripartite constituents governments, employers' and workers' organizations - across all regions of
the world.
The present publication contains a selection of articles featured in World
of Work from 1999 to 2006. The array of articles is comprehensive, ranging from
the challenges faced by women jobseekers in Estonia, to an innovative life-cycle
approach to gender equality in the United Republic of Tanzania, to progressive
policies on paternity leave in Norway. It is hoped that the reader will find this
selection both interesting and inspiring. Above all, many of the articles contain
good practices of gender equality initiatives that could be replicated elsewhere.
In this respect, the publication becomes a real tool for knowledge sharing.
Freedom from gender-based discrimination remains a fundamental
dimension of decent work and forms part of that universal social foundation of
human rights that applies everywhere. Although significant strides have been
made towards advancing gender equality, noticeable gaps persist, impeding the
concept of decent work from becoming a reality in the lives of all women and
men. Symptomatically, women remain less likely than men to be in regular wage
and salaried employment; and while women are drastically outnumbered by
men in top decision-making positions, their contribution to household work
far exceeds that of men in nearly every economy where data are available.
"Women are also more likely to earn less than men for the same type of work,
and women workers are more likely to be found in the informal economy where
there is little social security and a high degree of volatility.
Gender equality around the world
It is in acknowledgement of the above that ILO considers gender
equality integral to its Decent Work Agenda which promotes opportunities
for women and men to obtain decent and productive work in conditions of
freedom, equity, security and human dignity. This acknowledgement also
underpins the organization's commitment to the Millennium Declaration and
Development Goals as an overarching principle to reduce poverty and advance
social and economic growth.
This publication is prepared jointly by the Bureau for Gender Equality
and the Department of Communication and Public Information. Although
the daily work of these two units might appear quite different, the strategies
adopted in our activities are quite similar. Both units recognize the
tremendous value of knowledge sharing as a tool to reinforce ILO efforts to
service its constituents and both units recognize the intrinsic nature of gender
equality in decent work.
Finally, this publication owes its existence to our colleagues in the Bureau
for Gender Equality and in the Department of Communication and Public
Information who selected the articles and compiled the final product: Geir
Tonstol, Jessie Fredlund, Philomena De Agrella, May Hofman and Marcel
Crozet. Special acknowledgement goes to Thomas Netter who for nine years
edited the World of Work magazine and thus most of the articles contained
herein.
Evy Messell
Director
Bureau for Gender Equality
Zohreh Tabatabai
Director
Department of Communication
' Public Information
CONTENTS
Foreword
v
Introduction
1
1999
3
Historical profile: Nurses mark formation of labour organization
5
Maternity protection: Proposed revision of Convention No. 103
10
Low-quality jobs for women: Opportunities or dead-ends?
13
Stronger push by the ILO on gender issues
16
Palestinian women: Looking for peace on the "Mountain of Fire"
18
Baltic blues: For women workers in Estonia, new jobs are lacking
23
New ILO report: Gender equality closer, but much still to be done
27
2000
33
ILO/STEP: Working with the innovative microinsurance
movement in Sahehan Africa
35
ILO examines progress, looks ahead to Beijing+5
39
Work from waste: Sweeping change among women workers?
In Dar, it's more than ]ust simple rubbish
43
New maternity Convention adopted
46
Five years after Beijing: Progress towards gender equality, but
"patchy and uneven"
49
Women work to close the "occupational safety gender gap"
51
The Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) : Giving unprotected
women workers in India a collective voice to organize and bargain
56
Gender equality around the world
2001
61
Forced labour, human trafficking, slavery haunt us still
63
Beyond the "glass ceiling": Women in the world of work progress,
but slowly
68
New ILO study: Labour markets less volatile than generally assumed
70
2002
75
Women's Day 2002: Women and conflict
77
First ILO gender audit keeps equality on the agenda
82
In India, beedi rollers seek new ways of earning a living
84
Women in the informal economy: Urgent need for maternity protection .. 88
2003
91
Battlefields, hot spots and danger zones: Women break the glass
ceiling to break the news
93
Workplace discrimination: A picture of hope and concern
95
Narrowing the gender unemployment gap in Jordan
100
Women seafarers: Fighting against the tide?
102
2004
107
International Women's Day 2004: Updated ILO report shows
"glass ceiling" tough to break
109
New study on women at work: Equality remains elusive
Ill
2005
113
United Republic of Tanzania: A life-cycle approach to gender equality
and decent work
115
Girl combatants: Women warriors fight their way back into Liberian
society
119
Modern Daddy: Norway's progressive policy on paternity leave
123
2006
129
Women in sports: How level is the playing field?
131
Women entrepreneurs in Africa
137
Lighting a torch for empowerment: "We matter," say Filipino domestic
workers
140
An honest day's work? Considering the nebulous notion of today's
work-life balance
145
Bibliography
151
vili
INTRODUCTION
This book presents a selection of articles from the ILO's World of Work
magazine over the eight years 1999 to 2006. In various ways, the articles reflect
the ILO's mandate of advancing gender equality in the world of work, either
through policies, programmes and activities that systematically address the
specific concerns of women and men, or through targeted interventions that
enable women and men to participate in and benefit equally from development efforts.
The promotion of gender equality in the world of work is enshrined in the
ILO Constitution with the affirmation that "all human beings, irrespective of
race, creed or sex, have the right to pursue both their material well-being and
their spiritual development in conditions of freedom and dignity, of economic
security and equal opportunities".
The ILO views gender equality as integral to its vision of decent work for
all women and men and as a fundamental principle in the effort to achieve its
four strategic objectives:
•
promoting and realizing standards and fundamental principles and rights
at work;
•
creating greater opportunities for women and men to secure decent
employment and income;
•
enhancing the coverage and effectiveness of social protection for all; and
•
strengthening tripartism and social dialogue.
The year 1999 was chosen for a specific reason. Soon after Juan Somavia
was appointed Director-General of the ILO in 1999, he issued a policy
statement on gender equality calling for gender concerns to be integrated in all
Gender equality around the world
aspects of the ILO's work, from staffing to substance and structure. This forms
the background of the ILO's current Gender Equality and Mainstreaming
Policy which accords responsibility to all units and individual staff members of
ILO to ensure a concern for gender equality in their respective areas of work.
The present publication is an example of how gender is mainstreamed in ILO
public information and communication work.
World of Work is an independent magazine published by the ILO's
Department of Communication and Public Information. Through its articles,
the magazine covers a cross-section of the activities carried out by ILO and its
constituents in the promotion of decent work.
The articles in this book have not been updated in anyway and so provide
a snapshot of their times. They are featured chronologically as they appeared
in World of Work between 1999 and 2006. A short introduction is provided
before each year, indicating some key developments on gender equality in the
world of work for the year in question.
1999
1999 marked the launch of the ILO's Policy on Gender Equality and
Mainstreaming. The Policy stated that mutually reinforcing action to promote
gender equality should take place in staffing, substance and structure. The
Policy further said that its implementation through the strategy of gender
mainstreaming was the responsibility of all ILO staff at all levels.
Against this background, ILO adopted a two-pronged approach toward
promoting gender equality. Firstly, all policies, programmes and activities
should aim to systematically address the specific concerns of both women and
men. Secondly, targeted interventions should aim to enable women and men to
participate in, and benefit equally from, development efforts.
The above developments coincided with ILO findings that women were
bearing the brunt of negative social and economic trends around the world. The
ILO report Towards gender equality in the world of work in Asia and the Pacific
noted that the financial crisis across South-East and East Asia had "toppled
women back into uncertain, exploitative and poorly paid work, struggling to
keep their families fed and clothed". From the Baltic States, reports were
coming in of rising unemployment rates and deteriorating working conditions
for women.
Action against this trend was taken by Palestinian women, however, as
they increasingly demanded more say in the political, economic and social
future of their community. To help in this process, the ILO's International
Training Centre in Turin offered tailor-made training for a group of 300
Palestinian women entrepreneurs and social activists in workers' rights,
employment creation and entrepreneurship.
HISTORICAL PROFILE: NURSES MARK
FORMATION OF LABOUR ORGANIZATION*
Linda Carrier-Walker"
The nurse has been the world's most recognizable symbol of caring, compassion
and health expertise. In homes, schools, hospitals, villages, refugee camps and
many other settings, nurses promote the health and well-being of their
communities, educate, tend to people in need and search for new ways to improve
the health of humanity. The International Council of Nurses (ICN) has been
representing nurses and nursing worldwide over the past century, advancing the
profession and shaping health policy.
Very few women in the world had any legally recognized rights, not even the
right to vote, when a group of bold, forward-looking women decided in 1899
that the work of nursing was too important for society to remain subject to
arbitrary rules and standards. The spirit that moved the founders of the
International Council of Nurses was central to a social movement that would
eventually lead to the creation of a number of key international organizations,
including the International Labour Organization (ILO), all dedicated to the
emergence of a better society. The need for change was evident all around them.
The height of social progress at the time was the enactment in France of an
11-hour working day, considered a great step forward for working people.
In the field of health care nurses had to confront daily problems arising
from lack of resources, unskilled hospital administrators, uneven standards of
practice and the unavailability of health care in poor tenements. The low status
and poor working conditions of nurses were a clear detriment to progress in
developing health care which could provide relief and recovery for patients
while also becoming available to everyone in need of care. It was with these
:
' Originally published in World of Work, No. 28 (February Í
'r'r Director of Communications, International Council of Nurses (ICN).
Gender equality around the world : 1999
issues in mind that several hundred nurses from Europe and North America
gathered in 1901 in Buffalo, N."X for a Congress to endorse a role and mission
for this new organization, which had been formally established as the
International Council of Nurses in London in July 1899.
Ethel Gordon Fenwick, the founding President of the organization, set
out a vision for the ICN when she described it as "a confederation of
workers to further the efficient care of the sick, and to secure the honour and
interests of the Nursing Profession". That capsule description captured the
consensus among the early members of the ICN that its central mission was
to improve conditions for both nurses and patients, through a programme
of action that would improve professional standards for nursing practice
while also championing the development of quality healthcare services
accessible to all.
The women attending that Congress of 1901 knew they had become part
of an important movement for social change. It was a movement with an agenda
which would see nurses assuming a key role in health care as well as in the
development of professional working standards and conditions over the next
100 years.
Forging ties with the ILO and WHO
The activism of the ICN's early years included forging relationships with an
emerging group of international organizations, among them the ILO, which
recognized the profound link between health policy, human health and
economics, and that a sound healthcare system required a particular attention
to the role, the expertise and the treatment of nurses.
Working with the ILO, the World Health Organization (WHO) and other
organizations over the past decades, the ICN has contributed to the
development of standards which have significantly improved health care in
countries around the world.
This work of shaping international standards, both for health care and for
the working conditions of healthcare workers, has included the development of
a number of related ILO Conventions. This international work has gone handin-hand with the efforts by the membership of the ICN, currently 118 national
nursing associations, to lobby and pressure for the respect of these
Conventions at the national level.
The result of that patient but persistent effort, guided constantly by the
founding vision of the ICN, has been a steady and clear contribution to
improving the working conditions of healthcare workers and to the
development of healthcare services which are increasingly available to people
around the world.
Historical profiie: Nurses mark formation of labour organization
ICN at a glance
•
Founded in 1899 - the world's first international organization for health
professionals
•
Representing millions of nurses in 188 countries
•
Mission; To represent nursing worldwide, advancing the profession and
shaping health policy
•
15-member Board of Directors, coming from all regions of the globe
•
Run by nurses for nurses, with a corporate office staff of 20 in Geneva,
Switzerland
•
Annual operating budget of US$4 million
There have been numerous advances registered in that record of social
progress, including:
•
the establishment of minimum criteria for the "trained nurse" in the
period from 1900 to 1910
•
developing approaches to advocacy and lobbying by nurses for better
health care
•
progress in the reform of nursing education and improvements in
community healthcare services
•
improvements in social and working conditions of nurses and extension
of these improvements to all nurses
•
development of professional curricula for schools of nursing
•
pressing for extension of healthcare services to the poor in urban and rural
communities through the development of community health care
•
affirmation through the 1950s of the ICN's world leadership in nursing
education and in the development of standards for health care, as
expressed through the theme "world health and world solidarity"
•
development of a process for defining and promoting basic principles for
nursing care and for the training of professional nurses, including those in
specialized fields
Gender equality around the world : 1999
•
implementation of an International Code of Ethics for Nurses, adopted
in 1953, which states "the need for nursing is universal. Inherent in
nursing is the respect of life, dignity and rights of man. It is unrestricted
by considerations of nationality, race, colour, creed, age, sex, politics or
social change."
•
moving forward in the 1960s to a formal relationship with the ILO, based
upon the previous decades of fruitful collaboration
•
international extension through the 1970s of ICN's public and
professional information activities, including its extensive publishing
programme aimed at professional nurses and other healthcare workers
•
ICN leadership in the early 1980s on prevention and care for HIV/AIDS,
including programmes to train nurses on providing care for victims of this
new disease while also developing methods to protect nurses exposed to
the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which causes AIDS
•
active role in defining and protecting the role of nurses through the 1990s
in the context of national programmes to reform the delivery of healthcare
services. The work in this area has included promotion of criteria for
healthcare reform that respect basic human rights, including the right of
every person to have access to quality health care independently of social
condition or gender.
The impetus for the creation of the ICN at the turn of this century was
poverty, discrimination, poor working conditions and human suffering from
disease. Though there has been significant progress in reducing the extent and
impact of these social conditions they nonetheless remain part of the human
condition for most of the world's population. The nature of the problem has
changed in some cases. The impetus to reform a tenuous, unprofessional and
inequitable healthcare sector that mobilized the ICN in the 1890s has shifted
to ensuring that the modern wave of healthcare reform is carried out in ways
that protect the gains of past decades while initiating further improvements to
individual health care and to professional standards for healthcare delivery.
The ICN continues to inveigh against threats to human life and health
which have always been the bane of humankind, and which have motivated its
actions from its creation in 1899 to the present day. At the same time, the
organization is having to grapple with a range of new issues and human
calamities which are shaping its agenda for the new millennium. The emergence
of new diseases such as HIV/AIDS and the emergence of new strains of
tuberculosis call for new approaches to prevention and treatment. The negative
impacts of budget cuts in health care evoke the need for renewed advocacy on
Historical profile: Nurses mark formation of labour organization
behalf of the rights of patients and of providers of healthcare services.
Widespread substance abuse and the development of biological weapons are
among new threats which cannot be ignored by an organization dedicated to
human well-being.
All of these present and future dangers require the intervention of
organized efforts by people around the world. Among those committed to
addressing these traditional and emerging problems is the International
Council of Nurses and the thousands of nurses worldwide whose skills and
determination can be mobilized to contribute as much to the future of
humankind as they have to its development over the past 100 years.
MATERNITY PROTECTION: PROPOSED
REVISION OF CONVENTION 103*
In June 1999, the International Labour Conference1 will hold its first discussion
on the revision of the Maternity Protection Convention (No. 103), which was
adopted in 1952. The Convention is being revised to take into account changes
which have occurred since its adoption and to bring it up-to-date.
Since 1950, women's participation in the workforce has risen dramatically
around the world. Not only are more women working, but more women remain
employed throughout their childbearing years than ever before. In the last halfcentury, maternity protection has been marked by progress in law, an evolution
in workplace practices and rising expectations regarding the rights of working
women. Nonetheless, uneven patterns of protection are evident in many
countries, with some women enjoying good benefits, while others are left
wholly or partly unprotected.
The most basic elements of maternity protection include the right to
maternity leave, and the right to cash and medical benefits.
•
A period of leave before and after childbirth is essential to protect the
health of the woman and her child.
•
Cash benefits replace a portion of the earnings otherwise lost during the
leave period and thus enable the woman to recuperate fully from
childbirth before her return to work.
!i
Originally published in World of Work, No.29 (April/May 1999).
Meeting annually, the International Labour Conference (ILC) provides an international forum for discussion of world
labour and social problems and sets minimum international labour standards and broad policy of the Organization.
Every two years, the Conference adopts the ILO's biennial work programme and budget, which is financed by its
member States. Each member country has the right to send four delegates to the Conference; two from the government
and one each representing workers and employers, each of whom may speak and vote independently.
1
10
Maternity protection: Proposed revision of Convention No. 103
•
Medical benefits, including prenatal, confinement and postnatal care, are
the third essential element.
Some of the questions to be explored at this year's Conference concern
these three aspects of maternity protection. For example, what should the
minimum standard be regarding the length of maternity leave? Should any
portion of that leave be compulsory? What standard should be set regarding the
level of income replacement during leave? How should cash and medical
benefits be financed?
Core elements
These core elements of maternity protection cannot be viewed in isolation.
Since many women have access to benefits through their employment, the
question of job security arises. The right to leave and the right to return to her
job after her absence for childbirth are one aspect of this. Cash benefits as well
are often dependent on the woman's employment status, particularly if they are
provided by the employer directly. Job security can also ensure greater
continuity in a woman's contributions to social insurance schemes, through
which cash and medical benefits are frequently provided.
A further important element in maternity protection involves the
conditions in which a woman works. These need to be safe and healthy at all
times, but particular attention needs to be paid to the needs of women workers
during pregnancy and the nursing period. Dangerous or arduous work, or
indeed any work which might pose a threat to the health of mother and child
should be avoided and, whenever possible, alternative arrangements made.
Finally, the elimination of discrimination in employment, whether in
terms of recruitment, access to training, or the possibility of career
advancement, is an integral part of maternity protection, ensuring women the
right to work on equal terms with men.
Leave, benefits, employment security and non-discrimination are among
the topics likely to be discussed during this year's Conference. Health and safety
considerations, nursing breaks and related forms of leave, such as parental leave
provisions, are also on the agenda. Among the new elements proposed for discussion are methods to encourage countries at all levels of development to gradually
improve maternity protection at the national level, for example, by periodically
reviewing the length of leave and the level of cash benefits they provide.
Procedures
At this year's International Labour Conference, delegates from governments,
and employers' and workers' organizations will hold wide-ranging discussions
11
Gender equality around the world : 1999
on the content of the possible new ILO standards. Following this year's
deliberations, draft instruments will be drawn up for consideration and possible
adoption in the year 2000.2 The new international standards which are foreseen
would usher in a new era of maternity protection for the next century.
2
The Maternity Protection Convention, 2000 (No. 183) was adopted by the International Labour Conference in June
2000. See below, page 46.
12
LOW-QUALITY JOBS FOR WOMEN:
OPPORTUNITIES OR DEAD-ENDS?*
New employment opportunities within so-called "free zones" and "export
processing zones (EPZs)" can help women rebuild their lives as well as their
country's economy after wars or natural disasters. In the Dominican Republic and
other developing countries, increasing numbers of women are finding work in the
zones as well as through micro-enterprises and micro-financing. Still, a new job
does not always imply a better life; new work is not always good work. This report
examines the experience of one woman who found work, as well as other trends
affecting low-quality jobs for women today.
In September 1998 Hurricane Georges was one of the most ferocious storms
to hit the Caribbean in years. In a region that is regularly pummelled by natural
and economic turbulence, the Dominican Republic saw thousands lose their
homes and livelihoods in an instant. But Georges's ferocious winds have been
quickly replaced by clouds of dust thrown up by thousands of workers on
motorbikes, making their way amidst the debris back to work. The rush hour
has resumed and for many here, the rush is to the zona franca.
Zona francas, free zones or export processing zones (EPZs) now lead the
way to work for millions of women in production chains that reach from the
Americas to Asia. Zone factories are given tax and other incentives in return for
setting up in places that would otherwise not attract investment. EPZs are one
of the growing areas of employment for women, along with labour migration,
micro-enterprises and informal sector work, as well as atypical work such as
temporary jobs, homeworking, and subcontracting.
' Originally published in World of Work, No.29 (April/May 1999), based on the video Her way to work: The road to
'uality jobs for women produced by the ILO Bureau of Public Information.
13
Gender equality around the world : 1999
These employment options for women all share a common denominator;
namely, their low quality. They tend to have a low skill content, low pay, low
productivity, and low prospects for advancement. With limited access to
development resources or workers' organizations, such jobs are the first to go
when economic disaster hits and the last to be covered under welfare, health or
other social protection schemes. They may represent the bulk of new job
openings for women today. But are they opportunities or dead-ends?
Monica's story
"I wake up early every day to make breakfast for my children as well as to
prepare bread and chocolate to sell in the factory," says Monica Gimez.
"Otherwise I wouldn't earn enough for us to survive."
Monica is a typical EPZ worker; a young female who must support her
family alone. She lost her home to Hurricane Georges and lives in temporary
shelter provided by the government. Luckily her factory in San Pedro Macoris
was able to reopen soon after the storm. Her job is to turn the glued upper
shells of boots inside out by hand, in preparation for stitching by another
worker. The boots are then exported for sale in other countries at a considerable profit for the employer. Meanwhile, Monica must supplement her meagre
wages by selling breakfast at the factory.
EPZ work can be tough for women. Shifts are long and followed by hours
of domestic chores. The production pace can be gruelling, using out-of-date
equipment in unsafe conditions. Sexual harassment is not unheard of.
"Zones tend to attract women workers into the low-skilled jobs," says
Auret Van Heerden of the ILO's Special Action Programme on EPZs.
"Coming into that job, many of these women hope to acquire skills and to
acquire training which allow them to graduate up the skills hierarchy. That's one
of the obstacles that needs to be removed because, for a combination of cultural
and sociological factors which limit women's advancement, the lack of
education and training facilities available, and the lack of a human resources
development strategy, women are getting stuck in those jobs."
Some argue that it is better to be stuck in any job than to have no job
at all. But it doesn't have to be that way. Governments like Singapore's
have raised job quality in their EPZs by providing training and support for
specific high-return industries such as electronics. The Dominican Republic
encourages employers' groups, like the Association of Dominican Free Zones
(ADOZONA), to provide child-care facilities, housing and transport, which
target the particular needs of women workers.
"After working in the EPZ for a while and learning some skills, a woman
can advance in the company or switch to another company," according to Luis
14
Low-quality jobs for women: Opportunities or dead-ends?
Pellerano, head of ADOZONA. "Or, as happens in many cases, she can go back
home and develop a business that draws upon what she learned in the EPZ."
Monica's informal breakfast business, selling bags of bread and cups of
warm chocolate, doesn't use her EPZ skills. But it does make her a microentrepreneur, another fast-growing economic activity for women. Informal
work or micro-business is attractive for women who cannot gain access to the
formal sector, or who need the flexibility to work around family and other job
schedules. Women are entering it in ever greater numbers, amounting perhaps
to 70 per cent of women worldwide.
Finding quality opportunities for work is a problem in the informal sector.
Women tend to pursue ventures related to domestic skills such as food
preparation or sewing, which are the least remunerative. With less exposure to
business practices than men and less access to credit sources, women are more
prone to failure.
Still, micro-credit programmes, particularly those which target women for
small loans, find that their repayment rates can be quite high. World Relief, an
NGO which boasts a 99.3 per cent repayment rate from its 180 village banks in
Mozambique, focuses on women because they take care of their families and are
less likely to default on loans. Women-run microenterprise is at the heart of the
economic recovery of war-torn countries like Mozambique and Bosnia and
economically strapped areas of south-east Asia.
Competing in the global economy
Atypical work, like temporary work, subcontracting or homework, is a
growing and largely invisible phenomenon as more companies farm out production to remain competitive in the global economy. They are rarely included
in government labour statistics. Yet during an economic crisis in the early 1980s,
Philippine homeworkers contributed up to 70 per cent of family income. Germany
and the Philippines now recognize homeworkers under their labour laws. Trade
unions in Canada are taking them under their social protection umbrella.
Worldwide, more women are migrating for work on their own than ever
before. The hidden risks in labour migration, especially for those who work in
entertainment, are often not apparent to those desperate for a job. The majority
of migrant women do domestic work which, because it is done in private
homes, is often excluded from the host country's labour laws. Bilateral
agreements between sending and receiving countries and pre-departure
orientation sessions for migrant workers, like those run by the Philippine
Department of Labour can help make the process more transparent.
In combination or by themselves, these new trends in employment are
likely to absorb greater numbers of women as the new century begins.
15
STRONGER PUSH BY THE ILO ON GENDER
ISSUES*
Speaking in Geneva to the first special session of the ILO Governing Body held to
mark International Women's Day, Director-General Juan Somavia declared that
the ILO will step up its commitment to gender issues, both within its own walls as
well as through its global activities.
"While I recognize and laud the many serious efforts that have been made in
recent years to move forward in mainstreaming gender in the Organization,
I must share with you my intention to quicken the pace and strengthen the
institutional commitment to this policy," Mr Somavia said. "The ILO has
lagged behind other international organizations in a number of indicators of
gender equality. As an organization dedicated to social justice and well-being of
workers, we must be in the forefront of this UN effort.
"Promoting gender equality is not only the right thing to do. It is also the
smart thing to do," Mr Somavia said. "I therefore intend to give high priority
to ensuring that the ILO is counted among the most progressive organizations
in the field of gender equality."
Noting that the ILO had played a major role in the past eight decades in
setting standards promoting equality for women workers, Mr Somavia cited
data indicating that the ILO was lagging behind in its pursuit of gender parity
within its own Secretariat.
Mr Somavia also pledged to take a number of other actions to augment
ILO efforts on gender issues, including:
•
Placing gender at the "heart of the ILO agenda", including mainstreaming
* Originally published in World of Work, No. 29 (April/May
16
Stronger push by ILO on gender issues
of gender and development in the strategic objectives of the ILO in the
proposals for the 2000-2001 budget.
•
Integrating gender into technical work of the ILO by promoting gender
sensitivity in research, advisory and operational work, and integrating
gender aspects into programmes focused on the informal sector, small and
medium-sized enterprises, data collection, social security, promoting
organizations of workers, training, employment-creation schemes, and
proposing and evaluating standards, including in ILO branches, and
regional and area offices.
•
Urging member States and employers' and workers' organizations making
up the ILO's tripartite structure to make a "systematic effort to ensure a
greater representation of qualified and experienced women" in their
delegations to the International Labour Conference, the Governing Body
and tripartite committees, seminars and training courses.
•
Supporting establishment of a day-care facility within ILO headquarters
in Geneva to "ensure that both women and men can be committed to their
work without sacrificing efficiency, upward mobility or family contact".
"Renewing the commitment of human and financial resources to the goal
of achieving gender equality constitutes a virtuous circle for the ILO,"
Mr Somavia said, adding that the case for promoting gender equality was "selfevident and compelling".
17
PALESTINIAN WOMEN: LOOKING FOR PEACE
ON THE "MOUNTAIN OF FIRE"*
Karen Naets-Sekiguchi**
As the dust settles from the Israeli elections, hopes are high for a revived peace
process. Palestinian women are determined to have a say in the political, economic
and social future of the West Bank and Gaza.
The West Bank city of Nablus is known as "Jabal El- Narr", or Mountain of
Fire, both for the dry, scorched hills that surround it as well as for its role as a
hotbed of unrest during the Intifada. Women who live here have had their
characters forged during the uprising, casting aside the traditional roles that
kept them close to home and family.
"The Palestinian woman has lived a completely different life from other
women in Arab countries," says Myasser En- Nubani who lives in a small village
outside Nablus and like many women here, played an active role in the Intifada.
"She has lived the real struggle and this has formed her personality."
Women want active participation
Now, the prospect of a revived peace process looms on the horizon like
welcome clouds of rain, so long absent from the parched skies of the Occupied
Territories. Palestinian women are determined to maintain their active
participation in determining the political, economic and social future of the
West Bank and Gaza. Not content to return to the stereotypic roles they played
before the Intifada, women like Myasser have assumed leadership positions in
their communities.
!h
Originally published in World of Work, No.30 (July 1999).
" " ILO Department of Communication and Public Information.
!; i:
18
Palestinian women: Looking for peace on the "Mountain of Fire"
As a Director in the Ministry of Islamic Affairs for the Palestinian
Authority, she is trying to redirect the energy of other women towards nation
building. She organizes training courses to suit their unique psyche; stones once
hurled at the enemy are now used to demonstrate how to pit olives in a course
on how to set up an agricultural microenterprise. A first-aid course for rural
women uses examples which they can relate to: how to bandage a bullet or knife
puncture wound. Many of the instructors in these training courses are women
who have experienced the Intifada at first hand.
A new culture for women
"This is a new culture for women," according to Myasser. "The courses we
attended in Turin, for example, on raising the awareness of women in all aspects
- how she should take decisions in her house and outside the home and
participate in society, in the nation - provided a stepping stone for Palestinian
women in everything; how they can take decisions and gain status in productive
society and how to be influential in Palestinian society at all levels."
To help her in this new struggle, Myasser, along with several hundred
other Palestinian women entrepreneurs and social activists, attended a series of
courses at the ILO's Training Centre in Turin, Italy. The Turin Centre is a
residential training facility which designs a wide variety of programmes in areas
of concern to the ILO and the United Nations.
Over a three-year period, the Turin Centre provided specialized training
to these women in areas such as workers' rights, employment promotion,
women in trade unions, entrepreneurship and vocational training. It also
afforded the women a rare opportunity to confer with their colleagues from
different parts of the West Bank and Gaza, a situation normally made difficult
by the numerous security checkpoints and restrictions imposed by Israel on
travel in the Occupied Territories.
Income-generating projects for women
According to François Trémeaud, Executive Director of the ILO and Director
of the Turin Centre, the courses "give them information on a number of social
matters such as labour rights, equality of treatment, economic information
they need for entrepreneurship development and creating small-scale
enterprises".
Micro-enterprise and small-scale businesses are likely to be an important
factor in achieving a self-sustaining Palestinian state. Many men and women still
must cross the checkpoints in search of Jobs in the Israeli economy, but as a
result of action plans designed by participants in the Turin Centre's courses,
19
Gender equality around the world : 1999
local Palestinian communities are setting up income-generating projects for
women as cooperatives or as home-based work.
Local handicrafts such as embroidery, food-processing initiatives such as
dried herbs and spices or olive-packing are among the small businesses which
are easy for women to start. In a recent conversation, Mrs. 2ahira Kamal, a
Director-General in the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Planning and
International Cooperation, noted that not only had the number of Palestinian
women entrepreneurs increased, but that they were even entering nontraditional businesses such as ceramic tile manufacturing or car dealerships.
Palestinian women are slowly gaining ground in the political arena. One
woman who has never shied away from the challenge to lead and take tough
political stands is Hanan Ashrawi. As a former minister in Yasser Arafat's
cabinet and in her present position as Secretary-General of the Palestinian
Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy "MIFAH",
she is adamant about maintaining the leadership positions which women have
forged in guiding their nation to future independence.
"Palestinian women were always told that the primary issue, the primary
conflict, the primary struggle is the struggle for nationhood," recalls Mrs.
Ashrawi, "therefore social justice issues, women's issues are secondary. "Women
were always told that there are struggles that are immediate and pressing and
issues that can be postponed. Our response was always that if a nation is
fighting for self-determination, it cannot withhold self-determination from half
its people. So we as women have in a way incorporated a more integrated,
comprehensive approach to not just national rights, but to human rights and to
social justice as a corrective force on both the nation-building process and on
the peacemaking process."
Training Palestinian women: ILO Turin Centre successfuliy concludes
first phase of multi-year project
The Training Centre of the ILO has completed the first phase of a multi-year project
designed to gi¥e Palestinian women from the Occupied Territories a greater voice
in forging their own economic and social destiny, as well as in inlluencing the
economic and social future of the West Bank and Gaza.
The graduation of a new class of 18 Palestinian women from the ILO Training
Centre in Turin concludes a unique three-year programme which provided over
300 Palestinian women entrepreneurs and social activists training and education
in such issues as the rights of workers, women in trade unions, employment
promotion, entrepreneurship and vocational training.
20
Palestinian women: Looking for peace on the "Mountain of Fire"
"Women's access to paid work is not simply an issue of rights," said Mrs Intlssar
Al-Wazlr ("Urn Jihad"), Minister for Social Affairs and Head of the Inter-minlsterial
Committee for Women. "It has a crucially developmental role, and human
development will not be achieved without the full participation and contribution of
women and men on an equal basis.
"The assistance of International cooperation In helping the Palestinian Authority in
building Its institutions and infrastructures Is all the more urgent since the
worsening economic situation in the West Bank and Gaza may have enormous
Implications for the Middle East peace process," Mrs Al-Wazir said.
Among those trained were women business managers, trade unionists, trainers,
administrators and members of non-governmental organizations. Following a
successful conclusion of the three-year programme, the Centre will participate in
follow-up activities to evaluate the Impact of the training and monitor progress In
the Occupied Territories, the West Bank and Gaza. A new proposal for some
US$500,000 in funding Is also being developed to strengthen education, Including
the women's technical college in Ramallah.
The training programme, funded primarily by the Government of Italy, concentrated
on promoting Palestinian women as "active agents" in the development process
In the Occupied Territories.
"We have created a new core group of women decision-makers who will be able
to exert greater influence on Improving the social and economic status of the
Occupied Territories," said Mr. Abdel-Rahman, the Turin Centre's Manager for
programmes targeting the Arab States.
Women in the formal economy
A number of factors have shaped Palestinian women's economic behaviour.
According to reports published by Blrzelt University (1997), the low quota of
working women Is due not so much to tradition as to the structural limitations of
an economy which remains heavily dependent on Israel. The prolonged
occupation, external trade barriers and financial restrictions have thwarted the
growth of an Independent Palestinian economy which could generate sustainable
job options for both women and men.
The training courses were held In both the Occupied Territories and Italy. The
advantage of training abroad is best expressed by course participant Doua Wadi,
21
Gender equality around the world ; 1999
an oficial of a Dutch-funded NGO called CWEP (Centre for Women's Economic
Projects) operating in Ramallah and Gaza City. "Besides the exposure to
international experience and expertise, here in Turin we can meet our colleagues
face-to-face and live together for two weeks or more. Back home, because of the
numerous security checkpoints. It Is practically impossible to commute between
our isolated territories without special permits to cross Israel. These are difficult to
obtain. Even when we are given permits, they are only valid from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m."
Source: World of Work, No.29 (April/May 1999).
22
BALTIC BLUES: FOR WOMEN WORKERS IN
ESTONIA, NEW JOBS ARE LACKING*
¿.ay/a Alyanak**
Before independence, women in Estonia were guaranteed full employment and
equality in the workplace - on paper. Since then, however, the situation for women
has changed. Gone are those guarantees, replaced by the harsh new realities of
market economics. Now, both the Government and the ILO are seeking new
avenues for assuring equality among working women.
As dawn breaks over the farm settlement where Liia, a 38-year-old teacher who
lives with her extended family in rural Estonia, the long working day begins
before she leaves her home.
After making a fire in the stove to get warm water and boil potatoes for
the pigs, she feeds the animals and milks her eight cows. Then she wakes up the
rest of the family and serves them the breakfast she prepared the night before.
"My day starts at 4 a.m.," she said in a recent interview. "I don't eat in the
morning. I have 10 minutes to get ready and get to work."
In the evening, she corrects her students' schoolwork assignments. Then,
she repeats everything she did in the morning - and gets breakfast ready for the
following day.
For most people, the effort involved in Liia's struggle to combine the role
of wife and mother with that of income-earner would be enough of a challenge.
But these days, Liia faces yet another concern. Should she lose her job, she
might have a hard time finding new work in a tough employment market where
ads openly call for "young, slim women". And no matter where she works, she
may find herself in a decidedly inferior position - both in terms of status as well
as income.
' Originally published in World of Work, No. 31 (September/October 1999).
•'•:' Freelance journalist, Estonia.
23
Gender equality around the world : 1999
Since this tiny country of 1.4 million people regained its independence in
1991 - it was independent once before between the two World Wars - women
have been hit hardest by the shrinking jobs market. As the workforce has
withered from 800,000 to 600,000, more women than men are unemployed or
underemployed: 38.3 per cent of women compared with 24.7 per cent of men.
Women tend to hold the lowest-paid jobs even when they are more skilled, earn
less than men in most occupations, and often work in the low-paid public
sector rather than in private enterprise.
New freedoms, more complications
In the new transition economy, women's lives have become more difficult. In
addition to the demise of guaranteed employment for all, a shutdown of daycare centres and facilities for the elderly requires many women to spend more
time than ever before at home caring for families, which in turn lowers not only
their employability but also their household income.
Nowhere is the challenge more visible than in rural areas where the
dismantling of collective farms has thrown thousands of women out of work. In
Tuhala, a rural township some 25 kilometres from the capital Tallinn, Tiiu Soans
has found a way to make ends meet: she turned her farm into a country hotel.
"It wasn't easy," she said. "Five years ago the situation was new and
strange. All of a sudden we found we had to cope on our own, make our own
choices and have responsibilities."
To help others like her understand the changes sweeping her country, Ms
Soans runs the Union of Estonian Rural Women which retrains women and
shows them how to deal with the transition. She remains shocked at the gender
disparities in her country. "Equality was formally declared, we heard it every
day, in the press, on the radio. We all took it for granted that we were equal."
Unmasking paper guarantees
"In Soviet times we heard that word so often," said Reet Laja, a senior official
of the Ministry of Social Affairs, when asked about equality of women in the
workplace. "Most women thought they had already achieved equality. They
were shocked to find out they had not."
Indeed, in countries in transition where the realities of capitalism and
market economics have begun to bite, women are finding that the once loudly
trumpeted concept of equality for women in the workplace is no longer a given.
"One of the biggest setbacks for the countries in transition has been a
marked increase in gender inequality in the political, economic and social
spheres," says the UNDP's 1999 Human Development Report on transition
24
Baltic blues: For women workers in Estonia, new jobs are lacking
economies. Indeed, across the former Soviet Union, women are finding that
with economic and agrarian reform, it is often their jobs - rather than men's that suffer or are eliminated first.
Estonia is far from unique. A recent World Bank study in Orel, some 300
kilometres south of Moscow, pinpoints some of the worst aspects of
discrimination against rural women. Land redistributed under land reform is
based on length of employment and wages - again, women stand to lose since
they tend to earn less in their lifetime than men. And while women provide
most of Russia's farm labour, the vast majority of private farms have been and
remain in men's names.
One of the most glaring setbacks for women has been in the formal labour
market. From lifetime employment to hand-to-mouth existence, women have
watched grimly as promises of a stable future disintegrated into joblessness or
underemployment.
In many former east bloc countries, salaries for women are lower than for
equally qualified men. In Poland, university-educated men earn about 40 per
cent more, on average, per month than educated women. In Latvia, women
employed full time bring home 14-32 per cent less than men. Not only do
women make less for the same jobs, but they are concentrated in the lower-paid
professions. In Croatia, women make up 70 per cent of office workers and 55
per cent of all low-skilled labour.
Many of these countries have laws against gender discrimination in hiring
but these are often unenforced. As countries slip towards economic inequity,
traditional stereotypes begin to resurface. Says Grazina Gruzdiene of the
Lithuanian Trade Union of Food Industry Employees, "High male
unemployment is one factor, among others, which is increasingly pushing women
into the only role that society has deemed fit for women, as wife and mother."
Seeking more and better jobs
The return to traditional values is intensifying the challenge faced by Estonia's
women.
"The general sentiment on gender issues remains patriarchal and
conservative," said Riina Kutt, Estonia's National Coordinator for the ILO's
International Programme on More and Better Jobs for Women set up in 1997 as
a follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women and the World Summit
for Social Development to reinforce the ILO's longstanding commitment to
gender equality at work. "In fact, with the transition there has been a re-emphasis
on traditional gender roles."
Easing these inequalities and providing a way out for rural women is what
the ILO hopes to accomplish with a new pilot project in the southeastern
25
Gender equality around the world : 1999
Estonian county of Valga. It plans to help Valga's most vulnerable women find
ways to make money through self-employment.
"We picked Valga because it ranks second in unemployment in the
country," said the ILO coordinator. "It is an agricultural area so there is much
unemployment since state and collective farms broke down. Lots of jobs for
women were lost. They were economically disadvantaged and it has been very
difficult for them to find new jobs. Some have high qualifications but there are
few opportunities."
By identifying business opportunities for local women, the Valga county
project will try to help them turn their ideas into income-generating realities,
softening some of the worst blows of economic transition. One option is
tourism, since this is Estonia's hilliest region and a magnet for visitors in both
summer and winter.
Still, identifying viable opportunities remains a formidable task. At the
same time, decades of predictability robbed many women of their ability to plan
their futures and make their own choices.
"We have to learn everything ..."
The government is not insensitive to the growing disparities between women
and men and is trying to rectify the worst of them.
"When I started I wanted to establish a special unit for equality because
there was nothing at the government level on gender issues," said Reet Laja of
the Social Affairs Ministry. Few women would choose to turn back the clock,
but they now face a fight to reclaim in practice what they once had on paper.
One daunting challenge is to convince the mostly male ruling class that there
actually is a problem. Another is to roll back emerging "reactionary" attitudes
which inevitably return in times of hardship.
"An Equality Bureau was only established here in 1996," says Ms Laja.
"Before, there was no need for such a unit. Now you have to prove that
inequalities exist because people have no idea of gender issues."
"Women are very educated in Estonia but we have a lack of free market
experience," said Ms Kutt. "We have very limited business traditions in Estonia,
though some remain from the time between the wars. We have to learn
everything."
26
NEW ILO REPORT: GENDER EQUALITY
CLOSER, BUT MUCH STILL TO BE DONE*
In Asia, poverty often has a woman's face. An new ILO report. Towards gender
equality in the world of work in Asia and the Pacific (1999) says that women in
the region are poorer than men and hit harder by globalization. Across south-east
and east Asia, the Asian financial crisis has toppled women back into uncertain,
exploitative and poorly paid work, struggling to keep their families fed and clothed.
A recent conference held to examine the evolution of the status of women in the
years since the World Conference on Women in Beijing (1995) found that although
there has been progress towards gender equality, much remains to be done.
Across Asia today, the stories about women who felt the chill of the Asian
financial crisis in 1997-98 are legion.
There is the story of a Philippine woman who worked as a secretary in a
rent-a-car firm before the peso collapsed in 1997, and looked forward with her
husband to a bright future with their five children.
Today, jobless and recently widowed, she walks in and out of office blocks
selling biscuits, earning 150 Philippine pesos (less than US$4) per package. Her
market is limited to the large offices with people who can afford a little luxury.
Sometimes she gets a little clerical work to augment her income. She hopes that
one day she might get "a regular job for a regular income to support my family,
since I am all by myself now".
Meanwhile, in the sprawling suburbs of Bangkok, Ratchanee M. prepares
for another long day in the car. If she sells a life insurance policy, she'll earn the
commission that will keep her family of four afloat for another month. If not,
it will be more than just another frustrating day on the job. Before the crisis,
' Originally published in World of Work, No.32 (December 1999).
27
Gender equality around the world : 1999
Ratchanee and her husband owned two homes, had two incomes, and were part
of Thailand's emerging middle class.
Now, her husband's company has no staff and no contracts. Ratchanee's
former company has closed its doors, her new job carries a token salary, and
both their houses are on the market. Servicing their debts on the houses and on
her husband's business has eaten away the family's savings, says Ratchanee. "I
spend everything on the family."
Underpaid, undervalued and underemployed
These women, and thousands more, have borne the brunt of the Asian financial
crisis. Business closures and unprecedented unemployment took a heavy toll on
women - heavier than on men.
The new report from the ILO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific
says that the disadvantage and discrimination that women face in the labour
market makes them more vulnerable to events such as the Asian financial crisis.
As enterprises failed and companies collapsed, women reeled under the
multiple burden of retrenchment, falling incomes, and disappearing markets, as
they struggled to provide their families' basic needs.
Even in countries which escaped the crisis, poverty wears a feminine face.
Over-represented in agriculture where income levels are lowest, and earning
barely enough to meet their personal needs in the informal sector, women are
disproportionately represented in poverty.
At a recent regional consultation held by the ILO Regional Office for
Asia and the Pacific to review progress since the Fourth World Conference on
Women in Beijing (1995), representatives of governments, employers and
workers from more than 20 countries heard that despite some advances, a wide
gulf still separates the region's women from genuine equality.
Fewer jobs mean family woes
The financial crisis has marred the lives of millions in the Asian region. For
women, it has made the burden of ensuring their families' basic needs are met
even heavier.
"With decreasing household income, and decreasing state expenditures on
health and social infrastructure, women's overwhelming responsibility to
provide the family's basic needs has become a particularly painful one," says the
new ILO report. The loss of jobs, the report says, has pushed many women
"back into the informal sector or agricultural households where they had to
cope with less income and higher burdens for themselves, their children and
parents, and possibly their husbands who have lost their formal sector jobs."
28
New ILO report: Gender equality closer, but much still to be done
The crisis has brought women face-to-face with unemployment and
worsening employment conditions. While overall unemployment rates for
women may not have dramatically outstripped men's as a result of the crisis, in
some countries, such as the Philippines, women's unemployment rose much
higher, to 15 per cent, compared to 12 per cent for men. In the Republic of
Korea, while women's unemployment is lower than men's (at 5.8 per cent
compared to 8.5 per cent), the women's labour force participation rate has
dropped by 4.4 per cent, while men's has remained virtually constant. Among
regular workers, women's employment has dropped by 20 per cent, compared
to only 6 per cent for men. In Indonesia, although the women's unemployment
rate has increased by 14 per cent and men's by 27 per cent, women's incomes
fell by 6 per cent compared to the men's which fell by 4 per cent.
And, the report says, the crisis may well have been hardest on the women
whose stories the data does not tell - those in the informal sector. "While both
employment and wages in the informal sector have been negatively affected by
the crisis, demand for the informal sector's output has probably been hit harder,
but cannot be assessed. A majority of women in developing countries of the
region, including agricultural labourers, traditional artisans, weavers, vendors,
homeworkers or other informal sector workers in urban areas, are likely to have
been particularly hard hit by the financial crisis."
The crisis's record of hurting the most vulnerable also saw it reach migrant
workers and girl-children, and is generally believed to have pushed more girls
and boys out of school and into work. In the Philippines, the impact seems to
have been worse for girls than boys, and in Indonesia, enrolment rates have
declined further for girls than boys.
Even in the countries which escaped the crisis, women's lives are hard.
Income levels are lowest in agriculture and related activities, where women are
over-represented. In Pakistan in 1995, 67 per cent of women laboured in agriculture compared with 44 per cent of men; in Cambodia, 79 per cent compared
with 71 per cent of men; in Nepal, 91 per cent compared with men's 75 per cent;
and in Bangladesh, 78 per cent against men's 54 per cent.
Is the situation improving?
Despite the gloomy picture of women's poverty and their vulnerability in times
of crisis, the Manila meeting heard that there are signs that the situation is continuing to improve - if only slowly. The gender gap between labour force
participation rates, for example, narrowed between 1990 and 1997 by two per cent
in Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore; by
three per cent in Australia and Hong Kong, China. The report points to the importance of both economic and social measures to achieve gender equality (see box).
29
Gender equality around the world : 1999
Common understandings: Conclusions of the Asian
Regional Consultation
Improved data measures to help migrant workers and the girl-child, social safety
nets and better access to training and services were among the courses of action
charted by participants in a consolidated statement of common understandings
which will help guide ongoing ILO work in the region. Among the issues it
addressed were:
Promoting equal employment opportunities
Ratifying and applying international labour standards
Data on gender gaps and emerging job opportunities
Women's access to schooling, training, credit, resources and markets
Child care and flexible work arrangements
Measures to help migrant workers, including "rescue homes" and bilateral
agreements
Extending labour legislation to reach homeworkers
Monetary evaluation of unpaid work
Talking with international financial institutions to protect women from the
burden of structural adjustment
Gender-sensitizatlon training for ILO staff and constituents, and involving
women in every stage of technical cooperation work
Social safety nets and organizing women in the informal sector
Changing attitudes to gender questions
Legislation to deal with workplace violence
Equal access to social security benefits
Ensuring that protective legislation does not disadvantage women
Supporting "family-friendly" employers, and encouraging employers to
promote equality
Encouraging women's representation on tripartite and other decision-making
bodies
30
New ILO report: Gender equality closer, but much still to be done
"On its own, market-led economic growth appears insufficient to achieve
gender equality in the world of work - both because prevailing cultural factors
impede progress towards equality and because policies have to be in place to
transform the economic potential into equitable distribution of gains," the
report says. "In the absence of supportive policies, men rather than women will
benefit from economic growth."
In terms of legislation, the report found advancements in a number of
countries - including new legislation on sexual harassment and a gradual move
away from protective legislation and towards legislation promoting equal
employment opportunities.
In a message read at the opening session, ILO Director-General Juan
Somavia said the report showed there had been some progress at the regional
level towards women's economic empowerment.
"But it is important to stress that more jobs for women should not
compromise on quality, and that in order to ensure gender equity, economic
growth should go hand-in-hand with better jobs," he said, noting that this was
something that would be an important consideration at the special session of
the United Nations General Assembly scheduled for June of next year. The
session will consider progress in the five years since Beijing (referred to as
"Beijing+S").
"We are still way behind our purported goals," said Philippines Government
Secretary of Housing Ms Karina Constantino-David. "The general indication
is that women remain marginalized and discriminated against in every part of
the world."
Describing the Beijing Platform for Action adopted at the Beijing
Conference as a "compass that points us in the direction of a fairer more
equitable society", ILO Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific Ms Mitsuko
Horiuchi urged participants at the regional consultation to adopt strategies that
would achieve those goals - protecting the human rights of women and girls,
eradicating women's poverty, eliminating violence against women, promoting
economic autonomy and removing barriers to women's roles in public life.
"Gender equality is really only another way of saying justice," Ms Horiuchi
said. "Discrimination on the basis of sex is unfair, it is unjust and it is
discrimination for no other reason than that we are born women." She cited some
improvements in the region - among them the jobs created by economic growth
and an increasing recognition of sexual harassment in the workplace as a violation
of women's human rights — however, she said the Asian financial crisis has
revealed the dark side of globalization, and women were at particular risk.
The preparations for the Beijing+5 Special Session served as a reminder to
redouble efforts to implement the Beijing Platform for Action, said former
Philippines Senator Leticia Ramos Shahani. "Yet despite our most intense
31
Gender equality around the world : 1999
efforts we are sometimes overwhelmed by the vast amount of work that
remains to be done in the field of women's rights and its related problems of
poverty, unemployment, and discrimination." Even so, Ms. Shahani said, we
should not lose hope, and should remember that changes in attitude and
structural reform move slowly.
32
2000
The new millennium invited global stock-taking on achievements related to
gender equality. Five years after the Fourth World Conference of Women in
Beijing, the ILO delegation joined around eight thousand participants at a
Special Session of the UN General Assembly in New York to review progress
and consider challenges ahead in implementing the Beijing Platform for Action.
ILO Director-General Juan Somavia reaffirmed the ILO's commitment to
gender equality, stating that "We take another step towards globalizing social
progress when we champion gender equality as a matter of rights and social
justice, as well as efficiency and good business sense."
In the same year, the 88th International Labour Conference took a
significant step to improve working conditions and opportunities for women
by adopting a new Convention on maternity protection (No. 183) replacing the
previous Convention (No. 103). The new Maternity Protection Convention,
2000 (No. 183) applies to all women, "including those in atypical forms of
dependent work" and those in the informal sector, whereas the previous
Convention covered a much narrower category of women workers. It also
contains a provision for protection of the health of the mother and child as
opposed to the previous Convention which contained no such provision. By
late 2006 13 member States had ratified Convention 183.
The above occurred at a time of continuous efforts to raise awareness of
women workers' occupational health issues. Over the last decades, it had
become obvious that occupational safety, health and environment - through
research and application - were seen as a man's domain. To counter this, the
ILO launched a series of training activities aimed at increasing awareness of
health and safety risks particular to women workers.
33
ILO-STEP: WORKING WITH THE INNOVATIVE
MICROINSURANCE MOVEMENT IN SAHELIAN
AFRICA*
TorMonsen**
Microinsurance schemes (MIS) for health services are an innovative way of fighting
against social exclusion. The ILO-STEP programme (Strategies and Tools against
Social Exclusion and Poverty) is giving technical support to one such project in
rural Senegal.
In the impoverished Sahelian village of Kaffrine, some 400 kilometres southeast of Senegal's capital Dakar, the Amazone women are in their finest clothes.
They have been waiting for some time now for the arrival of an outsider to
help them set up a microinsurance scheme (MIS), and now they have begun to
dance and sing.
When the associate expert of the ILO-STEP programme arrives just
before sunset, the drumming continues. The STEP Africa programme is
launching a field-training programme on management for microinsurance
schemes, and the expert is bringing the initiating parcel of cartoons.
Cartoons?
Yes, cartoons, and eagerly-awaited cartoons at that. And as the sky
darkens, the dancing simmers down and the Amazones gather around the faint
light of a torch to look at the drawings they have been waiting for.
Cartoons for Amazones
The members of this federation, which includes about 20 women's groups
involving more then 1,000 women in the area around Kaffrine, call themselves
the Amazones, because the name evokes the women fighters who once lived
* Originally published in World of Work, No. 33 (February 2000).
** ILO Information Officer, Norway.
35
Gender equality around the world : 2000
in the ancient West African Abomey Kingdom. Today, they are fighting
against poverty.
And for the Amazones, this is not just any cartoon. Their excitement stems
from their participation in its development by the ILO's STEP programme, and
because it will help sensitize and inform future women members of their group
about ways of improving the financing of health services through microinsurance
schemes. (By mutually contributing to a common fund, the women are trying to
insure themselves and their family against illness.)
Their struggle is a daunting task. Since the droughts of the 1980s, the
region of Kaffrine has suffered from desertification. The main enterprises
closed their doors and the local population faces a record rate of unemployment
and an almost complete lack of business opportunities. Less than a third of the
women can read or write, only half of the children enter school and more than
50 per cent of the people live in poverty.
Yet the women in the federation refuse to give up. Since 1988, they have
been fighting to improve three main areas of their lives: health, literacy and
productive activities. The constitution of the MIS is their innovative tool for
improving their social and health conditions.
Microinsurance: A new concept
Microinsurance refers to the different insurance systems that can reach the
excluded. Microinsurance schemes combine the concepts of insurance and
participation. They are independent, non-profit organizations based on
solidarity and democratic management. Their aim is to improve access, mainly
through their members' contributions, to quality health care for members.
In West and Central Africa, these MIS are still new, young and few in number.
Depending on the needs which have been identified, they provide primary health
care, hospital treatment, drug delivery or other vital services. Recent studies have
confirmed their potential to enhance access to health care, which has attracted
growing interest from the general public, governments and their partners.
The role of ILO-STEP
The genesis of the cartoon and the Amazones' evident joy over its arrival began
more than a year ago. During the start-up of their MIS, the Amazones contacted
the ILO for support. The cartoon is a response to their expressed need for a
product that would inform and sensitize members - especially illiterate women
- on the advantages and challenges of their microinsurance scheme.
The Amazones understand the logic of the cartoon rather well. For them,
it is not a gadget, but is an essential form of communicating a message. Soon,
36
ILO/STEP: Working with the innovative microinsurance movement in Sahelian Africa
their message is picked up and passed on. Some days after the dissemination of
the cartoons, the Amazone "griot" (a Sahelian traditional singer) presented a
newly created song on the advantages of the microinsurance scheme, which she
now performs during sensitization campaigns.
The ILO-STEP programme does not assist by handing over large sums of
money, but gives technical assistance. Through pro-active research and
capitalizing on best practice experiences, the ILO has developed several training
tools for promoting and managing microinsurance schemes. The key "promoter"
of the Amazones has also been able to benefit from a Training for Trainers and
Promoters course at the ILO International Training Centre in Turin.
During this training - with technical support from STEP programme - the
"promoter", together with 23 other participants from Benin, Burkina Faso,
Cameroon, Guinea, Haiti, Mali and Senegal learned how to set up and promote
microinsurance schemes.
Now, one week later, the promoter, the Amazones and the STEP associate
expert are gathered to prepare and launch the planned follow-up training. Since
May 1999, more than 80 Amazones have already contributed to the common
fund. They want to launch the services of the microinsurance scheme at the
beginning of March 2000. To prepare this important step forward, they needed
external technical support.
Scenes from the field
Another MIS in the Kaffrine area is called Bokk Faj, which will receive similar
follow-up training of a local promoter in a week's time. "Bokk Faj" means
"strong together" in "Wolof, the main language in Senegal. Launched in May
1999, Bokk Faj has grown from 5 to 22 villages. By December 1999, another 14
wanted to join. The main task is to fight poverty. Since the majority of their
members are peasants, they are developing their own health insurance scheme
through the production and joint sale of peanuts and sorghum.
The collective fields, shared by the villagers, will serve to finance the
working costs of their microinsurance scheme. Since the harvest has begun and
all families will soon receive their main yearly income, sensitization campaigns
are now being intensified. Because it is difficult to save money, the beneficiaries
of Bokk Faj will be insured against illness for the next year by contributing to
the microinsurance scheme.
Thirty kilometres outside Dakar, the suburb of Malika is bounded by the
capital's main rubbish dumps. Malika is home to 50 women's groups fighting
malnutrition, dehydration, AIDS and malaria. In addition, they run literacy and
37
Gender equality around the world : 2000
family planning campaigns. They get their resources from sewing clothes,
extracting salt and smoking fish.
By contributing 10 FCFA monthly per family member, the women have
through their own means managed to build a delivery room for the local clinic.
ILO-STEP is supporting the creation of a microinsurance scheme for these
3,000 women working in the informal sector.
Thiès, with 200,000 inhabitants, is the city in Senegal with the most vibrant
NGO environment. Owing to the encouraging response to the MIS in the area,
they have managed to reduce prices at the local hospital by 50 per cent. Every
family of the And Fagaru microinsurance scheme of Thiès pays a membership
fee, and gets a membership book with a picture of every member of their family.
This gives them the right to free assistance when giving birth, free hospital
checkups and a ten-day hospital stay.
90 per cent of the population
To strengthen the collaboration between the different MIS in Senegal and the
region, the STEP office in Dakar has launched "Concertation", a network of
French-speaking "West African development actors dealing with the promotion
and the strengthening of the innovative movement of MIS (see
www.concertation.org).
STEP was launched in 1998 to extend social protection in the informal
sector, where up to 90 per cent of the people in many parts of Africa work. The
programme addresses the global problems of large-scale poverty and social
exclusion, and aims to promote social development. In West Africa, STEP
supports selected grass-roots organizations to set up and manage their own
micro health insurance schemes, which can give them power vis-à-vis local
health authorities. Through the involvement of local communities, affordable
health care is made accessible.
38
ILO EXAMINES PROGRESS, LOOKS AHEAD
TO BEIJING+S*
In preparation for ILO participation in the United Nations Conference, "Women
2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the Twenty-first Century",
a special Symposium on Decent Work for Women during the Governing Body
meeting highlighted the challenge of eliminating gender-based discrimination in
the workplace.
Representatives of governments, workers' and employers' organizations as well
as NGOs participated in the Symposium. Among topics discussed were rightsbased and development-based approaches; progress and gaps in decent work for
men and women; promoting women workers' rights; a gender perspective on
poverty, employment and social protection; management development and
entrepreneurship for women; and gender in crisis response and reconstruction.
Key speakers identified existing obstacles to gender equality, and proposed
initiatives and actions for the future.
Juan Somavia
"We take another step towards globalizing social progress when we champion
gender equality as a matter of rights and social justice, as well as efficiency and
good business sense," the Director-General said. "In putting forward our
decent work agenda, we have put gender equality and development issues at the
heart of the ILO agenda." He noted that to chart future actions, it would be
necessary to make breakthroughs in several areas. Poverty and rising inequality
need to be attacked. Males still have a disproportionate share of wealth and
• Originally published in World of Work, No.34, April/May 2000.
39
Gender equality around the world : 2000
females a disproportionate share of poverty. Also, women's increasing
participation in the labour force is perhaps the most important factor in
determining the social policy agenda in the new century. It will be a challenge
to come up with new systems that can offer protection to women and men in
precarious activities. "Our decent work strategy is a way out of poverty for
women because it is based on principles of equality and equity at work and at
home," Mr. Somavia stressed.
Angela King*
"It is clear that there is still much too much gender inequality in women's access
to economic opportunities and to actual economic empowerment," Ms King
noted in her statement at the Symposium. "In most parts of the world, women
still have no control of, or participation in, decision-making concerning capital,
credit, property, technology, education and information. Yet they are working
in growing numbers, and feminization of labour is a recognized process." She
said statistics had confirmed the fact that women bear the brunt of the burden
of poverty. In rural areas, where most of the world's poor live, women are
responsible for 70-80 per cent of the on-farm labour in some countries. Women
all over the world are working long and hard for survival wages. "The challenge
for us," she noted, "is how to help them make these extraordinary efforts
remunerative. This means that, using the ILO's definition, we have to provide
women with productive work in which their rights are protected."
Bina Agarwai**
"Command over property implies not only rights in law, but also effective
rights in practice," said Ms Agarwai, who has had a long-standing formal
association with the ILO, publishing her earliest piece on women and
technological change in 1981. She focused on two aspects of gender inequality
which centrally affect millions of women as workers, but which she said had
failed to receive the attention they deserve: the gender gap in command over
property and productive assets, and gender-biased social perceptions and social
norms. According to Ms Agarwai, inequality in command over property is the
single most important form of persistent economic inequality between women
and men. This impinges centrally on their status both as workers, and as social
and political actors. Although difficult to quantify, she said, social perceptions
!:
' Special Advisor to the United Nations on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women.
' ' Professor of Economics, Institute of Economic Growth, University of Delhi, India. Contributor and independent
advisor to the International Labour Review.
!; ::
40
Niger, Hiela village. Bringing home the water is a traditional role of women and young girls.
But things are changing.
On the front line of caring, compassion and health expertise: a nurse attends to a young
patient in the intensive care unit of Le Dantec Hospital, Dakar,
T
f
te
'• ^^
A nurse visits a patient at home in the crowded neighbourhood of Sin El Fil, Beirut,
Learning a trade: the NGO Najdeh offers training in hairstyling to young Palestinian women
in the Ain El Helweh camp.
At the ILO's Training Centre in Turin. Here, women come from all over the world to learn
about labour rights, equality of treatment, economic information on entrepreneurship
development and vocational training.
Women's work: a peddler sets up shop on a sidewalk in La Paz, Bolivia
© E. Gianotti/ILO
Q.
CD
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Cooperatives can help. Bambika is responsible for the rural cooperative project uniting
women from Kesavarayampatti village, Madras. ILO financial help has allowed the purchase
of ten cows.
Young women in Bolivia negotiate a bank loan to create a cooperative.
The Maternity Protection Convention,
2000 (No. 183) addresses issues
of health protection
for mother and child . . .
,.. while Norway leads in legislation on
paternity leave (see page 123).
Waste collection In Dar es Salaam: women workers clean up their city and earn an Income
at the same time,
ILO examines progress, looks ahead to Beijing+5
and social norms enter almost every sphere of activity. They can affect
economic outcomes for women in virtually every area, be it property rights,
employment, or household allocations. In the labour market, gender, like race,
often defines perceptions about abilities, and can lead to discriminatory hiring
and pay practices. Women's contributions are often undervalued because many
do home-based unpaid work which is less visible in physical and monetary
terms than wage work outside the home. Men are seen as the primary
breadwinners, and women at best as helpers.
Bina Agarwal talks to World of Work
World of Work: How do you define decent work in the context ofgender equality
and the ILO's role?
Bina Agarwal: It seems to me that decent work at one level is very simple; that
it needs to involve and provide secure and viable livelihoods for men and
women. But it should also promote a sense of dignity and self worth. So I see
decent work as having certain characteristics, but also as a process of moving
towards greater equality and empowerment, and a greater voice in the
community and in the country. It should be an enabling process. To achieve
decent work, I believe a very essential component that has been missed out is
equality of property rights, equality of property ownership and control. And
what this means for many women in Asia, Africa and Latin America is
ownership of land in particular, and productive assets.
WoW: What other elements are necessary for achieving decent work for women?
Bina Agarwal: Sharing housework, child care and elder care. We know that women
have been carrying the double burden, so no matter how much we talk about lack
of discrimination in the workplace, we must recognize that if there is an unequal
share in housework, child care and elder care, whatever the laws might be in the
workplace, women begin with an initial disadvantage. And over time I think that
this is the responsibility of governments, of employers and of communities, and
not just an issue of individual families. We need to devise ways in which
communities can provide for child care and elder care and that the burden just
does not fall solely on the families. There is a lot to be built in the future.
Traditionally we (in India and other developing countries) have had a
notion of community; people live together, and if there is a crisis in villages and
even small towns, women provide a network through which families can survive
and cope. But a lot of those networks are breaking down with the notion of
nuclear families and migration, and inevitably that is the direction in which
41
Gender equality around the world : 2000
communities and families will go. So we need to rethink different ways of
reconstituting the community support structures on a more formalized basis.
Those two elements are essential in my view to bring about gender
equality, but they are often left out of agendas.
WoW: What can the ILO do in this context?
Bina Agarwal: If one would really broaden the notion of one's understanding
of what is necessary to promote decent work, then the ILO and other
international bodies should work together. There are many international bodies
which have been very concerned about issues of land rights. The Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) for example, in agrarian reforms. The
mandate should not be what one particular international organization can do,
but to what extent it can work in tandem with other institutions to promote a
larger vision of decent work and gender equality. Let us unpackage the informal
sector and recognize that very large numbers of women are still dependent on
agriculture. It's not just microenterprises or urban enterprises that we are
talking about. We should go much further.
I also feel that a lot of issues get submerged when a phrase keeps getting
repeated like "women's access to productive resources", and becomes one
sentence amongst 50 other sentences, whereas in fact it is absolutely key. And
what resources are we talking about? We are not just talking about a bit of
credit. Often it has remained only at that. We must talk about the central
distribution of property and resources. It could be land, it could be shares in
companies, and financial assets on a much larger scale as well. Our focus should
be concentrated on this issue.
WoW: What is your position on maternity leave?
Bina Agarwal: The organizations talk of equality in terms of parental leave,
paternity and maternity leave. But it should not stop at that. Because these
issues are only valid or become relevant when you are working in a context
where leave is an issue. Here you are working in a completely informal context
where you don't even have a formal employer because you are working on the
family farm. But you are very much workers. You have a claim to the resource
on which you are working which is the land or the asset. That is very important.
42
WORK FROM WASTE: SWEEPING CHANGE
AMONG WOMEN WORKERS? IN DAR, IT'S
MORE THAN JUST SIMPLE RUBBISH*
Elaine El ¡ah*
"We had nothing. We used to cook some bites (food snacks) but you can't make money
out ofthat. " That, explained Mwanaidi Msosa, was why she and 20 ofher neighbours
in Dar es Salaam took up trash collecting. Women workers are cleaning up their city,
and breaking new ground in small-scale private sector employment.
Like many of the world's urban centres, the Tanzanian capital has been a magnet
for rural residents seeking better opportunities. This migration has spawned
problems, ranging from unplanned housing to critically low water supplies.
It has also generated unemployment, pushing many unskilled young men
into occupations traditionally held by women. It was such competition in food
processing that led Mwanaidi Msosa and her sister members of the Kisutu
Women Development Trust (KIWODET) to seek financial returns in some
other form of work.
Trash collecting? Not exactly what many consider women's work. "If men
can do it, why not us?" she says. "Why not we women?" In fact, in 1995, the
City's workers collected only about 5 per cent of Dar es Salaams's solid waste.
That started changing in 1998 when groups like KIWODET's twenty
unstoppable home-based workers picked up their brooms and took to the streets.
In a short while, they built a reputation for getting an unpleasant job done
- and getting it done well. When their resource pool grew, they purchased trashsized plastic bags and presented them to Kisutu neighbours - along with the
option of having filled bags removed and dumped for 200 shillings each.
Six months later, when the Dar es Salaam City Commission (DCC)
privatized urban trash collection and street cleaning, KIWODET was ready.
f
Originally published in World of Work, No.34 (April/May 2000).
** Freelance journalist, Uganda.
43
Gender equality around the world : 2000
It tendered with other contractors and organizations to operate in their
neighbourhood, known locally as a mtaa. Successful bidders received permits
to collect not only trash in designated areas, but also receive direct fee payments
based on DCC-set rates.
Private companies tendered and generally won contracts to clean the inner
city and other key areas they had previously received city funds to clean. But Kisutu
mtaa had never had regular trash removal service. Residents used to bury or burn
their garbage. Not only did the city's new law against burning catch them by surprise, the idea of paying money for trash removal sparked even greater protest.
"People's thinking about paying for trash pickup had to be changed," says
Alodia Ishengoma, coordinator of the ILO Solid Waste Management Project
(SWMP). She helped Community-Based Organizations (CBOs), many of
them informal neighbourhood groups, to make their bids. Once licensed, these
groups received group management and simple business management training
from collaborating institutions. Alodia then suggested ways for awareness
raising campaigns in the designated neighbourhoods. Many of the bid winners
were assisted to purchase wheelbarrows, two-wheeled carts and protective gear.
Today, private enterprises and CBOs are collecting about 35 per cent of
Dar es Salaam's solid waste. And it shows. The city is cleaner, while an estimated
1,000 new jobs have been created. More than half of these are for women, and
many unemployed youth - over 16 years old - now earn a small income.
Recycling opportunities
But for larger companies and CBOs alike, direct fee collection remains a
problem. Moreover, CBOs don't have the trucks to transfer the heaps of waste
to the dump site, or valuable recyclables to buyers. Though DCC said it would
try to make municipal trucks available for smaller groups, the help has declined
and CBOs are forced to hire vehicles when needed. It clearly dents their profits.
Recycling has, therefore, become an attractive side-business.
"There are five main recyclables," explained Godfrey Mwendwa who
works on the recycling side of the SWMP project. "Paper, plastic, metal, glass,
and organic materials." But lack of water makes it difficult to wash plastics well
enough for buyers to accept them, and frustrates composting of the many waste
vegetables and fruits - a profitable small business venue during wetter seasons.
Better services and more jobs
To encourage networking and information exchange among the new
businesses, the SWMP project also helped establish the Tanzania Environment
and Waste Management Association (TEWA). With 50 members among the
44
Work from waste: Sweeping change among women workers?
70 licensed contractors in Dar es Salaam, TEWA intends to become a voice for
their interests and help them to get technical and financial assistance.
After a brief one-year history, Dar es Salaam has demonstrated that the
small-scale private sector can provide waste collection services far more efficiently
than the cash-strapped city itself could. And they now also reach the poor.
Following the success with solid waste collection, other community services such
as water distribution, parking fee collection, and market maintenance may well
be services better offered by small enterprises - provided that local governments
let them do it, for a fee. The very formation of such businesses will expand the
private sector and create more sustainable employment.
Though KIWODET eagerly contracted for another three years, it is hard
to ignore the recyclable heaps piling higher around Ms Msosa's home. The
women hope that not only recycling opportunities, but also local water supplies
will improve. CBOs wonder whether DCC or others might assist them with
vehicles or by leasing trucks from larger companies to collect in smaller
neighbourhoods. Organizations also hope the city of Dar es Salaam will work
harder to educate people to pay for their trash collection.
"It is for them, too, to make them free from the health hazards," explained
Ms Msosa. Her group continues to work hard. "When they see that you are
taking the waste they get shy for not paying."
45
NEW MATERNITY CONVENTION ADOPTED *
The 88th International Labour Conference (ILC) has adopted a new
Convention on maternity protection. It is a step toward what Director-General
Juan Somavia calls "reconciling family life and working life", and making decent
work a reality.
The new international Convention and Recommendation on maternity
protection received a strong endorsement from delegates, extending coverage
to millions of women who are current unprotected during the period of
maternity. "A key element of making decent work a reality must involve
improving working conditions and opportunities for women," Mr Somavia
said.
Apparently, many delegates agreed. They adopted the new international
Convention on maternity protection by a vote of 304 for, 22 against,
116 abstentions. The Recommendation was also adopted by a vote of 315 for,
16 against, with 108 abstentions.
The revision takes into account developments in the world of work since
1952, when the previous Maternity Protection Convention (No. 103) was
adopted. However, that Convention has not been ratified by a large number of
countries. The new Convention strengthens protection over previous ILO
instruments in many areas and broadens the scope of coverage.
Under ILO procedures, the adoption of an international Convention
requires two hearings in the Conference. The first hearing for the proposed
revision was in 1999.
,h
Originally published in World of Work, No.35 gdy 2000).
46
New maternity Convention adopted
The Maternity Protection Convention, 2000 (No. 183):
What it is, what it does
The new Convention applies to all women, "including those in atypical forms
of dependent work" - including the informal sector - whereas the previous
Convention (No. 103) covered a much narrower category of women workers.
It also contains a provision for protection of the health of the mother and
child as opposed to the previous Convention which contains no such
provision.
The new standard says: "Each member shall, after consulting the representative organizations of employers and workers, adopt appropriate measures
to ensure that pregnant or breast-feeding women are not obliged to perform
work which has been determined by the competent authority to be prejudicial
to the health of the mother or the child, or where an assessment has established
a significant risk to the mother's health or that of her child."
The length of maternity leave will be extended from 12 to 14 weeks,
including "a period of six weeks compulsory leave after childbirth, unless
otherwise agreed at the national level by the government and the representative
organizations of employers and workers."
It also says that "leave shall be provided before or after the maternity leave
period in the case of illness, complications or risk of complications arising out
of pregnancy or childbirth", with the nature and duration of such leave being
specified in accordance with national law and practice.
On maternity benefits, the new instrument says that "cash benefits shall
be provided, in accordance with national laws and regulations or in any other
manner consistent with national practice, to women who are absent from work
on leave". The cash benefits should be provided "at a level which ensures that
the woman can maintain herself and her child in proper conditions of health and
with a suitable standard of living".
In order to protect the situation of women in the labour market, benefits
in respect of the leave shall "be provided through compulsory social insurance
funds or public funds, or in a manner to be determined by national law and
practice. An employer shall not be individually liable for the direct cost of any
such monetary benefit to a woman employed by him or her without that
employer's specific agreement", except in cases where national law or practice
provides for other provisions.
On employment protection, "It shall be unlawful for an employer to
terminate the employment of a woman during her pregnancy or absence on
leave or during a period following her return to work to be prescribed by
national laws or regulations, except on grounds unrelated to the pregnancy or
birth of the child and its consequences for nursing."
47
Gender equality around the world : 2000
On breastfeeding, the new Convention says that "A woman shall be
provided with the right to one or more daily breaks or a daily reduction of
hours of work to breast-feed her child." The length and duration of the breaks
are to be implemented in accordance with national practice, and "these breaks
or the reduction of daily hours of work shall be counted as working time and
remunerated accordingly".
48
FIVE YEARS AFTER BEIJING: PROGRESS
TOWARDS GENDER EQUALITY, BUT "PATCHY
AND UNEVEN"*
Janine Rodgers**
Eight thousand participants (77 per cent women) from 178 UN member States,
three non-member States, specialized agencies and programmes, and over 2000
NGOs gathered in New York from 5th to 9th June 2000 for the Special Session of
the UN General Assembly on "Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development and
Peace for the Twenty-first Century". They reviewed progress made and the new
challenges to be faced since the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing
in 1995.
A 44-page document reconfirmed in full all the commitments of the Beijing
Platform for Action. Some critical areas for action have been further
strengthened and new initiatives included in particular, to combat trafficking,
violence against women, to ensure women's full enjoyment of their rights to
health and related services, to empower women economically and politically,
and to encourage their full participation in conflict prevention and resolution.
Decisions aimed at ensuring that women reap the benefits rather than bear the
burdens of globalization.
"Beijing-l-5" has shown that some progress towards gender equality has
been made, albeit patchy and uneven. The discussion of gender issues has
deepened, and gender has become part of the political agenda of almost all
countries. However, the biggest challenge remains how to go beyond the
rhetoric and make commitments for action operational.
It is also very clear that there exist some divergent views on issues such as
reproductive health and sexual rights. As the Director-General of the ILO said
in his message to the President of the General Assembly, "We take a decisive
• Originally published in Vforld of Work, No.35 (July 2000).
* ILO Bureau for Gender Equality
49
Gender equality around the world : 2000
step towards globalizing social progress each time we champion gender equality
as a matter of human rights, social justice, economic efficiency and sustainable
development."
Gender equality cannot be reached through sectoral solutions, and holistic
and harmonized approaches at the national, regional and international levels are
needed, as well as strong partnerships between men and women. Concerted
efforts must be made to ensure an enabling environment for men and women
to have access to decent work which will bring them security and assure a
decent standard of living for themselves and their families.
The ILO attached great importance to "Beijing + 5" and actively
participated in it. The Bureau for Gender Equality prepared and published a
special report entitled Decent work for women, which is a global proposal to
accelerate the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action, and the ILO
organized three special events: A workshop on "Decent "Work for Women", one
on "Galvanizing Action: Older Women Workers", and a third one on
"Women's Empowerment and Microfinance".
At a workshop organized by the Inter-Agency Committee on Women and
Gender Equality the ILO was cited as the agency which had made more
systematic efforts in gender mainstreaming, as well as a good example in
gender-sensitive budgeting. An ILO official was a panellist in a workshop on
"Organizing for Equality, Jobs and Justice in the Global Economy" organized
by the ICFTU and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. An ILO stand displayed
and distributed ILO publications. Many participants visited the stand,
exchanged views and asked for more technical information. There were also
computer demonstrations of ILO electronic resources on gender issues.
Beijing-l-5 provided an excellent opportunity for the ILO to establish or
strengthen contacts with governmental and non-governmental participants
from all regions, and with representatives of the UN agencies. This will help the
ILO to develop "Beijing+5" follow-up strategies at different levels.
50
WOMEN WORK TO CLOSE THE
"OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY GENDER GAP"*
Ellen Rosskam**
Thanks to a small but powerful initiative of the ILO, women around the world are
learning the potential of their shared experience when it comes to occupational
safety. An occupational safety, health and environment (OSHE) training
programme in Bombay, India is helping women find ways to expand personal
possibilities and develop creative health promotion strategies for trade unions and
communities.
Kalpana had never taught or organized workers before the first workshop. In
the first workshop, 16 Indian women learned participatoiy/empowerment
training techniques and studied technical OSHE material. At the end of the
first workshop, Kalpana had developed enough self-confidence to go out and
begin organizing numerous occupational safety and health training workshops
for her local union. A second workshop, ten months later, reinforced the
women's mastery of the technical OSHE material. After the second workshop,
Kalpana was elected to the Women's Steering Committee of the International
Transport Workers' Federation (ITF).
Today, Kalpana organizes and teaches trade union workshops on OSH,
has gone on to attend a three-week international OSH trade union training
course in Israel, and has addressed 3,000 delegates from 120 countries at the
ITF World Centenary Congress in London. Among the 84 speakers present,
she was one of only four women asked to speak. She has also organized contract
workers for wage revision, participated in the ILO's XlVth World Congress on
OSH in Spain and speaks publicly in her community about HIV/AIDS.
:
' Originally published in World of Work, No. 36 (September/October 2000).
' ' ILO SafeWork Programme.
: !:
51
Gender equality around the world : 2000
The occupational safety gender gap
Women represent some 40 per cent of the global workforce, yet their jobs
and the health and safety risks particular to them remain virtually unstudied.
What's more, corporate and government policymakers have yet to give these
issues adequate consideration. Occupational safety, health and environment
is often seen as a man's domain, where women are out of their league. This
perspective not only limits the empowerment of women but also the drive
for, and the nature of, effective solutions to workplace problems. The
equation is simple: globally, if more people are trained and made aware of the
importance of OSHE, the numbers and the staggering social costs of
workplace fatalities, accidents and environmental catastrophes can be
significantly reduced.
Women are conspicuously absent as decision-makers, both in corporate
boardrooms as well as in trade union offices. Women workers face many
hardships: they find it difficult to advance in the rank and file of a trade
union, they lack support from the male leadership for organizing and
conducting OSHE training courses, and have difficulty ensuring that other
women participate in such training courses. Demonstrating particular
competencies or advancing in union ranks often provokes jealousy from
colleagues. Women may even find obstacles built up before them just because
they are women. As a result, women workers often feel intimidated when
addressing technical health and safety subjects, especially in front of a group
of male workers.
The lack of participation by women in solutions affecting their own health
is exacerbated by the fact that women are often reluctant to get involved in
officially designated Occupational Health and Safety Committees. They feel
they lack the critical technical skills and expertise, a belief that only increases
the cycle of low self-esteem and feelings of incompetence.
The ILO recognizes that in order for real change to take place, safety and
health professionals need to demystify technical areas, empower workers, focus
on the risks particular to jobs performed by women on the job, and encourage
unions to activate Women's Committees as well as involve women in Health
and Safety Committees. This reflects the recognition that the health and safety
risks to women in jobs performed by women are different from those
experienced by men. For example, because tools and personal protective equipment (PPE) are designed for men, women often face a situation where their size
renders the equipment and PPE ineffective, thereby increasing their risk of
injury or illness. In addition, failure to study exposure effects particular to
women creates an occupational safety gender gap that leaves women
unnecessarily vulnerable to such exposure.
52
Women work to close the "occupational safety gender gap"
From New Delhi to Manila: Globalizing women's OSHE
In an attempt to reduce the barriers to women's participation in health and
safety in their workplaces, the ILO sponsored a series of workshops with the
help of a grant from the Norwegian Government. The success of the first
workshop in New Delhi, India, in 1993, led to others in India and the
Philippines, and inspired other union safety programmes aimed at supporting
and utilizing women in the workplace.
To date, this ILO effort has provided training for some 60 women union
members throughout the Philippines and India in conducting health and safety
workshops for their respective unions. The impact of these women has been
tremendous; they have gone on to train several hundred other workers in health
and safety issues. They have won the support of their mostly male union and
company management and as a result have continued to organize their own
training workshops. And, if that is not enough, some of them have gone on to
do further community health work, which again impacts many more thousands
of people.
These "train-the-trainer" workshops helped the women understand the
importance of their role in their unions and their potential to become agents of
change. By working together and creating a supportive group environment in
the classroom, the workshops empowered the women to carry out newly
adopted roles with their newly developed skills in the field.
"I don't want my daughter to grow up feeling inadequate and uneducated
like I have. I want her to feel in control of her life. This is why I want to gain
these new skills and pursue this direction." This powerful statement reveals the
motivation behind one Filipina trade unionist's desire to become an OSHE
instructor for her trade union.
The workshops required the participants to leave their homes and jobs to
travel to the city where the workshop was held for at least one week at a time.
Building a strong sense of solidarity among each group of women trainees took
time, the outcome of days and nights spent together. Many women had never
spoken or instructed in public, some had never travelled alone or so far before.
Despite the cultural and personal stress that this presented, no one left the
programme. All barriers were overcome.
Seeing and hearing each other tackle technical issues was extremely
effective for the women participants. It built the self-confidence needed to face
male or mixed groups of workers. The classroom was designed to be a "safe
zone" with the participants as owners. They were encouraged to utilize the
training space as they saw fit. For example, trainees decorated the walls of their
classrooms with "risk maps",visually depicting the location of different hazards
at their workplaces.
53
Gender equality around the world : 2000
Using participatory techniques and the principles of Paulo Freire's
"education for critical consciousness", trainees underwent the process of
relating what was being discussed and practised in the classroom and in the
workplace to their own life experiences. In contrast to lecture-based learning,
this consciousness-building process allowed the trainees to translate how
workplace and environmental hazards could affect them and their families, and
to build up the confidence allowing them to think creatively about ways of
addressing problems. Equally important, the process created a greater
understanding of group dynamics and provided the facilitation skills needed
to work effectively with their fellow workers, which they could then use to
reach the goals of heightened awareness of workplace safety, health and
environmental issues. In the classroom, women workers benefited from
practising their role as OSHE trainers in front of a highly supportive group.
This was a key element in building self-confidence and creating successful
outcomes.
From being a "zero" to Bombay's "Best Citizen"
Since her beginnings as a self-described "zero", Kalpana, the Bombay port
computer worker, has not stopped moving and shaking the Transport and Dock
Workers' Union and the City of Bombay. She has borne a heavy burden as a
woman activist in her union. She undertook an individual initiative to organize
non-union ports. Doing what others in her union had not tried to do, she was
labelled, scandalized, and her reputation tarnished. But she is a crusader and
keeps going. On 1 February 2000 the Municipal Corporation awarded her "Best
Citizen of Bombay"! For this honour, she was awarded a Certificate by the
Mayor of Bombay, at the Mayor's Bungalow in Bombay.
Kalpana and her sisters have demonstrated their self-transformation into
motivators and transmitters of OSHE information and have created a
multiplier effect. Experiences of training women workers in the Philippines
have yielded similar results.
One group of women can end up training literally thousands of workers.
In the industrialized countries the results are the same. LaVerne, an American
working for a gas company, was required to answer customer billing complaints
at an average of one phone call every one minute and 69/100 of a second, while
remaining friendly at all times. She was sent by her union to an OSH train-thetrainer workshop. Having her self-confidence built up by the training, the
practice and the supportive environment, LaVerne went on to become the
National Director of Training for her union's OSH department. Today, moving
more mountains, LaVerne is the Director of an Occupational Health Centre,
responsible for an entire city (and she is still friendly!).
54
Women work to close the "occupational safety gender gap"
Against barriers, endless possibilities
The successes of these women have provided the inspiration to move into other
arenas with women workers. In Brazil, for example, women widowed by
occupational accidents will be given the opportunity to become transmitters
and motivators of safety culture on construction sites, with remuneration from
the Civil Construction union. This programme will also mitigate the poverty
which usually engulfs workplace widows, who may become marginalized by
their plight, sinking into drug abuse and prostitution, sometimes dragging their
children along with them.
Instead, the women in this programme will be encouraged to participate
in on-the-jobsite literacy training through occupational safety and health, and
become involved in training seminars where they can discuss prevention,
rehabilitation, return to work policies and access to treatment services.
This is but one example of an innovative way to provide women living on
the edge with a new future, one in which they move from the isolation brought
on by yet another example of the occupational gender safety gap, into a new
sense of solidarity with others facing a similar plight. In the Philippines, women
trainees illustrated this sense of solidarity with poignant drawings showing
them and sister trade unionists on other continents connected by an imaginary
umbilical cord. Many of the ILO workshop graduates have continued to keep
in touch with their classmates. In our global village, the experiences and
successes of one group of women workers can directly impact the lives of
another. There does indeed appear to be an invisible umbilical cord between
these groups of women, nourishing their efforts and giving life in faraway places
to others whom they will probably never meet. The barriers are many, but the
possibilities seem endless.
55
THE SELF-EMPLOYED WOMEN'S
ASSOCIATION (SEWA): GIVING UNPROTECTED
WOMEN WORKERS IN INDIA A COLLECTIVE
VOICE TO ORGANIZE AND BARGAIN*
SEWA, started in 1972 by Ela Bhatt in Ahmedabad, India, is a trade union with
220,000 members, and has promoted 85 cooperatives, including the Mahila SEWA
Bank. World of Work talked to Ms Renana Jhabvala, the National Coordinator
for SEWA, during the Social Summit in Geneva.
World of Work: What is the goal of SEWA and how has it worked to help alleviate
poverty among informal women workers in India?
Renana Jhabvala: SEWA is both an organization and a movement. It is a
confluence of three movements: the labour movement, the cooperative
movement and the women's movement. But it is also a movement of selfemployed women, with women as the leaders. Through their own movement
women become strong and visible. Their tremendous economic and social
contribution becomes recognized.
SEWA is an organization of poor, self-employed or informal women
workers who earn a living through their own labour or small businesses. They
are the unprotected workers of our country, constituting 92 per cent of the
labour force, and are in the unorganized sector. Of the female labour force
in India, more than 94 per cent are in the unorganized sector. However,
their work is not counted; women workers remain uncounted, undercounted
and invisible.
SEWA's main goals are to organize women workers for full employment
and self-reliance. Full employment means work security, income security,
food security and social security (at least health care, child care and shelter).
* Originally published in World of Work, No.36 (September/October 2000).
56
The Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA):
Self-reliance means women should be autonomous, individually and
collectively, both economically and in their decision-making ability.
At SEWA we organize workers to achieve their goals of full employment
and self-reliance through the strategy of struggle and development. The
struggle is against the constraints and limitations imposed by society and the
economy, while development activities strengthen women's bargaining power
and offer them new alternatives.
To bring women workers into the mainstream, SEWA has launched several
state, national and international level campaigns. These campaigns are mainly
targeted to voice women workers' rights and demands and to influence the
policies in their favour.
WoW: Much has been said about the impact of globalization on the informal
economy. How has this impact affected women workers in India, and what sort of
lessons can be drawn as a result?
Renana Jhabvala: In practice we have found that liberalization has had a mixed
impact on the women workers. On the one hand, liberalization has led to
closure of many industries as well as to informalization, and a tremendous
increase in contract and casual work. This has impoverished many families,
which were earlier in the formal sector, and has increased the workload of the
women in these families. It has also increased competition in the informal
economy. Furthermore, the opening of markets to foreign products is affecting
the local rural economy.
On the other hand, the opening of markets, the loosening of bureaucratic
controls, new technologies and the tremendous growth of communications,
especially telephones and television, has increased both opportunities and
expectations for the informal economy workers.
WoW: How does SEWA balance the impact of globalization with the needs of its
members and constituents?
Renana Jhabvala: SEWA is actively involved in advocacy for the protection of
women workers in the informal economy. It is now being recognized that these
workers also need some minimum standards as well as social protection.
However, they do not have a clear employer-employee relationship and so the
kinds of minimum standards and social protection that need to be prescribed
for them has to be very different from what we are used to in the labour laws,
which are mainly for the formal sector, for the model of "industrial man".
SEWA is active in trying to promote standards such as the ILO Home
Work Convention, 1996 (No. 177) and the International Declaration for Street
57
Gender equality around the world : 2000
Vendors. Also as part of WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment
Globalizing and Organizing) we are active in promoting an International
Platform for Workers in the Informal Economy, as we believe that in the
process of globalization it is important for workers to make their voice heard
at international as well as national levels.
On the development side, we feel that better and more employment
should be part of the process of globalization. In cases where workers have been
able to link with the newly expanding markets their income has gone up
considerably. SEWA has been successful in linking up its artisan members'
production with the national and international markets. To make our members
competent in the global village, we have been making them aware of latest
technologies, their uses and implications.
WoW: What has been the impact of the ILO's Home Work Convention, 1996
(No. 177) and how are its terms being implemented if at all in national law and
practice in India now?
Renana Jhabvala: One of SEWA's oldest campaigns has been for the rights of
millions of home-based workers for both piece-rate and own-account workers.
The Government of India has decided to launch a National Policy on
Homebased Workers. The National Policy was discussed in a national tripartite
meeting and is in the process of being formulated. It is along the lines of the
Convention. However, the Government of India has adopted a broader
definition of home-based workers.
At the international level, HomeNet is promoting organizations of homebased workers internationally, as well as national policies. HomeNet, along
with the international trade unions - IUF, ITGLWF and ICEM - are having
a campaign for ratification of the Convention.
WoW In WIEGO you have launched a new international organization for
women in the informal economy. What are the goals of this organization, and
will it be able to help women outside India to improve their incomes and fight
poverty?
Renana Jhabvala: WIEGO is a network of grassroots organizations, researchers
and policymakers. Its main goal is to formulate and promote policies that will
directly benefit women in informal employment.
Its objectives are:
•
58
to improve the economic and social prospects of women in informal
employment;
The Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA):
"I feel strong today ..."
Chanchalben is from the village ofKosam in the Kheda district. She was married
at the age of 7, widowed at 18. She had two small children at the time.
"I didn't know how I would ever raise my two children, how I would survive ... I
began working in the home of a landlord of my village. I did all the housework and
helped in the construction work of his home. I earned Rs. 4 per day and a meal
for this labour. I would pour water over the cement construction till my body ached.
My stomach would hurt too. But then I thought of my children and kept going.
"I did many different types of work. I worked in the tobacco fields, in the tobacco
processing plants. I would lock up my children in the house and go to work, i was
always worried about the children.
"In spite of working so hard, I could barely earn enough to survive. We were paid
so little and there was nothing we could do because if we protested we would get
no work at all.
"One day, SEWA organizers came to my village. They organized a meeting and
spoke of joining the union. After the meeting, they invited one of us to visit SEWA's
office at Anand. I met many women like myself at the office and learned about
savings groups, t decided to form one such group in my own village.
"Then I said to my sisters in the village and also to the SEWA organizers that we
really needed a crèche in the village. We work with tobacco and it is so harmful for
our children. So we approached the village Panchayat and the state government,
and obtained a crèche for our children.
"Perhaps the most difficult struggle was to get minimum wages. I was afraid that
if we asked for better wages we would get no work at all and then we would starve.
But then I picked up courage and together our union insisted on getting the
minimum wage. I lost my fear.
"As I participated in more meetings at SEWA I became more involved, learned new
things. I felt stronger and shared what I learned with other women. After joining
the union, I felt secure. We saved, we joined the Insurance scheme. I feel strong
today..."
59
Gender equality around the world : 2000
•
to draw attention to the centrality of women's informal employment in
national and global economics;
•
to integrate women's informal work into mainstream theories, policies,
and markets.
WIEGO is concentrating on five areas. They are:
global markets;
social protection for informal workers;
urban policies and how they effect street vendors;
organization and representation of women in the informal economy promoting membership-based organizations of informal workers and
building systems of voice regulation to ensure their representation; and
statistics to ensure visibility and understanding of informal workers.
60
2001
"Women are still concentrated in the most precarious forms of work throughout the world and breaking through the 'glass ceiling3 still appears elusive for
all but a select few," concluded a new ILO report published in May 2001. The
report, Breaking through the glass ceiling: Women in management, used recent
data disaggregated by sex to examine the progress of women into management
jobs and the obstacles they face.
The ILO itself, through its policy on Gender Equality and Mainstreaming,
has set an Office-wide target of 50 per cent of professional posts to be filled by
women by 2010, with particular care to be given to gender balance in senior
posts. Complementary to this, the organization's staffing policy calls for at
least 33 per cent women in higher grades.
Another significant ILO study this year delineated trends in labour
market stability in industrialized countries throughout the 1990s. The study
clearly showed that in almost all European countries, average tenure for women
employees was shorter than for men - leading to a marked gender gap in job
stability.
61
FORCED LABOUR, HUMAN TRAFFICKING,
SLAVERY HAUNT US STILL*
Forced labour, slavery and criminal trafficking in human beings - especially
women and children - are on the rise worldwide and taking new and insidious
forms. A new study by the ILO says slavery, oppression and exploitation of human
beings have by no means been relegated to history.
Forced labour - a relic of a bygone era? No, sadly not.
Although universally condemned, forced labour is revealing ugly new
faces alongside the old. Traditional types of forced labour such as chattel slavery
and bonded labour are still with us in some areas, and past practices of this type
haunt us to this day. In new economic contexts, disturbing forms such as forced
labour in connection with the trafficking of human beings are now emerging
almost everywhere.
So begins a new ILO report entitled Stopping forced labour. The 128-page
study, compiled as part of the follow-up to the ILO's 1998 Declaration on
Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work was published worldwide in May
and discussed by the ILO's 175 member States at the 89th session of the
International Labour Conference.
"The growth of forced labour worldwide is deeply disturbing," said ILO
Director-General Juan Somavia in announcing the publication of the report in
May. "The emerging picture is one where slavery, exploitation and oppression
of society's most vulnerable members - especially women and children - have
by no means been consigned to the past. Abusive control of one human being
over another is the antithesis of decent work."
!
Originally published in WorW of Work, No.39 (June 2001).
63
Gender equality around the world : 2001
Echoes of the past
During the past 100 years or so, the coercive practices of forced labour first
came to be associated with the colonial regimes of the early twentieth century
and remnants of serfdom. Then came the concentration camps, labour camps
and other forms of compulsory labour that blighted the mid-century period,
and which haunt us to this day in the form of continuing claims for
compensation involving countries and enterprises. With the contemporary
consolidation of democratic regimes, together with more open economies and
renewed commitments to fighting poverty and transnational crime, there is
fresh hope that forced labour can in fact be relegated to the past.
Although they might vary outwardly, different types of forced labour
share two common features: the exercise of coercion and the denial of freedom.
It was in recognition of this affront to the human spirit that the ILO
Declaration included the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory
labour.
"In light of these findings the entire world needs to re-examine its
conscience and instigate action to abolish forced labour and the often terrible
living and working conditions that go with it," Mr Somavia said.
The scope of the problem
What are the main patterns of forced labour today? According to the report,
such ancient, barbaric practices as slavery and feudal bondage are not declining
under the impact of national and international legislation and government
action, but are still disturbingly alive (see box).
Forced labour today
Slavery and abduction
Compulsory participation in public works projects
Forced labour in agriculture and remote rural areas
Domestic workers in forced labour situations
Bonded labour
Forced labour imposed by the military
Forced labour in the trafficking of persons
Some aspects of prison labour and rehabilitation through work
64
Forced labour, human trafficking, siavery haunt us still
In addition, the phenomenon of trafficking for forced or compulsory
labour is growing so fast that most countries in the world today fit into one of
three categories - "sending countries, transit countries and receiving
countries".
"Main destinations may be the urban centres of the richer countries Amsterdam, Brussels, London, New York, Rome, Sydney, Tokyo - and the
capitals of developing and transition countries," the report says. But the
movement of trafficked persons is highly complex and varied. Countries as
diverse as Albania, Hungary, Nigeria and Thailand can act as points of origin,
destination and transit at the same time.
The report notes that outright slavery, though increasingly rare in the
modern world, is still found in a handful of countries, and the wholesale
abduction of individuals and communities in such conflict-torn societies as
Liberia, Mauritania, Sierra Leone and Sudan is not uncommon. The forced
recruitment of children for armed conflict, deemed one of the worst forms of
child labour, is also on the rise.
The report also highlights debt bondage and slavery-like practices that are
widespread on the agricultural plantations of such West African countries as
Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali and Togo as well as on sugar cane
plantations of the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
Slavery-like conditions and debt bondage await many workers who fall
prey to coercive recruitment practices in rural areas, especially for work on
agricultural plantations or in domestic work. Indigenous peoples as diverse as
Pygmies and Bantus in Africa, and the Aymara and Exnet in Latin America, are
especially vulnerable to such forms of forced labour, the report notes. It
reminds us of the extreme case of forced labour in Myanmar, which has spurred
an exceptional reaction by the international community. But it also details
successful efforts to combat bonded labour in India, Nepal and Pakistan.
Poverty, unemployment, civil disorder, political repression and gender and
racial discrimination make for an all-too-propitious environment for
traffickers' exploitation of vulnerable persons, the report warns. Europe in
particular "has seen an explosion of trafficking since the breakup of the former
Soviet Union", and large-scale sweatshop activities involving clandestine
migrants have been found in Europe and North America.
Forced labour is increasingly difficult to detect, organized as it often is
around international criminal gangs who find the trafficking of humans to be
less dangerous than the trafficking of drugs. Much forced labour involves
underground or illegal activities and is otherwise hidden from public view. The
growth of unregulated industrial work, agriculture and the urban informal
sector are contributing factors to the economic and social forces fuelling much
migration and exploitation.
65
Gender equality around the world : 2001
Why no precise figures?
How many people are atecled by forced labour today? Where are they? Who are
the main victims? While these issues crop up in the report, it is not possible at this
stage to give an accurate estimate of the numbers affected on a global scale.
Forced labour is increasingly exacted in the illicit, underground economy. These are
areas which tend to escape national statistics. And the statistics available are not
sufficiently refined to get a proper handle on forced labour. Contemporary forms
of forced labour thus require more investigating and attention to prepare the
ground for more accurate, gender-sensitive indicators and appraisals, as a basis
for policy determination and action in the future.
In border regions of south-east Asia, "coercion, deception and the selling
of minors result from direct recruitment from the village," the report finds,
with the sex sector fuelling much of the activity.
In the Balkans and Eastern Europe - especially countries such as Moldova,
Romania and Ukraine - trafficking in women is on the rise, with Bosnia and
Herzegovina and the Kosovo region emerging as significant destination points
on the way to Europe.
In Israel "there has been an influx of women brought in by many criminal
networks". The United States is thought to be the destination for 50,000
trafficked women and children each year, with the sex sector as well as domestic
and cleaning work (in offices, hotels, and so on) stimulating much of the
demand. Main entry points are New York State and California.
While there is universal consensus on the definition of forced labour
(essentially work performed under compulsion and subject to a penalty), some
of the forms it takes are still sources of policy debate. Among the most
contentious issues are those involving the compulsory participation of citizens
in public works in the context of economic development, a practice which
prevails in a number of Asian countries (including Viet Nam) and African
countries (Central African Republic, Sierra Leone and the United Republic of
Tanzania).
The use of prison labour is another area of contention in countries where
rehabilitation through labour is part of punishment, as in China, or where the
hiring out of prison labour to private entities is permitted, as in the United
States. According to the ILO report, "with prisoners already deprived of their
liberty, there is an evident risk that private hiring of prison labour can involve
exploitation, thus negating any pretence of the exercise of free will".
66
Forced labour, human trafficking, siavery haunt us still
The ILO response
What can the ILO, working with its constituents and partner institutions, do
to prevent and eliminate it? In spite of different aspects and the scale of the
forced labour problem, the report highlights some successes of the
international assistance to governments in identifying the nature and
dimensions of the problem within and across their national borders. The
complex mixture of social and economic conditions which permit forced labour
to breed presents a daunting task for any one country to tackle alone.
The complexity of the phenomenon requires a combination of antipoverty and labour market regulatory measures. Long-standing problems of
forced labour might be linked with agrarian institutions requiring reform as
regards sustainable agriculture, productivity and human rights concerns.
Trafficking in persons, while displaying forced labour dimensions, also needs to
be addressed from other perspectives.
While the ILO is pioneering projects which involve microfinance, rehabilitation and re-skilling of workers out of forced labour situations, and expanding
its knowledge base on labour trafficking and means of prevention for those at
risk, there is a global challenge at hand for the ILO and its partners. In addressing
this challenge, following the discussion of this report by the Conference, the ILO
is committed to working closely with governments, employers and workers in
specific countries and with the international development community.
The report highlights the ILO International Programme on the
Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) which has been working with
governments, trade unions, employers' organizations and NGOs to address the
problems of child labour and trafficking of children. Programmes which involve
women, through education, training, credit and other empowerment tools, have
been crucial to an effective strategy in combating the trafficking of children.
The report examines the important role played by law-enforcement
agencies and United Nations bodies which have joined forces to coordinate
efforts and tackle the problem on multiple fronts (such as the Global
Programme against Trafficking in Human Beings). Additionally, workers' and
employers' organizations, as well as individual corporations, have also taken
some concrete steps such as by ascribing to the Global Compact, the United
Nations system business partnership agreement, which includes freedom from
forced labour as one of its principles.
"It will not be an easy task to improve the socioeconomic conditions that
permit forced labour to breed, or to detect and punish the culprits who
perpetrate it," the report says, adding that governments and the ILO's social
partners in all countries must "deepen understanding and redouble efforts to
eliminate this terrible blight on human freedom in all its forms".
67
BEYOND THE "GLASS CEILING": WOMEN
IN THE WORLD OF WORK PROGRESS,
BUT SLOWLY*
Since its genesis in the 1970s, the term "glass ceiling" has come to symbolize the
invisible barriers blocking women from rising to the top of the corporate heap.
Whether at work or in politics, this artificial barrier - a transparent but stifling cap
fashioned from attitudinal and organizational prejudices - remains in effect despite
decades of social development and advancements in gender equality. While women
are gradually increasing their share of managerial work and positions, one thing
remains clear: the rate of change has been slow and the pace of progress uneven.
A new ILO study, published in May, provides an overview of the factors
affecting women's participation in management and decision-making. Breaking
through the glass ceiling: Women in management, by Linda Wirth of the ILO
Bureau for Gender Equality, uses the most recent available data disaggregated
by sex to examine the progress of women into management jobs and the
obstacles they face to break through the "glass ceiling" to reach top positions.
"Women are still concentrated in the most precarious forms of work
throughout the world and breaking through the 'glass ceiling' still appears
elusive for all but a select few," says the report. "Women hold a mere 1 to 3 per
cent of top executive jobs in the largest corporations around the world."
Topics covered include:
•
Current gender inequalities confronting women in the labour market and
in political and social life
•
Progress made by women in professional and managerial jobs, with recent
statistics on women at the top in the public service, in finance and
banking, and in politics
" Originally published in World of Work, No. 39 gune 2001).
68
Beyond the "glass ceiling": Women in the world of work progress, but slowly
•
Male and female participation in education and training, and strategies to
help women qualify for careers in management
•
Obstacles in the workplace which hinder women's career development,
how and why men's and women's career paths differ, and strategies to
overcome barriers to women at higher organizational levels
•
Policies, programmes and initiatives taken at the national level to promote
women in management
•
International action, in particular on the part of the ILO, which has been
taken to promote equal employment opportunities
The findings of Breaking through the glass ceiling provided the basis for an
International Women's Day roundtable discussion held at ILO headquarters
and around the world on 8 March.
"We cannot afford to lose out on women's talent," said Mr Juan Somavia,
Director-General of the ILO, in an address to a panel of international
dignitaries on the occasion. "Improving gender equality in the workplace is not
only the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do."
Other panellists who addressed the audience included Ms Gro Harlem
Brundtland, Director-General of the World Health Organization; Ms Mary
Robinson, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights;
Ms Germaine Greer, author and academic; Mr Walter Fust, Director-General of
the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation; Ms Mamounata Cissé,
Assistant Secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions;
Ms Angeline Low, Director of a private investment company, and Ms Christine
Ockrent, a well-known journalist and broadcaster.
69
NEW ILO STUDY: LABOUR MARKETS LESS
VOLATILE THAN GENERALLY ASSUMED*
Peter Auer and Sandrine Gazes*
Is a fair degree of stability in the labour markets the prescription for sustained
development? The situation in the industrialized countries today might suggest that.
Those countries' labour markets are changing, from a high degree of flexibility, or
movement, to stability and longer-term employment - a sharp contrast with less
developed labour markets. This article discusses whether development and a longerterm employment relationship go hand in hand.
According to many observers, job stability has reportedly gone, never to return.
"Workers are told to prepare for a flexible labour market and frequent job
changing. The labour market of the future is portrayed as offering mainly shortterm and unstable jobs, of both high and low quality in terms of wages, skills
and working conditions. A recent ILO study (Auer and Cazes, 2000) is in stark
contrast to this image, as it holds that job stability is surprisingly resistant to
change: over the last decade, average employment tenure has either increased
or remained stable in major industrialized countries.
In 1998, on average, over 60 per cent of all employed persons in Europe
remained in their jobs for more than 5 years. About 40 per cent held their jobs
for more than 10 years.
These percentages are about the same as those for the early 1990s, with
one notable difference. The proportion of those with longer tenure ( + 10 and
+20) has increased. It is true, however, that this proportion is much lower in
the United States (with about 25 per cent of employed persons holding jobs for
more than 10 years). But although average tenure is much lower in the United
States than in Europe, it also proved to be relatively stable over time.
••i Originally published in "World of Work, No.40 (August 2001).
*:^ ILO Employment and Strategy Department.
70
New ILO study: Labour markets less volatile than generally assumed
Gender gap in job stability
There has been little change for men and an increase for women, resulting in a
general stability or slight increase of average tenure in almost all countries under
review, except for Finland, Greece and Ireland. In Germany average tenure
decreased, probably because of mass lay-offs following reunification, but it has
since increased.
Indeed, the patterns tend to differ between men and women. In almost all
European countries, average tenure for women employees is shorter than for
men (except in Portugal, and also the Scandinavian countries, where it is about
the same) but generally, female employment tenure has been increasing. This
reflects the changing career patterns of women, notably women's increased
participation rates and their increased access to more qualified jobs, which
generates longer careers and a trend towards stabilization of jobs, even if they
are sometimes part time.
The empirical analysis of the secular evolution of employment tenure
has very often focused on male tenure, as it is likely to be less influenced
by such changes. However, average tenure for men has remained broadly
stable in most European countries. In some countries (e.g. France) it has
even increased.
In Ireland, the fall in average job tenure for both sexes, but especially for
men, is considerable: tenure has been decreasing since 1993. As this fall is in
parallel with strong job creation, the fall is most probably due to the fact that
if many newcomers with by definition low tenure join the labour market,
average tenure is supposed to fall.
Young people markedly disadvantaged
Average tenure in any given economy is highly dependent on the demographic
structure of the working population: young people have markedly lower
tenure. Controlling for the age composition has revealed some changes in
tenure for young workers, meaning that those who already had the most
flexible employment relationships seem to have seen a further decrease in
employment tenure.
The decrease in youth employment tenure points not so much to generally
destabilized labour markets, but rather to segmented labour markets in which
long-term and short-term jobs are concentrated among different groups. In
order to assess the labour market vulnerability of young workers, one has to
further analyse whether the transition phase to regular employment is only
prolonged or whether young workers are trapped in temporary jobs with little
chance of access to regular jobs.
71
Gender equality around the world : 2001
Labour market stability and labour market institutions
The data indicate that labour markets of most industrialized countries are
showing an unexpectedly large core of stable jobs, with different forms of
flexible employment organized around this core.
In these countries, labour market stability seems to be supported by
labour market institutions. Thus, workers' and employers' organizations and
their ongoing dialogue, employment security regulation, social protection and
the fundamental rights of workers all play a role in stabilizing the employment
relationship. There is therefore also a positive relationship between decent
work - which includes all of the above - and employment stability.
Job stability is not equivalent to job security
There was a much-publicized increase in the perception of job insecurity up to
the mid-1990s because of recurrent mass lay-offs, which were widely reported
in the media and which also affected those hitherto protected - the more
qualified white-collar workers.
Other factors contributed to the heightened perception of job insecurity:
the increasing flexibility for young workers and the rise in temporary jobs which often are now the main entry-point into more stable employment. However,
some of these more stable jobs (i.e. those with a tenure of at least 5 years) might
also translate to undesired and effectively rather unstable jobs (e.g. long-term
involuntary part-time jobs and recurrent temporary jobs). Nevertheless, claims
that the longer-term employment relationship belongs to the past are contradicted by the apparent stability of labour markets in the industrialized world.
Stability is not equivalent to rigidity either. Stable employment relations
in today's globally competitive business environment call for frequent changes
in work organization, in working time schedules, in job assignments: thus there
is some trade-off between internal and external flexibility. And even relatively
stable labour markets show a degree of numerical flexibility because of
attrition, lay-offs, retirements, and temporary contracts.
Efficient firms - and an efficient public sector - operate in fact with all kinds
of flexibility: external, numerical flexibility and internal, functional flexibility
through changes in work organization. But in most among the efficient firms
flexibility is marginal and core stability remains the dominant pattern.
Social protection and stable employment
These findings have at least two consequences for employment and social
policy in industrialized countries and should also inform policymakers in the
72
New ILO study: Labour markets less volatile than generally assumed
transition and developing countries. All attempts to radically change social
protection in ways that suggest that the link between employment and social
protection has to be loosened, because the long-term employment relationship
is vanishing, are premature.
Longer-term employment remains the basis for most people's income in
the industrialized countries. It remains an important tax base for social
protection and the basis for eligibility for most social protection schemes,
notably unemployment insurance. Also, many of the other basic social
protection rights, such as sickness insurance and retirement benefits, are usually
based on stable employment.
Developed countries
This does not imply that the present systems in the industrialized countries
should not be reformed. There should be improvements, for example:
•
Ensure the transition of those in unstable jobs into stable jobs.
•
Protect those in unstable jobs better.
•
Give access to active labour market policies for first-time entrants into the
labour market.
•
Shift part of taxes on labour to general taxes (still paid on labour - and
capital - income but not directly impacting on non-wage labour costs).
•
Create several pillars in the retirement system and increase portability.
But if employment is to be at the centre of decent work to the same extent
as it is at the core of the EU's and the OECD's Employment Strategies,
promotion of employment should stand in the forefront. This might also mean
that rights to social protection that are unconditional on former or present
work should be used cautiously and in any case not be generalized.
Instead, all policy alternatives that favour employment creation (with such
employment giving access to social rights) should be used. Such welfare-towork policies must be based on decent employment policies and should not
lead to restrictive policies of workfare, that push people off welfare into
undesired jobs.
Transition and developing countries
The second implication refers specifically to transition countries and developing
countries. Leaving aside the special case of the United States - but to a smaller
degree even there - labour markets in most highly developed countries are
73
Gender equality around the world : 2001
characterized by a large share of stable jobs and a smaller share of flexible jobs.
That said, why then should the low road of maximal labour market flexibility be
the only road out of underdevelopment, unemployment and poverty?
The high road to development is far more likely to be a specific
combination of stable jobs and flexible jobs. This calls up the next question:
what are the appropriate institutions and regulations for stabilizing employment? All developed countries have, to different degrees, such stabilizing
labour market institutions: employment protection rules such as dismissal
protection prescribing lay-off procedures (e.g. seniority rules), unemployment
protection systems and labour exchanges, education and training, social
dialogue, and so on.
Combining flexibility and stability
Various combinations of flexibility and stability are possible. No thorough
analysis has yet been made to arrive at the most suitable combination, one
reason being that countries (but also sectors and firms) differ. There is no onesize-fits-all solution.
However, good practice examples of how to provide flexibility and
stability exist. Their combination depends largely on the interrelationship
between employment and social protection: if there is easy access to income
protection and employability measures such as training, then there is less need
for employment protection at the enterprise level. In its absence, security is
better provided by firms, which then need more employment stability and
internal flexibility to cope with changes.
However, the principle which should guide both further research and
policy advice is clear: there is much more employment stability than generally
assumed in the industrialized countries and there are good reasons from both
the supply and the demand side of the labour market why this is so. Workers'
commitment to employers and employers' commitment to workers underpin
high levels of development and are apparently still needed in a time of
continuous change.
74
2002
This year saw the culmination of the first organization-wide round of
participatory gender audits in ILO. The participatory gender audit methodology
was developed and adapted by the ILO as a self-assessment tool to monitor
progress and recommend improvements in the organization's implementation
of gender mainstreaming. The audit was designed to cover a wide range of
issues, including information and knowledge management, staffing and human
resources, perceptions of achievement on gender equality, gender expertise, and
capacity building. During the audit, a review was made of key ILO reports,
major publications, and programming, budget and evaluation processes. The
results were fed into a final report which summarizes conclusions and
recommendations.
Gender auditing continues in the ILO and has in recent years been
extended beyond ILO itself to also cover national and international
constituents and, upon request, several UN agencies at the country level.
75
WOMEN'S DAY 2002: WOMEN AND CONFLICT
Throughout history, women have suffered inordinately from war and violence.
Since the end of the Cold War, the shape of conflict has shifted to "civil" or internal
struggles which are often complex and seem never-ending. Two new ILO reports
examine the changed nature of conflict and its impact on women; hoth conclude
that women continue to pay a heavy price in today's trouble spots.
For women, war and conflict carry a special terror. Destruction, upheaval,
injury and death are not all they must fear. Rape, torture, physical and sexual
abuse, sexual or economic slavery and forced liaisons or marriages are
often their fate. Loss of family, husbands, partners, professions and incomes is
their curse.
During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, an estimated 250,000 to 500,000
women and girls - some as young as five - were subjected to torture, physical
abuse and rape, says a report by Women for Women International.
"In addition to the emotional and physical trauma caused by the rapes,
many women gave birth to the children of their rapists (an estimated 5,000
pregnancies were attributed to sexual assaults)," the report says. "Many women
also suffer from gynaecological problems and sexually transmitted diseases
(STDs) such as AIDS."
In some cases, the impact of war and conflict on women and girls is more
subtle - yet equally damaging. Fear and uncertainty, brought on by the sound
of distant gunfire drawing nearer is referred to in the diaries of Zlata Filipovic,
published in 1994.
• Originally published in World of Work, No.42 (March 2002).
77
Gender equality around the world : 2002
Entry for Sunday 5 April 1992, in Sarajevo: "I'm trying to do my
homework (reading), but I simply can't. Something is going on in town. You
can hear gunfire from the hills... You can simply feel that something is coming,
something very bad."
Caught up in the power-play of nations and factions, women often feel
powerless as their worlds begin to crumble. Yet a consistent theme in women's
writing or speaking about conflict and war is the fight against being passive
victims. Defying events or new masters, women struggle to survive. Says one
woman, Rosalie, a Burundian refugee in Tanzania: "War has changed our life,
not our spirit."
Bloody wars, new wars
The brutality of war and how people cope emerges as a predominant theme in
a new ILO report on gender and armed conflict (Date-Bah et al., 2001).
Prepared for the InFocus Programme on Crisis Response and Reconstruction,
and covering armed conflicts in Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Middle
East, the report highlights some of the complex survival strategies adopted by
women in the face of terrible upheaval.
The report paints a grim picture of the "statistics of war". Mozambique's
22-year war cost one million lives and left the country destitute. Guatemala's
35-year conflict saw over 400 villages completely destroyed, and a third of the
population thrown into extreme poverty. The Bosnian war created two million
displaced persons, and divided the country along ethnic lines. The Lebanese
conflict saw family and social networks disrupted and one-third of the
population surviving below the absolute poverty line.
According to the ILO report, the nebulous nature of such conflicts has
extended the reach of violence. Unlike earlier wars involving set-piece battles
between armies, many modern conflicts engulf not only entire countries or
communities, but have reached a new level of brutality against noncombatants.
Increasingly, modern conflict involves violence directed specifically
against women. An estimated 20,000 to 50,000 women are believed to have
been raped in Bosnia alone, with the attacks sometimes used to terrorize
communities and assault ethnic identity. Sexual slavery is said to have been
common in Mozambique, with women also subjected to beatings and torture.
Furthermore, changes in the technology of warfare have further exposed
non-combatants and civilian populations to danger through the use of such
weapons as anti-personnel land mines, poison gas, scatter bombs, chemical
defoliants and light ammunition. In today's wars, the front line is rarely a line
at all.
78
Women's Day 2002: Women and conflict
Society in flux
One of the most significant effects of war and conflict is the decline in the male
population as a result of death, flight and labour migration. As a result, more
and more households are headed by women, often in extremely difficult
circumstances. The report found that female-headed households constituted a
large proportion of those living in extreme poverty, generally as a result of the
loss of financial support and male labour.
In addition, social norms may provide further obstacles for women left
running family groups. In Mozambique, for instance, access to land is negotiated
through men, either through husbands or, in matrilineal communities, through
maternal uncles. In Bosnia, it was noted that rebuilding houses is difficult for
women because the practice of house construction is seen as a social ritual, one
undertaken through reciprocal arrangement between the men in a village.
As well as the rise in the number of female-headed households, the conflicts
were found to have greatly increased household sizes, which expanded to absorb
additional family members who had been displaced, or to take in abandoned or
orphaned children. In Lebanon, for example, displaced households were larger
than those of non-displaced. The war in Mozambique produced an estimated
200,000 orphans, many of whom were taken in by substitute families.
For women looking after a large family group, marriage was sometimes
seen as a means to economic and physical security. Yet the fall in the number
of adult males made this increasingly difficult. For those with many
dependants, finding a suitor becomes more difficult. In addition, in Guatemala,
Mozambique and Lebanon, unmarried women were found to suffer from
significant social stigma.
The uses of adversity
In order to survive and provide for their dependants, many women undertake
new activities, or learn new trades which are often considered "men's work".
Yet, according to the report, the movement of women into occupations
traditionally viewed as male is not necessarily sustained in the long term. Eritrean
women who fought in the war against Ethiopia observed that, while they were
treated equally with men during the war, once the conflict ended they had to
return to traditional roles and a patriarchal society (The Guardian, 6 May 1996,
p.8). The report notes that while fluidity in gender roles and responsibility was
accepted during the Bosnian war, afterwards there was an emphasis on returning
to the pre-war gender roles, with a particular stress on women's obligations in
the home (Walsh, 2001). The report calls for better consideration of how the
"advantages of adversity" can be retained in the subsequent peace.
79
Gender equality around the world : 2002
It also cautions against the practice of targeting aid to quite generally
defined "vulnerable" or "war-affected" groups, such as "women" or "femaleheaded households". According to the study, the experience in Mozambique
suggests that such broad categories hide huge variations and are not always
reliable indicators of poverty or vulnerability. In Guatemala, the targeting of
assistance exclusively to returnees is said to have often exacerbated tensions
with other impoverished rural populations.
According to the report, just as there is not one unitary "women's
experience" during conflict, so too, reconstruction strategies need to be
responsive to the particulars of different groups, and need to also involve
women from a range of backgrounds.
Afghan realities
In Afghanistan, a new ILO study (Barakat and Wardell, 2001) describes the
impact on Afghan women of the various regimes which ruled the country before
and since the invasion and occupation by the former Soviet Union, which began
in 1979: "It is clear that the abuse of women's human rights in Afghanistan is part
of a much larger landscape that has been shaped by 23 years of conflict."
One of the key conclusions is that contrary to stereotypes, Afghan
women were not "passive or powerless 'victims' ", and that they perceive
themselves as "wielding considerable power", particularly within the family and
in brokering peace or mobilization/demobilization.
"Inadequate recognition of these roles by the assistance community has
led to missed opportunities for furthering peace and recovery," the report says.
"Women see themselves first and foremost within the framework of the family
and this is reflected in their preferring coping mechanisms in times of hardship.
Consequently, there is a need for agencies to focus on the family as the building
block for a peaceful and prosperous Afghan society, whilst ensuring a safety net
exists for the most vulnerable."
The report notes that as a result of "widowhood and displacement, more
households are now headed by women, whilst the absence of men for long
periods to fight led to women taking on new areas of responsibility. In addition,
exposure to refugee camp healthcare facilities and to education and vocational
skills training (for some) has changed attitudes and aspirations."
One tragedy, two voices
As heavy artillery ravaged Sarajevo, Zlata's mother began to slip into a state of
gloom and despair. Yet Zlata herself tried to hold on to aspects of "normality",
playing the piano - attempting Bach and Chopin - even while the sound of
80
Women's Day 2002: Women and conflict
machine guns could be heard from the hills. Many of her friends and their
families had earlier decided to flee.
In Afghanistan, young Latifa, 16, saw others depart as well; both her
brothers left Afghanistan, as did her friend Anita, who went away in search of
her father. Latifa herself is currently living in exile in Paris. Yet she does not
dream of staying in the relative luxury of France. Instead, like many women
who have left their homes in the face of armed conflict, she wants to go back.
She will return when "I can be a free woman in a free country... and take
up my duties as a citizen, a woman - and I hope, one day, as a mother."
81
FIRST ILO GENDER AUDIT KEEPS EQUALITY
ON THE AGENDA*
The ILO has launched a series of groundbreaking "gender audits" involving staff
from offices in Bangkok, Budapest, Kathmandu, Dar es Salaam and its Geneva
office. More audits are planned for the months ahead with a subsequent report going
to the November 2002 Governing Body.
In an effort to promote gender equality and gender mainstreaming strategies,
the ILO has launched a new initiative designed to bring into sharp focus its
gender-oriented work, and to increase gender awareness among all those
involved in planning or delivering ILO projects. Starting last October, and
expected to last until April 2002, the "gender audits" are part of the Action Plan
on Gender submitted to the Governing Body in March 2000.
One of the key objectives is to ensure that gender considerations are
present in all ILO activities and at all levels. According to the ILO Bureau for
Gender Equality (ILO, 2000a), this is not merely about adding a "woman's
component" to existing policies, but bringing the experiences of both women
and men to bear on all planned action, legislation, policies and programmes. The
audits are also designed to ensure that the consequences for both sexes are fully
assessed before any action is taken or project launched.
The word "audit" may be somewhat misleading in that it normally implies
an accounting exercise. The ILO gender audit, however, uses active
participation and a learning process in order to promote good practice, identify
future challenges and ensure the ILO gender mainstreaming strategy is
effectively implemented.
* Originally published in World of Work, No.42 (March 2002).
82
First ILO gender audit keeps equality on the agenda
Who participates, and how?
Participation is voluntary, with each audit covering what is known as a "work
unit". At headquarters this could be an InFocus programme, a department or
bureau, or a cross-sectoral programme; in the regions, a multi-disciplinary
advisory team (MDT) or an area office.
The sessions are held as close as possible to the participants' workplace,
and are planned with the help of external consultants from the Gender and
Development Training Centre, based in Haarlem, in the Netherlands. The
Centre has more than a decade of experience in such training.
The audit is unprecedented within the UN system, because it relies on a
participatory method using workshops and interviews to actively involve those
taking part, and to provide them with feedback on the exercise. This is in
contrast to the more traditional model, where an expert reviews a workplace
and submits conclusions to the management.
There is an element of objective review in the ILO process; each
participating work unit's products (such as project-related documents,
databases and publications), advocacy and advisory services, and technical
cooperation, are examined. However, even this is infused with the participatory
ethic; the conclusions are shared with all those taking part, and the emphasis is
on the work unit collectively taking forward the issues raised.
The audit covers a wide range of issues: information and knowledge
management, staffing and human resources, perceptions of achievement on
gender equality, gender expertise, and capacity building.
In addition, at headquarters a global review is being made of key ILO policy
documents, major publications, and programming, budget and evaluation
processes. The results will be fed into a final report which will also summarize
the conclusions of the work unit audits and include recommendations for the
future. The report will be submitted to the ILO Senior Management Team in May
2002, and subsequently to the Governing Body in November 2002.
With the first set of audits already having taken place, Jane Zhang,
Director of the Bureau for Gender Equality, has stated that "the process so far
has been a significant learning experience on where the Office stands on gender
mainstreaming, as well as where we need to go to really transform policy on
paper into practical application".
Once complete, information about the process and the outcome will be
shared with constituents, the donor community, the rest of the United Nations
system and other interested organizations.
83
IN INDIA, BEEDI ROLLERS SEEK NEW WAYS
OF EARNING A LIVING*
Kiran Mehra-Kerpelman*
Rolling beedis, an indigenous, hand-made cigarette, has provided employment for
millions of Indians - most of them women - over the centuries. Now, the antitobacco movement is cutting demand - and in the process threatening their
economic health. In two heedi-rolling villages in Mangalore, South India, the ILO
is offering these impoverished women new and better ways of earning a living.
As the group of indigenous women rapidly and expertly roll the brown, tube-like
indigenous cigarettes called "beedis", their spokeswoman worries about the
worldwide anti-tobacco movement and how it's threatening their jobs.
"I've been rolling beedis for years, but now I have little work," says Jalaja
during the meeting of a beedi workers' self-help group held recently in this
south Indian village. "The government has banned tobacco smoking in public
places and many people in other countries aren't buying beedis anymore. I may
soon have to find another way of earning a living."
The women have gathered here to discuss the challenges posed by an
increasingly anti-tobacco climate, and the prospects aren't good. While declines
in smoking are seen as a way to improve public health, the women rolling the
little brown tendu leaves into slim cigarettes and tying them with filaments of
bright red cotton thread, worry that an industry that once sustained them may
soon go up in smoke.
Indeed, the fate of the beedi industry is no small thing. Once a livelihood
for some 4.5 million rollers - 90 per cent of them women - the little cigarette's
decline is posing big problems for them. Most are illiterate, in poor health and
socially marginalized. They have no assets of any kind. And they worry that the
* Originally published in World of Work, No. 45 (December 2002).
** ILO Department of Communication and Public Information.
84
In India, beedi rollers seek new ways of earning a living
loss of even the dollar-a-day income they now earn may mean economic
hardship, or worse, like their underage children taking jobs to make ends meet.
"These women were working five to six days a week, but over the last two
to three years their work has been reduced by half," says Arun Kumar, the
National Coordinator of a new ILO project established here to help beedi
rollers find other jobs.
In fact, unions of beedi workers are eager to learn other ways of earning a
living. And their employers also feel the future of the beedi industry is grim. In
response, the ILO Area Office for India, together with the Organization's
Gender Promotion Programme and the Government of the Netherlands, has
launched a new programme to promote decent work for women workers in the
beedi industry.
"Given the global and national trends in the tobacco industry and the
working conditions of the very large numbers of women and their families
dependent on the industry, the aim of the programme is twofold," says Lin
Lean Lim, ILO expert on gender and employment issues. "For the home-based
women beedi rollers, the objective is to improve conditions of work and
extend basic labour standards, and health and social protection to these
women and their families. For those who are losing work and incomes in
the beedi industry, the aim is to help them find alternative means of livelihood, including ensuring that poverty is not pushing their children into
hazardous labour."
Beedi hazards, ILO solutions
Still, loss of income isn't the only problem faced by beedi rollers. Although
most of the women don't smoke, working conditions threaten both their
physical and economic well-being.
Few of the illiterate women are aware of their legal rights as workers, for
example, and unscrupulous contractors sometimes deny them access to identity
cards needed to obtain benefits offered by a Beedi Workers Welfare Fund. As
home-based workers, they are often short-changed by the arbitrary rejection of
finished beedis on the grounds of poor quality - sometimes due to contractors
providing them with low-grade raw materials to begin with. Their health is also
threatened: inhaling tobacco dust can cause as many problems as smoking the
stuff. And differences in minimum wage across different states have resulted in
a shift of the industry to low-wage areas.
So, it's an uphill battle for the mostly women workers who are either
jobless or see a significant reduction in earnings. With no alternative employment or income opportunities and no access to credit for self-employment
ventures, many communities fear their livelihood is at stake.
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Gender equality around the world : 2002
The ILO programme works in cooperation with trade unions, employers'
organizations, the Labour Ministry, local authorities and community
organizations, as well as with the women directly. One of the first activities of
the programme was to organize self-help groups, allowing the women to meet
to discuss problems and collectively seek solutions.
"We are organizing workshops in which they can assess their
opportunities and resources at a local level, and explore possibilities of what
they can do," says Mr. Kumar, the project coordinator. "Working from home
isolates women from the rest of the working world. Through group meetings
and activities, they are able to receive basic education, become aware of their
legal rights and find out how to effectively claim these rights. They are also
taught alternative skills, including entrepreneurship development, health, and
family and child welfare."
To give the women ideas for self-employment, the ILO project supports
so-called "exposure visits" to income-generating activities in other areas. Beedi
group spokeswoman Jalaja overcame her shyness to become one of those who
took part in a recent visit.
"Before, I was afraid of talking to people from outside, but now I feel
more confident," she says. "Moreover, I had no savings earlier, but with the selfhelp group and our micro-credit arrangement, I have started to save. I have been
able to take a loan from the group to repair my house and buy medicines for
my sick son."
Thanks to an exposure visit, Jalaja is now thinking of starting her own
laundry business in an area where there is no facility for washing clothes. Aside
from that, she may also find a patch of land using micro-credit facilitated by the
ILO project and grow vegetables to sell in a nearby market.
The programme works with established local organizations to provide
training and other support services to the women. To enhance the capacity
of these organizations, the ILO is encouraging networking, helping them
strengthen their institutional structures, and improve their training and awarenessraising materials.
"Providing technical assistance to local grassroots organizations means
that the ILO builds capacity and leaves behind sustainable activities, even after
the programme comes to an end," says the representative of Adarsha (Agency
for Development Awakening and Rural Self-Help Associations), one of the
local NGO partners involved in the programme.
With the cooperation of a local NGO, Deeds (Development Education
Service), semi-literate women in Ulal Village have been trained in alternative
trades, such as paper recycling and making paper products, farming of herbal
and medicinal plants, bee-keeping, food processing, vegetable selling and the
preparation of food snacks.
86
In India, beedi rollers seek new ways of earning a living
"There is more money in the new work than in beedi making," says
Zojeth, one of two sisters who used to roll beedis but benefited from an ILO
technical assistance project that taught them a new skill. "Now I can do both
things."
Sustainable and socially empowering interventions need to focus not only
on livelihoods but also on improving literacy and health levels, rights
awareness, family and child welfare, group dynamics and capacity building. A
related aim of the ILO is to assist the social partners to better prepare the
labour force to face the growing crisis in the beedi sector.
"Before this programme started, I had no exposure to another life, even
though I am educated," Zojeth adds. "Now I know how to live. I don't stay
home and cook as before. Life now is good. I want to take life in my own hands,
and the ILO has shown me the way and given me the means."
87
WOMEN IN THE INFORMAL ECONOMY:
URGENT NEED FOR MATERNITY
PROTECTION*
Anne Sieger**
For millions of women in the developing world, maternity health care is almost
unavailable. For millions more, other maternity benefits are even harder to get.
Through an ILO research initiative, innovative ways of providing maternity
protection to poor women in the informal economy are being promoted.
For the women workers of Buhweju, a mountainous tea-growing area of
southwest Uganda, the lack of adequate maternity care can be a matter of life
and death.
There are many stories about the tenuous nature of maternity here. One
concerns a woman and her child who may owe their lives to a solar-powered
radio transmitter.
Buhweju is a small village. Taxis don't come around here often and the
closest hospital is in Busheny, 52 kilometres away down a bumpy road.
Feeling that her baby was about to be born and worried that there might
be complications, the woman rushed to the nearby satellite clinic. The clinic had
been established by a local community health insurance scheme to which she
belonged. The nurse on duty realized the woman needed hospital treatment,
and used the solar-powered transmitter to contact a private taxi service.
The taxi arrived quickly and the woman was taken to a hospital, where she
received help in time.
In this Ugandan case, a solar-powered radio transmitter has made all the
difference. And it is these kinds of innovative examples which the ILO is using
to promote ways to improve pregnant women's safety worldwide.
::
' Originally published in World of Work, No.45, December 2002.
' " Freelance journalist, Germany.
:: ;:
88
Slavery and forced labour - the exploitation and oppression of society's most vulnerable
members - have by no means been consigned to the past. Here, a young girl is the victim
of traffickers trying to smuggle her across the border from Burkina Faso to Benin.
Thanks to the efforts of a local NGO in Niger, Altana and her daughter are now free, but
they still feel like slaves and live In fear of their former master.
Breaking through the glass ceiling:
a surgeon in the Heart Institute,
Saigon, Viet Nam.
Valentina, chief engineer,
Murmachi Hydroelectric plant,
Murmansk, Russian Federation,
For many village women in India, making beedi cigarettes has been the traditional way of
earning an income, allowing them to work at home. But the industry is waning and the ILO
has set up a pilot project offering other opportunities (see page 84).
In this small textile weaving workshop in Jordan, mothers can keep their children with them
while working.
Narrowing the gender unemployment gap in the Middle East will mean facing the gender
segregation barrier. Here, the shipping department of a print shop, Syria.
But gender segregation is less than it used to be, even in technical trades. Here, mechanics
perform maintenance work on an Ethiopian Airlines plane . , .
. . . while 25-year-old Slayo studies carpentry at the Regional Vocational Training and
Services Centre in Dar es Salaam. All sections of the centre are open to girls.
Many children whose parents have died of HIV/AIDS visit this primary school at the Kiota
Women's Health and Development Centre (Kiwohede) in Dar es Salaam. As a partner of
the IPEC programme of the ILO, this NGO is actively involved in gender promotion, health
and child development.
Women are employed at all levels in the
United Republic of Tanzania. Top: Grace
washes windows for the equivalent of US$1
per day; centre: 19-year-oid Munguma is an
auto mechanic student at the Dar es
Salaam Regional Vocational Training and
Services Centre; below: testing for AIDS
at the Kiwohede laboratory,
u
8
Turkey: a young female police officer on the beat.
Women in the informal economy: Urgent need for maternity protection
In many developing countries, women face a high risk of dying during
pregnancy or childbirth. Poor hygiene and the lack of access to quality medical
care are often to blame.
More and more developing countries have recognized the urgent need for
maternity protection. In the Philippines, the Government is providing free
prenatal checkups at public hospitals. For deliveries with complications,
Bangladesh offers free treatment. Government hospitals in India provide
vaccinations for newborns. And the United Republic of Tanzania has developed
a "Safe Motherhood" programme.
Still, for many women, especially in rural areas, such vital public services
are almost unavailable, either due to financial reasons such as transportation
costs, or cultural traditions such as giving birth at home. For millions more,
other maternity benefits are exclusively for wage earners.
Maternity protection has been a priority in the ILO since its founding in
1919, when the first Maternity Protection Convention was adopted. Its latest
Maternity Protection Convention, adopted in 2000, reached a new level of
quality. For the first time, the Convention also applies to women in "atypical"
forms of employment, found mostly in the informal economy. This refers to
women who often have no legal employer, regular income or little if any access
to statutory healthcare services. They may be street vendors, homeworkers or
part-time labourers in the garment or agriculture sector. A vast majority suffer
from social exclusion and poverty.
To extend maternity protection to women in the informal economy, the
ILO Global Programme STEP"" - Strategies and Tools against Social Exclusion
and Poverty - and the Conditions of Work Branch (CONDIT) have started an
initial research effort.
The current focus is on community-based health financing schemes which
provide limited, demand-driven benefit packages of health services at affordable
prices. Next to delivery with complications, normal delivery, pre- and postnatal
care, many schemes also engage in preventive and maternity care training,
recruit local traditional birth attendants, and organize awareness-raising
activities including HIV/AIDS.
Including maternity protection in the benefit package meets an urgent
need among poor women. One lesson learned so far is that schemes are most
successful when they reflect specific maternity needs articulated by their
members. Installing the radio transmitter is the solution which the scheme in
Buhweju uses to cope with the transportation problem. In other communities,
women may choose to receive benefits not in cash but in food, clothes or
:
" STEP is part of the Social Security and Development Branch in the social protection sector.
89
Gender equality around the world : 2002
medicine, thus avoiding the risk of a family member spending the money. Some
schemes also cover the healthcare needs of the woman's husband.
Still, to the ILO, the sheer existence of maternity protection within health
micro-insurance schemes is not an end in itself. Rather, to effectively promote
maternity protection, the ILO wants to encourage links between schemes at
the community level and national policies and programmes, especially with
social security institutions.
With all the cultural and regional differences characterizing the schemes,
there is no "one size fits all" solution. A set of provisional guidelines is
currently being developed by the ILO, based on the information gathered in
nine countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. These guidelines can be used
by the ILO's tripartite partners as well as by social organizations and other
parties active in the health sector. They are just a first step in the promotion of
maternity protection for women workers in the informal economy. Further
research and analysis of existing and developing schemes is necessary. It can
then be discussed whether a solar-powered radio transmitter could also make a
difference in Asia or Latin America. To some families in Uganda it already has.
90
2003
Every year, in commemoration of International Women's Day, the ILO hosts
a roundtable discussion highlighting professions in which women have made an
impact. Often, these are traditionally male-dominated professions in which
women have struggled to be recognized. Amongst the professions highlighted
so far have been war reporters and correspondents (2003), judiciaries (2004),
film-makers (2005), and athletes (2006).
This focus was particularly appropriate in 2003, as ILO published
the most comprehensive report to date of discrimination at work. Time for
equality at work. The report says that while significant progress in combatting
inequalities at the workplace leaves room for hope, new and more subtle forms
of discrimination give cause for growing concern. The report lays the blame for
continuing discrimination on prejudices, stereotypes, and biased institutions
which have resisted decades of legal efforts and policy measures undertaken by
governments, workers and employers against unequal treatment at work.
One profession, in particular, where progress against discrimination has
been slow is the seafaring trade. Another comprehensive ILO report from
2003, 'Women seafarers: Global employment policies and practices, indicates that
women at sea face discrimination, sexual harassment and parental disapproval
- as well as often being relegated to low-paying jobs with limited opportunities
for promotion.
91
BATTLEFIELDS, HOT SPOTS AND DANGER
ZONES: WOMEN BREAK THE GLASS CEILING
TO BREAK THE NEWS*
Women in the world's newsrooms are no longer a rarity. Except on the war front.
Though women today make up 40 per cent of the world's media, they face special
and unique challenges when they head from the front pages to the front line. This
year's International Women's Day event at the I LO focused on how women who
cover dangerous stones often find social issues there too.
Kate Adie, award-winning reporter and writer, has seen more wars than most
generals as BBC Chief News Correspondent. "War is not a boy's game," she
says. "Half of the people involved are women." Ms Adie was part of a panel
discussion on "Dangerous Assignments: Women covering conflict", held at the
ILO in March to focus on the obstacles and dangers they face in the exercise of
their profession, and the special vision which they bring to it.
For women, covering dangerous stories is more than just a job - it is part
of the "gender evolution" in journalism. During the Bosnian war, Ms Adie says,
many women journalists literally fought to get there because it was the
assignment to have. Never mind gender balance, she says. If you're a woman
who wants to cover war, "You have to run while men can walk ..."
Panel members agreed, however, that women bring more to danger zones
than a keen desire to prove themselves. They have a different way of perceiving
war, and while maintaining a sharp professional eye also see how societies cope
with conflict and reconstruction.
There is also a need to look for the wider story of women's struggles
during times of peace. Christine Anyanwu, a Nigerian journalist who served
three years of a life sentence in prison in 1995 for reporting on an alleged coup
• Originally published in World of Work, No.46 (March 2003).
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Gender equality around the world : 2003
against then-Nigerian President Sani Abacha, and who has won a number of
press freedom prizes, says after a career of tough assignments that she will now
establish her own radio station to broadcast the voices of women more strongly
in Nigeria.
Nadia Mehdid, Algeria, is Foreign Editor at Asharq Al Awsat and the only
female journalist in its London headquarters. She says women reporters often
cover conflicts that go beyond the shooting. These range from conflicts in the
perception of women's role in society, to wars of information, extremists and
other forms of overt and more subtle violence aimed against women in many
societies. "We often face derogatory and narrow forms of vision, that are based
on realities limited to one culture or the other," she says.
Perceptions aside, a dangerous job is a dangerous job, said Rym Brahimi
of CNN, who appeared by satellite link with Baghdad where she is on
assignment, "I didn't cover Afghanistan. But you just go on. I'm here to do a
job. This is very important."
"Since the days of Eleanor Roosevelt's 'women only' press conferences
designed to force editors to hire female journalists, women have gone from the
fashion page to the front page and the front line," said ILO Director-General
Juan Somavia. "They have broken through the glass ceiling in order to break the
news and they bring a unique perspective to the conflicts and wars that
increasingly characterize our times."
94
WORKPLACE DISCRIMINATION: A PICTURE
OF HOPE AND CONCERN*
A new ILO report on discrimination at work — the most comprehensive to date says workplace discrimination remains a persistent global problem, with new, more
subtle forms emerging. While significant progress in combating inequalities at the
workplace is cause for hope, the report says new forms of discrimination are cause
for growing concern.
The ILO's newest global report on discrimination - prepared under the Followup to the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work - is
aptly entitled Time for equality at work. And it shows decisively that unless
action is taken, that time is still a long way off.
"This may be the most challenging task of contemporary society, and it is
essential for social peace and democracy," the report says. According to ILO
Director-General Juan Somavia: "Every day, around the world, discrimination
at work is an unfortunate reality for hundreds of millions of people."
The ILO report lays the blame for continuing discrimination on
prejudices, stereotypes and biased institutions that have resisted decades of
legal efforts and policy measures undertaken by governments, workers and
employers against unequal treatment at work (see box).
The report shows that many who suffer from discrimination - especially
on the basis of their sex or colour - face a persistent "equality gap" that divides
them from dominant groups who enjoy a better life, or even from their own
peers who have benefited from anti-discrimination laws and policies.
But Mr Somavia said the news is not all bad. "We have made progress," he
said. "Today, formal condemnation of discrimination is virtually universal and
action to stop discrimination at work has been taken in many places. Still,
* Originally published in World of Work, No.47 (June 2003).
95
Gender equality around the world : 2003
What is discrimination at work?
Discrimination is defined under the Discrimination fEmployment and Occupation)
Conwerttion, 1958 (No. 111) as any distinction, exclusion or preference made on
the basis of race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction or social
origin (among other characteristics), "which has the effect of nullifying or impairing
equality of opportunity and treatment in employment or occupation".
Discrimination can perpetuate poverty, stifle development, productivity and
competitiveness, and ignite political instability, says the report.
Convention No. 111 and its accompanying Recommendation (No.111) have been
ratified as of May 2003 by 158 of the ILO's 175 member States. The Equal
Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100) has been ratified by 160 member States.
discrimination remains a constantly evolving 'moving target' and we have a long
way to go on the road to equality."
Key findings
•
Discrimination is still a common problem in the workplace. While some of
the more blatant forms of discrimination may have faded, many remain,
and others have taken on new or less visible forms, the report says. Global
migration combined with the redefinition of national boundaries and
growing economic problems and inequalities have worsened xenophobia
and racial and religious discrimination. More recently, new forms of
discrimination based on disability, HIV/AIDS, age or sexual orientation
are cause for growing concern.
•
Progress in fighting discrimination at work has been uneven and patchy,
even for long-recognized forms such as discrimination against women.
Discrimination at work will not vanish by itself; neither will the market,
on its own, take care of it.
•
Inequalities within discriminated groups are widening. Affirmative action
policies, for example, helped create a new middle class of formerlydiscriminated persons in some countries. A few rise to the top of the social
ladder, while most remain among the low paid and socially excluded.
•
Discrimination often traps people in low-paid, "informal" economy jobs.
The discriminated are often stuck in the worst jobs, and denied benefits,
96
Workplace discrimination: A picture of hope and concern
social protection, training, capital, land or credit. Women are more likely
than men to be engaged in these more invisible and undercounted
activities.
•
The failure to eradicate discrimination helps perpetuate poverty.
Discrimination creates a web of poverty, forced and child labour and social
exclusion, the report says, adding that "eliminating discrimination is
indispensable to any viable strategy for poverty reduction and sustainable
economic development".
•
Everyone gains from eliminating discrimination at work - individuals,
enterprises and society at large. Fairness and justice at the workplace boost
the self-esteem and morale of workers. A more motivated and productive
workforce enhances the productivity and competitiveness of business.
Types of discrimination: A "moving target"
Sex discrimination is by far the most prevalent. And women are by far the
largest discriminated group. Although more and more women are working, in
addition to the "glass ceiling", the "pay gap" between women and men is still
significant in most countries. Women are also more likely to be stuck in lowerpaid and least secure jobs. They faced higher unemployment rates.
Discrimination can occur at every stage of employment, from recruitment to
education and remuneration, occupational segregation, and at time of lay-offs.
In common with all forms of discrimination, racial discrimination persists
and affects migrants, ethnic minorities, indigenous and tribal peoples and
others vulnerable groups.
Rising levels of global migration have significantly altered patterns of racial
discrimination against migrant workers, second and third generation migrants and
citizens of foreign origin. It is the perception of these workers as foreigners even when they are not - that may lead to discrimination against them.
Discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS is a growing
concern, especially among women. This can take many forms, including preemployment testing leading to a refusal to hire, testing of long-term foreign
visitors before entering a country, and in some countries, mandatory tests for
migrant workers. Other forms of discrimination include dismissal without
medical evidence, notice or a hearing, demotion, denial of health insurance
benefits, salary reductions and harassment.
The number of people with disabilities, currently put at some 7-10 per
cent of the world's population, is likely to grow as the population ages. The
majority live in developing countries, and disability rates appear higher in rural
areas than in urban areas.
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Gender equality around the world : 2003
The most common form of discrimination is the denial of opportunities,
both in the labour market, and in education and training. Unemployment
rates for people with disabilities reach 80 per cent or more in many developing
countries. People with disabilities are often trapped in low-paid, unskilled and
menial jobs, with little or no social protection.
Over the past decade, discrimination based on religion appears to have
increased. The current global political climate has helped fuel sentiments of
mutual fear and discrimination between religious groups, threatening to
destabilize societies and generate violence.
Religious discrimination can include offensive behaviour at work by coworkers or managers towards members of religious minorities; lack of respect
and ignorance of religious customs; the obligation to work on religious days or
holidays; bias in recruitment or promotion; denial of a business licence; and
lack of respect for dress customs.
Concerns over discrimination based on age are also growing. By 2050,
33 per cent of people in developed countries and 19 per cent in developing
countries will be 60 or older, most of them women. Discrimination can be
overt, such as age limits for hiring, or take more subtle forms, such as
allegations that people lack career potential, or have too much experience.
Other forms of discrimination include limited access to training and conditions
that virtually compel early retirement. Age discrimination is not limited to
workers nearing retirement.
Many people suffer from "multiple discrimination". Indigenous and tribal
people, for example, are among the poorest of the poor, and women within
these groups are even more severely affected. The intensity or severity of the
disadvantages they may confront depend on how many personal characteristics may generate discrimination, and how these interrelate. For example, one
person can have several characteristics that give rise to discrimination. People who suffer several forms of discrimination tend to be overrepresented among the poor, particularly the chronic poor, and in the informal
economy.
The ILO response
The ILO report says the workplace - whether a factory, office, plantation, farm
or household - is a strategic entry point for fighting discrimination. "When the
workplace brings together people with different characteristics and treats them
fairly, it helps to combat stereotypes in society as a whole," the report says.
"It forces a situation where prejudices can be defused and rendered obsolete.
A socially inclusive world of work helps to prevent and to redress social
fragmentation, racial and ethnic conflict and gender inequalities."
98
Workplace discrimination: A picture of hope and concern
So far, the report says, outlawing discrimination at work has failed to
eliminate the practice. Still, the report concludes that laws banning discrimination are an indispensable, but insufficient, step. Effective enforcement
institutions, positive action, unbiased education, training and employment
services, and data to monitor progress, are also necessary. This mix of policies
and instruments is essential whatever the form of discrimination.
The report was prepared as a follow-up to the adoption of the ILO
Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work by the International
Labour Conference in 1998. The Declaration reaffirmed the constitutional
principle of the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and
occupation, thereby confirming the universal resolve to suppress discrimination
in the world of work through the promotion of equal treatment and
opportunity. The Declaration emphasizes that all ILO member States have an
obligation to respect the fundamental principles involved, whether or not they
have ratified the relevant Conventions.
99
NARROWING THE GENDER UNEMPLOYMENT
GAP IN JORDAN*
Unemployment in Jordan is declining. Now, with a rapidly growing IT sector and
greater national focus on gender equality, initiatives are being launched to help
women have greater opportunities in the country.
Jordan has made progress over the past decade in the fight against unemployment. Compared to average joblessness of 18.9 per cent in the Middle East and
North Africa, the ILO (2003a) says average unemployment in Jordan in 2000
to 2003 was 14.6 per cent, down from 16.9 per cent in 1993 to 1995.
But as is the case in many other countries, unemployment rates in Jordan
remain considerably higher for females than for males, leading to a "gender
unemployment gap". Whilst work remains to be done, the good news is that
this gap has narrowed since the early 1990s.
Jordan's rapidly growing information technology (IT) sector is an area of
promise. On a policy level, there has been a noticeable increase in government
support for the sector, and through foreign investment, international
organizations and private firms are showing considerable interest. At the same
time, there is greater emphasis placed on gender issues in the country, with the
IT sector a key area of attention. The ILO report Time for equality at work
(2003b)calls jobs in this sector a chance for "equal treatment and equal
opportunity for women". This may well prove to be the case for Jordan.
Women comprise an estimated 30 per cent of the total workforce in Jordan's
IT sector, despite accounting for only 16 per cent of total employment in the
country. A study conducted in 2002 by the United Nations Development Fund
for Women (UNIFEM) indicates that 13 per cent of women employed in the IT
!:
' Originally published in World of Work, No. 48 (September 2003).
100
Narrowing the gender unemployment gap in Jordan
private sector are managers. Earlier figures from Jordan's official National
Information Centre indicate that women make up 22 per cent of programmers.
A recent study by the ILO and the Economic and Social Commission for
Western Asia (ESCWA), entitled Globalization and the gender division of labour
in Jordan and Lebanon, compared the two female-dominated sectors of IT and
textile manufacturing. It found that in the IT sector in Jordan, the wage gap
between women and men is narrower compared to the textile sector. Likewise,
women's advancement to higher positions is more common in the IT sector.
Sex segregation in occupations was also less prominent in the IT sector.
New UNIFEM ventures seek to promote gender equality in the IT sector,
and empower women through building their capabilities and professional skills.
To that end, UNIFEM held a workshop in October 2002 on women in IT,
focusing on women's current and future contributions to the IT sector in
Jordan. Women participants in the gathering included chief executive officers,
chief technical officers, and executive managers of leading IT companies in
Jordan. UNIFEM has also created a database that will evaluate the IT sector in
Jordan from a gender perspective. The database will be used as a tool to monitor
and assess policies and practices identified as a hindrance to the employment of
women. This activity is the first of its kind in the region, and offers a model for
mainstreaming and empowering women in IT.
101
WOMEN SEAFARERS: FIGHTING AGAINST
THE TIDE?*
As on land, so by sea: women are joining the ranks of seafarers. Once only
figureheads on the world's ocean-going ships, the entrance of women into the
seafaring trade is a small but growing phenomenon. Yet as women work their way
onto the world's great ships, salt and the sea are only part of the challenges they face.
As a new landmark ILO study points out, discrimination, sexual harassment and
deep scepticism over their strengths and capabilities can be equally challenging.
"My dad was in the Royal Navy. I was brought up in a coastal area, so the sea
was sort of part of my life ..."
"My father's at sea, my uncle's at sea, my grandfathers were at sea ..."
"I'm not interested in office jobs. I'm not interested in administrative work and
all that..."
The musings of young adventurers, gazing out at the endless horizon
and dreaming of boats taking them far away? Yes, but with a slight twist. The statements are from women who have followed their male forebears to the seafaring
trade, in effect crossing a "gender gap" that was once wider than any ocean.
These and more comments highlight a new ILO study. Women seafarers:
Global employment policies and practices, the first to focus on contemporary
women seafarers at a global level.
The book covers every aspect of a woman seafarer's life - from employment rights to maternity rights. It finds that despite making inroads on the sea
lanes, women seafarers face not only the general challenges of weather, hard
;:
' Originally published in World of Work, No.49 (December 2003).
102
Women seafarers: Fighting against the tide?
work and rough seas, but also inordinate amounts of discrimination, sexual
harassment and parental disapproval as well as often being relegated low-paying
jobs with limited opportunities for promotion.
"In the past 50 years women have come to be employed in steadily
increasing numbers aboard the world's merchant ships and cruise liners," says
Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry, Director of the ILO Sectoral Activities
Department. "If this study helps improve the conditions of work of even a few
women, it will be a success. We, of course, hope it will lead to greater
participation - and better quality jobs - for women at sea and in the maritime
industry as a whole."
According to some of the women interviewed for the study, those days of
balmy working conditions may be some time off. Women seafarers reported
comments like their place being "in the kitchen" rather than on deck, that
women weren't suited for the sea because they "all argue with each other" (as
if men don't!), being told "blonde jokes" or given the worst, dirtiest jobs.
"The lads I was sailing with spent about four months doing those awful
jobs, and then they were up on the bridge in a clean environment," said one
woman who spoke about being tested to see if she had the "right stuff" for the
job. "They will push a woman a lot, lot harder."
Some women reported taking drastic measures to avoid being harassed,
including altering or "de-feminizing" their appearance (one woman engineer
actually shaved her head!). Another cited how she had to punch a chief officer
to get him out of her room.
So why pursue a potentially hostile and turbulent life at sea? Women have
long worked on passenger and cruise ships, and since 1945 have appeared more
and more on freighters and other commercial ships. For some, potential
earnings, for others, tradition inspires work at sea. In the interview below, Ms
Doumbia-Henry explains who the women seafarers are, how many are working
and where, and what the prospects are for improving their lives.
How many women are employed aboard ships?
Women represent only 1-2 per cent of the world's 1.25 million seafarers.
However, in the cruise line sector, they represent 17-18 per cent of the
workforce. Ninety-four per cent of women are employed on passenger ships
(with 68 per cent on ferries and 26 per cent on cruise ships) and 6 per cent are
employed on cargo vessels (i.e., container ships, oil tankers, etc.). As for jobs,
there are women shipmasters and chief engineers, as well as other officers.
However, generally, women are working as hotel staff on passenger ships. Of
this latter group, 51.2 per cent of women at sea come from OECD countries,
23.6 per cent from Eastern Europe, 9.8 per cent from Latin America and Africa,
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Gender equality around the world : 2003
13.7 per cent from the Far East, and 1.7 per cent from south Asia and the
Middle East.
Are they accepted on board?
First, as concerns getting the training to go to sea, there does not appear to be
a great problem overall. In fact, many maritime training institutions are actively
encouraging women to enrol.
Once on board vessels, women often experience problems in being
initially accepted, sometimes having to "prove themselves". However, over time
they are usually able to integrate themselves into crews, and become accepted
and appreciated by their colleagues.
As concerns promotion on cargo vessels, the survey indicates that women
feel they have the same promotion possibilities as men, though this varies
among companies; in some companies they feel there is a reluctance to promote
them to senior positions, in others there may be special efforts to promote
women. As concerns those working in the hotel sector on passenger vessels, the
situation is less clear. It appears promotion may often be more related to
ethnicity than gender.
How can companies improve conditions for women
seafarers?
Sexual harassment is a reality for many women at sea. This can range from
persistent verbal harassment and inappropriate comments, to physical assault.
However, cruise-sector companies which have established high-profile sexual
harassment policies seem to have been able to reduce the number of incidents
of harassment, and to encourage women to seek company support in such
situations. There seems to be less attention to these matters in the cargo sector.
As concerns other issues, such as maternity benefits and availability of certain
products required by women, it seems we have a way to go.
What are some of the advantages of having women
aboard ships?
A great advantage is that it creates a more normal social environment. This is
particularly important because the nature of seafaring life has changed in recent
years. There is less time to go ashore and there are fewer people on board.
Having women as part of the crew can reduce the sense of isolation felt by
many seafarers. Furthermore, recent labour surveys of the shipping sector have
indicated an existing - and growing - shortfall of certain categories of seafarers,
104
Women seafarers: Fighting against the tide?
particularly officers. Women are an underutilized source of maritime talent
which we need to draw upon to make up this shortfall.
What can be done to improve conditions for women at
sea and attract them to the seafaring profession?
First, the maritime community has a number of parts: companies, trade unions,
seafarers' welfare organizations, and others. They each may have a role.
Companies, for example, could try to place new recruits aboard vessels with
women officers. Sexual harassment policies are, of course, important. Trade
unions should take up these matters and other issues, such as maternity
benefits, when negotiating collective agreements.
We also can't forget that improving conditions of women at sea is also
related to improving conditions of work for all seafarers - male or female.
Therefore, any efforts to improve conditions of work at sea will also benefit
women. In this regard, the ILO is in the process of consolidating its many
maritime labour Conventions into a single, consolidated standard."' The aim is
to adopt a standard which is widely - if not universally - accepted, and which will
improve conditions for all seafarers. At the national level, and at the company
level, there should be increased emphasis on improving shipboard conditions. By
conditions, we mean pay, accommodation, safety, longer leave periods and so on.
What stimulated the ILO to commission this study?
The ILO is very serious about gender issues, and takes them into account in all
areas of our work. Thus, when we commissioned the Seafarers International
Research Centre (SIRC) to undertake a study on conditions of work of
seafarers as the main discussion document for a meeting in 1991 of the ILO
Joint Maritime Commission (JMC) - a bipartite body consisting of
representatives of the world's shipowner and seafarer representatives - we
asked that the study include a gender perspective. The JMC discussed the
report and went a step further by adopting a Resolution calling for a specific
study on women seafarers.
What is the ILO doing to follow up on this study?
First, we are seeking to have it widely distributed in the international
maritime community. Using the study as a resource document in all our
maritime activities, we will use it to promote gender-sensitive policies in
:
" The new Maritime Labour Convention was adopted in 2006.
105
Gender equality around the world : 2003
the maritime industry, and also work with the International Maritime
Organization.
What about the old saying that women are bad luck
at sea?
An interesting myth, sort of like the myth that you will fall off the edge of
the earth if you sail too far from port. But this is the twenty-first century, we
know the earth is round and that superstitions have nothing to do with it. The
ILO pursues a modern social agenda, with a strong gender component. Our
work on behalf of women seafarers is a classic example of "mainstreaming"
gender into all elements of a trade. In this case, mainstreaming extends also to
all seven seas.
106
2004
New statistics from the ILO showed that women were still struggling to break
through the glass ceiling. "A handful of women are making headlines here and
there as they break through, but statistically they represent a mere few per cent
of top management jobs," said Linda Wirth, author of the publication Breaking
through the glass ceiling: Women in management (revised in 2004) and Director of
the ILO's Bureau for Gender Equality (2003-2005). The update revealed that the
overall employment situation for women had not evolved significantly since 2001.
Women's share of professional jobs increased by just 0.7 per cent. With women's
share of managerial positions ranging between 20 and 40 per cent moreover, the
data revealed that women are markedly underrepresented in management
compared to their overall share of employment.
Complementing the above update, the ILO report Global employment trends
for women 2004 painted a grim picture of women in the world of work. Despite
entering the job market in record numbers, women still face higher unemployment rates and lower wages, and represent the bulk of the world's 550 million
working poor. The report examined the situation of 1.1 billion women who made
up 40 per cent of the world's 2.8 billion workers in 2003, and found that though
more are working, this explosive growth has not been accompanied by true socioeconomic empowerment, nor has it led to equal pay for work of equal value. "In
short, true equality in the world of work is still out of reach," the report states.
An encouraging event this year was the adoption of the Resolution
Concerning the Promotion of Gender Equality, Pay Equity and Maternity
Protection which was introduced at the 92nd Session of the International
Labour Conference in June. The resolution reinforces the ILO's mandate to
promote equality between women and men, and reconfirms the integral nature
of gender equality in the Decent Work Agenda.
107
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY 2004:
UPDATED ILO REPORT SHOWS "GLASS
CEILING" TOUGH TO BREAK*
Is the glass ceiling breakable f In the two decades since the phrase came into common
usage, the invisible barriers to the top of the managerial tree seem to be tougher than
expected. A recent update of a classic ILO study on the issue shows, in fact, that
women's share of top positions remains low and the rate of progress discouraging.
For women striving to move into managerial and upper-level jobs, the recent
update of the ILO 2001 study Breaking through the glass ceiling: Women in
management may seem disheartening. What the update shows is that the
number of women in top management jobs has only increased by between 1 and
5 per cent over the past five years in some 33 countries surveyed.
"A handful of women are making headlines here and there as they break
through, but statistically they represent a mere few per cent of top management
jobs," said Linda Wirth, Director of the ILO Bureau for Gender Equality.
The overall employment situation for women hasn't evolved significantly
since 2001, the update says. Women's share of professional jobs increased by
just 0.7 per cent between 1996 and 1999, and 2000 and 2002. And with women's
share of managerial positions ranging between 20 and 40 per cent, the data show
that women are markedly under-represented in management compared to their
overall share of employment.
In politics, the proportion of women representatives in national
parliaments remains low, increasing from 13 per cent to 15.2 per cent between
1999 and 2003. However, the update did find recent increases in the number of
women in traditionally male-dominated cabinet posts, such as foreign affairs,
finance and defence. Deeply entrenched rules and practices also keep female
representation in politics low, the update says.
':" Originally published in World of Work, No. 50 (March 2004).
109
Gender equality around the world : 2004
In fact, across all professions women face barriers to progress. The daily
challenge of balancing family responsibilities with work leads some employers
to consider women less able, and women still have to work harder to prove
themselves, or adapt to "male" working styles. What's more, women face
isolation, limited access to mentoring and female role models, sexual harassment,
and are often excluded from informal networks vital to career development.
Yet the news isn't all bad. Some employers are beginning to shift attitudes,
according to the update. Businesses now understand that family-friendly policies,
improved access to training, and stronger mentoring systems encourage female
staff retention and can improve productivity. And governments and unions are
advocating the reform of employment and welfare legislation to ensure that
mothers can maintain seniority, benefits, and earning potential.
Pressures to choose between family and career can lead some women to
avoid the top jobs. Says the ILO's Wirth, "Family responsibilities play a major
role in whether or not women accept promotion. The way work is organized is
not always compatible with raising children. Some women also seek to avoid
the impact of long working hours, stress and the prevalence of aggressiveness
and authoritativeness that can be found in the top ranks." The update also
highlights cases where young men are seeking to balance work and family life.
The update calls for strategies that debunk the myths surrounding
women's capabilities and promote family-friendly policies which afford both
men and women parental leave, ensuring that women who do have children and
pursue a career are not penalized financially.
The ILO is working to expand income opportunities for women entrepreneurs by improving their business skills and access to resources, through its
Women's Entrepreneurship and Gender Equality (WEDGE) work. More
information about this and other initiatives to empower women and promote
gender equality is available at www.ilo.org/gender.
110
NEW STUDY ON WOMEN AT WORK:
EQUALITY REMAINS ELUSIVE*
A new study issued for International Women's Day 2004 paints a grim picture of
women in the world of work. Despite entering the job market in record numbers,
women still face higher unemployment rates and lower wages, and represent the
hulk of the world's 550 million working poor. The report, entitled Global
employment trends for women 2004, says the solution is to put jobs at the centre
of social and economic policies.
A first look at working women gave pause for thought. The report examined
the 1.1 billion women who made up 40 per cent of the world's 2.8 billion
workers in 2003, and found that though more are working, this explosive
growth hasn't been accompanied by true socioeconomic empowerment, nor
has it led to equal pay for work of equal value, nor balanced benefits which
would make women equal to men across nearly all occupations. "In short, true
equality in the world of work is still out of reach," the report states.
Since 1993, the gap between the number of men and women at work has
been decreasing. But the world picture varies widely. In the transition
economies and East Asia, the number of women working per 100 men is 91 and
83, respectively. Yet in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, only 40
women per 100 men are economically active, the report says.
The worldwide unemployment rate for women is only slightly higher than
that for men - 6.4 per cent compared to 6.1 per cent. But this still leaves a total
of 77.8 million women unemployed. And for countries in the Middle East and
North Africa, female unemployment reaches 16.5 per cent - 6 percentage
points higher than that of men. For young women aged 15 to 24 years, the
problem is particularly acute - 35.8 million are unemployed worldwide.
'••• Originally published in World of Work, No.51 (June 2004).
Ill
Gender equality around the world : 2004
Many women in the developing world, however, simply cannot afford not
to work, and take whatever opportunities are available. Stuck in the informal
sector with little, if any, social protection, the challenge for them is gaining
decent and productive employment, the report says. What's more, of the 550
million "working poor" in the world - living on less than US$1 per day - 60 per
cent are women.
On top of this, women typically earn less than men. In the six
occupations studied, women still earn less than what their male co-workers
earn, even in "typically female" occupations such as nursing and teaching.
The situation may appear bleak, but solutions can be found. "To create
enough decent jobs for women, policymakers must place employment at the
centre of social and economic polices," says ILO Director-General Juan
Somavia. "We must recognize that women face more substantial challenges in
the workplace than men. Raising incomes and opportunities for women lifts
whole families out of poverty and drives economic and social progress."
112
2005
Ten years after the Fourth World Conference of Women in Beijing, government
delegates gathered in New York during the United Nations Commission on the
Status of Women to recommit themselves to the Beijing Declaration and Platform
for Action. At the end of the two-week Commission, a Resolution was adopted
on Women's Economic Advancement, urging member States to eliminate
discrimination against women in labour markets, employment practices, and the
workplace; to provide equal access for women in occupational categories and
sectors where they are underrepresented; and to provide equal opportunities with
respect to employment conditions, career development opportunities, and equal
pay for work of equal value. In many ways, this Resolution reflects the core
objectives of the ILO and provides a sound platform from which to continue
working with governments and employers' and workers' organizations to
promote the Decent Work Agenda for all women and men.
World of Work magazine reported how decent work is promoted at the
local level, amongst others by describing how the Government of the United
Republic of Tanzania works in partnership with the ILO to promote gender
equality and decent work through education and training for women and
children in poor communities.
113
UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA:
A LIFE-CYCLE APPROACH TO GENDER
EQUALITY AND DECENT WORK*
The Government ofthe United Republic of Tanzania, in partnership with the ILO,
is seeking to alleviate poverty through education and training for poor women and
children, as well as promoting gender equality. This article explains how ILO projects
have contributed to change the lives of poor women and their families in the country.
Salma Harub Abdala survived with her six children for years on less than one
US dollar per day. Her husband abandoned her in the early 1980s, and with only
one income, Salma could not afford to pay for adequate housing or for her
children's education. The situation became even worse when her husband
returned home, invalid and paralysed, because his relatives refused to care for
him. So Salma had to do it until his death in 1992.
Things changed when Salma started receiving loans from the ILO project
Promoting Gender Equality and Decent Work Throughout All Stages of Life
in Tanzania. "With increased sales and profit, I am able to pay education
requirements for my younger children, I have improved the housing condition,
and we are able to eat quality meals," she says, adding that "two of my daughters
have directly benefited from the project".
Salma's elder daughter joined a Women's Group in Tanga that gives loans
to its members, while the project allowed her younger daughter, aged 16, to
attend a training course. Facilitating the transition from school to productive
employment through education, training, and provision of alternatives to youth
facing an uncertain future, the project has allowed increasing numbers of young
people to break the cycle of poverty.
They are not the only ones. Hundreds of disadvantaged women in
Tanzania are echoing such success stories as they benefit from the loans.
,:
- Originally published in World of Work, No. 53 (April 2005).
115
Gender equality around the world : 2005
microfinance and education, and the literacy, entrepreneurial, and leadership
training offered by the project. Women who did not previously have access to
loans have effectively learned to borrow, profit from, and repay loans.
Asha Rajabu, a member of the Women's Group in Dar es Salaam, recalls:
"I never wanted to take a loan. I was scared of not being able to repay it. My
friends encouraged me to take a small loan as a trial." The loan eventually led
to a profitable business and the ability to put her three children through school,
without the support of a husband.
"The project has been a great relief to me," Asha continues. "I urge all
poor women to join the project. At the beginning you feel scared because
you have never borrowed a loan or gone to a bank, but once you get started,
you feel like you had lost a great deal of time, which could have changed
your life."
Asha's and Salma's stories illustrate the particular difficulties that women
face in the world of work. The ILO project recognizes that women workers
contribute immensely to their families and societies. However, gender discrimination in access to resources, as well as to educational and economic
opportunities, continues to undermine women's efforts to participate effectively
in socioeconomic development.
Women, and especially single mothers, are expected to fulfil multiple
roles as workers and caregivers, making it impossible to hold a full-time job in
the formal economy. For these women and those who have not had the
opportunity to complete the training needed to find decent work, the informal
economy is often the only option.
Workers in the informal economy, however, do not have social protection
or benefits, are poorly paid, and are more likely to have hazardous jobs, such as
in the sex industry. Whether in the informal economy or in the formal economy
where they do most of the part-time or casual work, poor women hold jobs that
are precarious at best. Their concentration in low-paying and insecure jobs, and
continued sexual harassment, leaves women powerless and helpless.
But the project addresses not only the elimination of discrimination of
women in employment and occupation. Its schooling and training activities for
girls and young women also cover another major concern of the ILO, the
elimination of the worst forms of child labour (see box). Tanzania is among the
first three countries which committed themselves to the Time Bound
Programme for elimination of the worst forms of child labour.
Working out of poverty
The report of the Director-General to the International Labour Conference in
2003, Working out of poverty, noted that "identifying the key stages of life when
116
United Republic of Tanzania: A life-cycle approach to gender equality and decent work
The ILO and gender equality
Gender equality is central to the core mandate of the ILO, which is to promote
decent work both as a human right and as a positive productive factor. The ILO
approach to mainstreaming gender equality involves rights-based strategies for
the economic empowerment of women and men as a fundamental step to
protecting and promoting rights of ail workers.
The project Promoting Gender Equality and Decent Work throughout All Stages of
Life is part of the ILO/Netherlands Partnership Programme (ILO/NPP) 2004-2006.
This programme actively supports the ILO efforts to promote gender equality
through several projects. Amongst these are efforts to prevent exploitative child
domestic work and bonded labour; promote youth employment and increase the
empioyability of marginalized groups; and promote social security and poverty
reduction for unprotected informal economy workers.
people are vulnerable to falling into poverty is the starting point for
understanding the dynamics of life and work of poor communities ... if girls,
compared to boys, face negative cultural attitudes and practices and
discriminations from birth, they will grow up to be women with greater
constraints and few choices and opportunities. In turn, they will be less able to
influence positively the lives of their daughters and sons, so that poverty is
likely to be passed on from one generation to the next."
The ILO project in Tanzania has taken into account the feminization of
poverty as well as its transmission from one generation to the next. It will work
not only to improve the lives of the women directly impacted by the project,
but also to enable continuous changes in the lives of women and their children
in years to come. The project thus represents an important step in Tanzania's
overall poverty reduction strategy.
According to the project philosophy, there can be decent work and
poverty reduction only if girls and boys have equal opportunities for education
and are not forced into hazardous forms of work by poverty. Girls and women
may choose, have a voice, combine work and family and make smooth
transitions from one stage of life to another.
The project promotes knowledge that will help women to ensure that
discrimination encountered at one stage in life is not perpetuated at later stages
and gains made at one stage are not lost as a person ages. The major intervention
strategies include access to formal and non-formal education, employment
creation, and promotion of gender equality.
117
Gender equality around the world : 2005
Through this life-cycle approach, the ILO hopes to create a sustainable
programme which will contribute to the UN Millennium Development Goals
of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary
education, and promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women;
and which will continue after the project ends. Substantial gains have already
been made in all areas.
"Initially, we were afraid of borrowing. We did not know that as poor
women, we could borrow and repay loans ... It is only after training that we
developed the confidence to borrow, and without it, we would not have been
able to invest the loans productively . . . There has been tremendous
improvement in our lives," says a member of the Tanga Women's Group.
Promoting leadership
The recognition of women workers' immense contribution to their families and
societies will further the impact of the project. It will also enable women to
better advocate for themselves, leading to the empowerment of future
generations. The formation of women's groups is perhaps the most clearly
effective change thus brought about.
Another member of the Women's Group in Tanga reports: "At the
beginning, women were reluctant to join the group. Now many of our friends
want to join the groups after seeing the benefits. Women have been motivated,
and are gradually forming groups. The demand to participate in the project is
very high in our area."
Women and youth are receiving training which will allow them to make
their voices heard throughout the community. Salma attests, "Now I know
what to do when I attend and chair meetings. In the past, I honestly did not
know how to run meetings and reach effective and democratic decisions.
Through the confidence I gained in the project, I contested and won a seat in
the Regional Executive Committee ... I am also the chairperson of the Project
Monitoring Committee in Tanga Municipality."
Future plans to further facilitate the empowerment of poor women and
children and broaden the impact of the project include continuing assistance,
training, and capacity building for women and youth to formalize their
groups/associations to savings and credit cooperative societies (SACCOS). A
high-level national workshop is intended to scale up the project to nationallevel policies and programmes. Further elements would be a needs assessment
for youth participating in the project and expanding family-friendly
programmes such as professionally staffed day-care centres.
118
GIRL COMBATANTS: WOMEN WARRIORS
FIGHT THEIR WAY BACK INTO LIBERIAN
SOCIETY*
Irma Specht**
For thousands of women during Liberia's savage civil war, taking up arms was
a case of kill or be killed. Now that the war is over, fear and uncertainty still
stalk some of the women fighters. Their experiences have helped the ILO
develop gender-sensitive policies and programmes that may help reintegrate them
into society.
"The men are not treating the women right in war!"
So says Ellen, a 24-year-old Liberian woman who led more than 1,000
female fighters in her country's savage, seven-year civil war. Her sentiments go
a long way to explain why Liberian girls and women on both sides of the
conflict decided to go into battle.
"When I meet girls from the other groups, I put down my gun and walk
to them and explain to them my reason of taking up arms," Ellen says in broken
but spirited English. "Why we women should stand and fight against one
another? We put hands together to fight men."
Ellen and her army were part of an insurgent group called Liberians
United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD). They fought against the
forces of warlord Charles Taylor.
Although women make up between 10 and 30 per cent of armed forces
worldwide, little is known about their motives for enlisting. But a recent ILO
research project in Liberia, the first of a series of ILO studies in different waraffected countries, is discovering why females choose to become combatants.
In Liberia, the research involved first-hand interviews with "girls" up to age 35
who had been actively engaged in fighting.
:
" Originally published in World of "Work, No. 54 (August 2005).
'"• Director of Transition International, Netherlands.
119
Gender equality around the world : 2005
For many, the number one reason they fought was to protect themselves
and other women from rape and murder. Human rights groups such as
Amnesty International believe that rape is widely used as a weapon of war, to
dehumanize women and the communities they belong to. The ILO wants to
raise national and international public awareness of the extreme use of sexual
violence in warfare and its consequences.
Ellen enlisted at the age of 16 after being raped by the same men who had
killed her mother and father right before her eyes; another Liberian woman
joined up after learning that a woman who had recently given birth had been
raped so brutally that she bled to death. For many of these females, becoming
a soldier was a matter of kill or be killed.
Another reason Liberian females chose to go into battle was to prove their
equality with males - a similar trend is being observed among the increasing
number of girl-combatants in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Catherine, a DRC female soldier, grew up with three brothers in "a warrior's
family", listening to her father tell tales of war.
"I wanted to help the rebellion," Catherine says. "I thought that if my
brothers could do it, well so could 1.1 wanted to do like my brothers. When you
are little, you want to do as if you were tall. When you are a girl, do as if you
were a boy."
Although the war in Liberia has ended, the exploitation and abuse of girls
and women have not. Female ex-combatants face many obstacles in their
efforts to return to normal life, an indication that many men do not treat
women fairly in times of peace either. While the réintégration of ex-soldiers
into society is critical to peace building and reconstruction, previously existing
programmes tended to reintegrate girls back into the harmful situations they
came from, thereby ignoring the underlying issues that drove them to fight in
the first place.
Gender-based discrimination and violence remain very much a part of
everyday Liberian life. Making matters worse is the fact that, after years of war,
most girls and women have little to go back to - often their parents have been
killed and their houses destroyed and the economic and social fabric of their
country has been left in shreds. Despite these conditions, many are determined
to improve their lives.
"We first were fighting men with our guns, now we have given up our
guns, but we still have to fight men," says Ellen, "this time with our pens. That's
what I try to tell my girls now."
Ex-General Ellen is still responsible for the welfare of many of her girls.
In May 2004, 40 of her former fighters were living in her two-room apartment
in Monrovia. Hundreds more were silently hiding in surrounding villages,
reluctant to turn in their weapons. They have much to fear. Some - who see
120
Women guerrilla fighters on patrol, Colombia
High achievers in sport: audacity and determination on the fast track.
Another kind of excellence: Maria Vôgei's know-how produces the best organic cheeses
in this corner of Austria.
That glass ceiling again: they're still breaking through. Here, a young woman CEO In
Argentina,
On the other side of the world, Chiata Kignelman has become an entrepreneur after working
for Siemens and Microsoft, and now runs her own computer enterprise In Côte d'Ivoire,
Léonie Amongoua (left), stylist and couturier, employs 35 people in her fashion workshop
and exports her own designs.
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Not all work In the Middle East Is gender-segregated - even if he does have the phone. But
the United Arab Emirates are attracting International enterprises to the middle of the desert
with futuristic architecture, cutting-edge technology, efficient management - and a genderbalanced reception desk,
Modern technologies are helping jobseekers too. Down at the job centre in Murmansk, an
applicant undergoes a psychological and neurological test.
But can you have too much of a good thing? With everything going faster, huge demands
are being made on employees' working time. Is work-life balance under threat for those
who have jobs? (see page 145).
Still, this call-centre employee in Bangkok had a smile for the camera.
Domestic workers: carrying out necessary and important but undervalued work, and often
exploited by employers and unprotected by the law. In the United Republic of Tanzania,
hundreds of child workers have been withdrawn from domestic service thanks to the common
efforts of the Conservation, Hotels, Domestic an Allied Workers Union (CHODAWU) and
ILO/IPEC. These children are now going to school and learning a trade.
Domestic workers in the Philippines are being given a voice through SUMAPI (see p. 140).
Girl combatants: Women warriors fight their way back into Liberian society
themselves as still under Ellen's command - will not register for disarmament
and demobilization unless she orders them to do so.
Recently, others have agreed to disarm, but their future remains clouded
in questions. Will they receive the assistance needed to return to society as
functioning civilians, mothers and wives? Will they be accepted and treated with
respect? Will they be able to navigate through training courses and education
to jobs that allow them to earn a decent living? And how will those who are too
scared to come out and register as ex-combatants be treated? So far,
réintégration assistance has been seriously delayed, and the absorption capacity
of the war-torn labour market is not promising.
The result of all this uncertainty is that girls and women refuse to show up
at disarmament, demobilization and recruitment (DDR) cantonment sites. Afraid
to confront men at these places, they dread dealing with disturbing memories of
life in army camps, memories they would rather forget. Many hesitate to register
as ex-combatants because that would entail having their pictures taken for
identification cards. Their fear of being labelled female fighters and the social
exclusion that could bring is most likely grounded in reality. Communities,
schools, employers and even families often reject women after they have broken
traditional female roles, because they are wary of future problems. As a result,
many girls and women will not receive any DDR financial assistance.
Yet these women are not remaining silent. The fact that they have the
courage to speak out and tell their stories will empower them. Their
experiences can help agencies such as the ILO to develop gender-sensitive
policies and programmes that have a good chance of meeting their réintégration
needs. Within the framework of the ILO Infocus Programme on Crisis
Response and Reconstruction (IFP/CRISIS), and with funding from UNICEF
Liberia and UNDP, the individual stories of the Liberian female soldiers are
being researched and documented. Once published, this document will be used
for more effective programme assistance. It will also complement the recent
iLO-funded book Young soldiers: Why they fight by Rachel Brett and Irma
Specht (ILO, 2004), which identifies underlying issues that drive young people
to join armed forces and recommends possible solutions.
Male or female, one thing an ex-combatant needs is a decent job. The ILO,
with its International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC)
and in collaboration with UNICEF, has recently finished an assessment of the
Liberian labour market and training needs as a basis for programmes to
reintegrate female and male soldiers. With accelerated learning programmes,
vocational training, small and medium-enterprise development projects,
apprenticeships and business start-ups, it is hoped that these young ex-soldiers
will receive a second chance to build a better future. Beside its technical inputs
in these fields, the ILO adds other essential elements to réintégration
121
Gender equality around the world : 2005
programmes such as social justice, social inclusion, protection, sustainability
and a strong gender focus. Only by understanding people's motives, needs and
concerns can agencies effectively develop plans to overcome such challenges.
The new youth seeking to return to "normal" after years of war are
frustrated, illiterate, orphaned, and abused. During the past years of conflict,
children - many of them young girls - made up 37 per cent of some factional
fighting forces. Now, many of the 15,000 children who were associated with the
fighting have transitioned into adulthood and are unemployed youth.
The labour market they face is in a catastrophic state. Only 55 per cent of
the men and about 41 per cent of the women are currently economically active.
An estimated 80 per cent are unemployed, and more unemployment or underemployment is hidden. A majority, about 77 per cent, are currently working in
the informal sector. Many cannot find formal employment due to a lack of
education or training, and because of the low absorption capacity of the local
economy.
A formula for a continuing cycle of despair? The ILO and UNICEF are
working to make it otherwise. In addition, the ILO contribution is part of the
activities of its Global Programme on Child Soldiers, financed by the US
Department of Labour (USDOL). The main findings of the labour market and
training needs analysis are based on a review of secondary sources as well as a
broad range of first-hand research with the government, UN agencies, international and local NGOs, private sector actors, and skills training providers.
The agricultural sector promises to provide employment opportunities, and the
construction sector may help in both the counties as well as more urbanized
areas. However, opportunities are scarce and the demobilized have a hard time
surviving the competition.
Many of Ellen's "girls" have babies now. However, that doesn't stop them
from wanting education and training that leads to gainful employment. In fact,
these women are even more determined to secure safe and decent work because
they now have to provide for themselves, each other, and their children.
What does the future hold? While some current programmes seem
relatively effective, youth remain the biggest concern. This generation has no
reference to what "normal" life and work look like. They are frustrated about
their leaders, have no security, or may be addicted to alcohol and/or drugs.
Most of the girls have been raped. What they need as soon as possible is
assistance in ending substance abuse and restarting education. This will take
many years, because they still need to work while studying. The only way to
peace, however, is to mobilize Liberia's youth, combatant and civilian, to
contribute to rebuild their country.
122
MODERN DADDY: NORWAY'S PROGRESSIVE
POLICY ON PATERNITY LEAVE*
After a baby is born. Mom is entitled to maternity leave, but what about Dad?
Shouldn't he have some time off to adjust, too? Norway tops the European league
table of family-friendly nations as far as new dads are concerned, and the
government is now proposing to extend the "daddy quota" from four to five weeks,
for exclusive use by the father.
Ever-growing numbers of families in Western societies seek to balance paid
work and family commitments. Consequently, the need for innovative social
policy measures and radical transformation of the links between the welfare
state, the labour market, and families has intensified. Scandinavian countries,
some of which instituted paid maternity leave in the nineteenth century, have
moved on to pioneer a range of innovative ideas - including guaranteed rights
to child care, shared access to parental leave, "daddy leave", and cash payments
for home-based care.
Most countries in the European Union (EU) offer paid paternity leave,
from two days in Spain to two weeks in France, while Norway - which is
outside the EU - tops the list as the most family-friendly country with a full
four weeks.
Encouraging fathers
A newly published ILO study, Gender equality and decent work: Good practices
at the workplace, shows that Norway grants the longest-paid paternity leave
after the birth of a child, in addition to the mother's 11 months.
;:
' Originally published in World of Work, No. 54 (August 2005).
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Gender equality around the world : 2005
Norway introduced the four-week paternity quota in 1993. The provision
sets aside four weeks of the parental period for the father with the purpose of
encouraging more fathers to take an active role in the care of their children
during their first year. These four weeks cannot be transferred to the mother
and are lost if the father does not use them.
Rights and entitlements with regards to parental leave and pay
compensation are established by law in Norway. In developing the legal
framework on parental leave, equality of opportunities has been a guiding
principle, with a view to both promoting women's labour market participation
and encouraging men to spend more time at home taking care of their children.
Isak Berntsen, a 31-year-old officer in the Royal Norwegian Navy, is looking
forward to spending more time at home with his daughter Erie thanks to his
paternity quota.
"I am happy to step up my involvement as a father in my daughter's early
life. In my family we arranged it so that my wife stayed home the first 12
months with 80 per cent income loss compensation. The 'father's quota' may
be used at any time during the shared period of leave, but is lost if not used by
the father, so I have to use it now or I will lose it. I'm lucky to have this
opportunity to participate more in family life while receiving full pay at the
same time. As a member of the Standing NATO Response Force, I see that
most of my colleagues from other countries do not have the same rights," says
Mr. Berntsen.
The introduction of the paternity quota led to an extension of parental
leave, and it did not come at the expense of women's opportunities in relation
to leave. Fathers are granted this quota regardless of whether the mother
remains at home after delivery or not, which means that both parents can stay
at home during the father's period of leave. However, the father is not allowed
to take the leave during the first six weeks after the baby is born.
Bringing fathers into the picture
Drawing on the practices and experiences of 25 countries, the ILO study shows
how governments, employers' organizations and trade unions around the world
bring gender equality into their institutional structures, policies, programmes,
and activities.
The Norwegian Government has pursued an active policy of promoting
gender equality since 1978. The implementation of this policy is the
responsibility of the Unit for Gender Equality located in the Ministry of
Children and Family Affairs, the Gender Equality Ombud, and the Centre for
Gender Equality. The ministry is also responsible for policy on issues such as
child care, parental leave, and reconciliation of work and family life.
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Modem Daddy: Norway's progressive policy on paternity leave
The Norwegian Gender Equality Act, 1978
Statutory provisions for parental leave in Norway apply equally to both parents, in
compliance with the Gender Equality Act (1978). In addition, each parent is
entitled to up to one year of unpaid leave per child, extended to up to two years
for a single parent.
The statutory parental benefits period is 42 weeks with full income loss
compensation, or 52 weeks with 80 per cent income loss compensation. Parents
who qualify for the benefits may choose to share the period of paid leave. However,
certain weeks must be used according to specific rules:
•
3 weeks before delivery are reserved for the mother
•
6 weeks after delivery are reserved for the mother
•
4 weeks are reserved for the father (paternity leave)
This leaves 29 weeks of parental leave which either the mother, the father or both
can use.
If both the mother and the father qualify for parental or adoption benefit, four weeks
of the benefit period are reserved for the father. If the father does not make use of
these weeks, they will normally be forfeit. The mother must have worked at least
50 per cent of a full-time post.
When parents share the period of leave, the Working Environment Act requires first
the mother and then the father to take their respective periods without a break. The
paternity quota cannot, however, be taken until at least six weeks after the birth of
the child. Adoptive fathers can take their quota at any time during the adoption
benefit period. The paternity quota may, upon agreement with the employer, be
divided into several periods, but it must be taken within the total parental/adoption
benefit period. If his employer consents, the father may, for example, take one day
a week for 20 weeks. The mother must then have leave of absence for the
remaining four days a week. The father may not take his quota as part of a time
account agreement.
There is no requirement that the mother must return to work when the father
utilizes his paternity quota. For example, if she so wishes, the mother may work
part time (time account agreement) during this period. However, she is not entitled
to more than 50 per cent of the parental benefit during the period.
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Gender equality around the world : 2005
In 1978, Norway adopted a Gender Equality Act (see box) which
prohibits discrimination on the grounds of sex in all areas of society and obliges
all public institutions to promote gender equality in all areas of policy, such as
labour, education, and health. The Gender Equality Act was reinforced in 2002,
and now requires all employers in both the public and private sectors to report
annually on women's representation on the staff and in management positions
in their organizations.
Results - more fathers using their quota
The scheme has significantly increased the number of fathers taking paternity
leave.
Very few fathers took advantage of the parental benefit period from 1978,
when it was introduced, until 1994. However, the Gender Equality Ombud's
office reported in 1997 that over 70 per cent of fathers with the right to the paid
leave took it that year, a very large increase over the 2.4 per cent registered for
1992. Since then, take-up of the paternity quota by fathers has been
consistently high, as the table below shows.
Fathers exercising their entitlement to paternity quota, 1997 and 2004
1997
2004
Total number of women with parental benefits (ended cases)
48 664
46 690
Estimated number of fathers with right to paternity quota
38 392
37 352
Fathers with right to paternity quota as percentage of births
where mother has right to parental benefits
78%
80%
Total number of fathers using paternity quota (ended cases)
29 238
33 164
Fathers with paternity quota as percentage of fathers with right to
paternity quota (estimated)
75%
89%
Extended paternity leave
The Norwegian government has proposed in its revised national budget th.._
at
paternity leave should be extended by an additional week. This proposal means
that parental or adoption leave will now be extended beyond a total of one year.
The proposal will apply to parents of children born or adopted after 1 July
2005. Under the terms of the new proposal, parental and adoption leave will be
extended by one week, with the additional week being reserved exclusively for
use by fathers. This will raise the father's quota to a total of five weeks.
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Modem Daddy; Norway's progressive policy on paternity ieave
Putting an end to discrimination
Previously, paternity and adoption benefits paid to many fathers were reduced in
proportion to the mother's earned rights. Men only received maximum benefits
if the child's mother had worked more than 75 per cent of a full-time post. Men
whose spouses/partners had worked between 50 and 75 per cent of a full-time
position had their benefits reduced to correspond to the mother's position.
Many men lost so much in financial terms that they had to make do with
two weeks' leave on full pay instead of four weeks on half pay. This discriminatory practice has now been brought to an end, and fathers now receive
paternity benefits based on their own earning rights.
Many men due to take paternity leave can rejoice that little bit extra, since
they will be receiving more benefits while they spend time at home with their
child. The reason for this is that a larger number of fathers will receive paternity
benefits calculated on the basis of their own employment level. Until now many
newly fledged fathers with spouses who were in part-time employment had
been discriminated against and penalized financially when they took their
paternity leave.
Thus, the total amount of parental and adoption leave has been increased
from 52 to 53 weeks at 80 per cent of full pay, or from 42 to 43 weeks at 100 per
cent of full pay. This extension is conditional on the child's father taking the
extra week of leave. The proposal applies to fathers who are entitled to the
paternity quota. If the father has been exempted from the paternity quota, or
is not entitled to paternity leave, the extra week will pass to the mother. The
same applies if the mother has sole responsibility for the child.
127
2006
"Women are taking an increasingly active role in sports the world over,
becoming more visible, assertive and active in a way that goes beyond the
arena," World of Work reported in commemoration of International Women's
Day 2006. The ILO's chosen theme for the day-Women and Sports - reflected
the organization's goal of promoting a universally equal status, and a level
playing field, for women and men across all professions.
Some positive signs in this respect are coming from Africa where the
African Development Bank (AfDB) reports that women entrepreneurs are
becoming increasingly economically prominent. Against this background, the
ILO and the AfDB have set out to further boost cooperation towards
developing integrated solutions to support financing for small and mediumsized enterprises owned by women.
In one area however, a new global challenge is emerging. The ILO
publication Decent working time: New trends, new issues reports that work-life
balance in industrialized countries is becoming a thing of the past as working
hours are becoming increasingly unpredictable for workers in all sectors.
Moreover, whereas changes in the global economy have brought about a
significant growth in part-time work, it is also noticeable that the majority of
part-time workers, almost everywhere, are female. Such gender segregation of
part-time work could have unfortunate effects. Unless it is well regulated,
history has shown that part-time employment quickly becomes associated with
"second-best" or marginal employment.
129
WOMEN IN SPORTS: HOW LEVEL IS THE
PLAYING FIELD?*
Katherine Lomasney**
On the courts and in the courtrooms, the subject of a woman's role in professional
sports - and the huge gap between opportunities, funding and media exposure
given to males and females in the sporting world - is emblematic of the larger
question on gender equality today: is equal really equal? The issue of women and
their role in the sporting world includes all the issues currently being debated in
the wider world - such as women in decision-making roles, women in
management, women in a wide range of professions. This article examines how the
role of women in the world of sports illustrates the gender state of play in the wider
world, and how women are helping to promote gender equality in a wider
professional context through sports.
In the world of sports, gender has become one of the main events. Women are
taking an increasingly active role in sports the world over, becoming more
visible, assertive and active in a way that goes beyond the arena. Winning in
sports not only provides a momentary rush of accomplishment - it also
involves a race toward combatting social stereotyping and reaching the goal of
gender equality. To say the hurdles that once appeared insurmountable to
women in sports are not only falling but being overcome is not only an apt
analogy but symbolic of the advancement women have made both on and off
an increasingly level playing field. Women athletes, trainers, promoters and
others who make their living in the sports sector are today going the extra mile
to change cultural norms - and finding that sports can provide a springboard
for further advancement in societies. Be it for work or pleasure, women athletes
and their supporters have literally made enormous strides, aiming their
' Originally published in "World of Work, No.56 (April 2006).
';;' Assistant editor, World of Work.
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Gender equality around the world : 2006
ambition, vision and enthusiasm at the target of attaining a universal, equal
status in the world of work.
The visibility of women athletes, trainers and promoters in today's sports
world is a far cry from their status just slightly more than a century ago. When
the first Olympic Games of the modern era took place in 1896, the idea of
women taking part was thought to be "unfeminine". Since then, it is easy to see
the progress that has since been made in many parts of the world. By 1900,
societal views had modernized enough to allow 11 women to stand beside the
1,319 men at the opening ceremony at the Paris Olympics, although their
participation was restricted to sports regarded as "suitable" for women - tennis
and golf.
By the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, a new world record was set -just
over 40 per cent of participants were female. Leading up to this has been a
decreasing trend in the number of countries sending all-male teams - there were
35 all-male national teams at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, 26 at Atlanta in
1996 and 12 at Sydney in 2000 {South China Morning Post, December 2005).
During the Fourth Women's Islamic Games held in Tehran in 2005, 1,300
female athletes represented 43 nations, and the Iranian government provided
US$1.4 million to support the Games {Business Recorder, September 2005).
Major inroads have also been made in access to participation in and pay
equity for other international sporting competitions. The 250-year-old Royal
& Ancient Club in Scotland, considered the world's leading authority on golf,
lifted a long-standing ban on women playing in the Open Championship in
2005 {The Guardian, February 2005). In tennis, the French Open recently
joined ranks with the Australian and US Opens by offering both men and
women competitors equal prize money, leaving Wimbledon as the only major
tournament with prize money inequity {Sports Business, September 2005).
Also, the 2005 Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon paid winners of men's
and women's categories equal prize money {The Straits Times, June 2005).
Traditional sports, new hurdles
Of course, these hard-won victories are not the norm, and women starting out
in the sports world have an uphill battle to wage, due to limited opportunities
for competition, support and money. "People tend to believe that women have
the same opportunities as men, but the infrastructures available to women are
very precarious, and the schedules are not conducive to the practice of sport,"
said Alfredina Silva, a former professional football player from Portugal, in an
ILO interview aired on International Women's Day (IWD) this year.
Family obligations can also keep women from pursuing sporting activities
in some parts of the world. "In Africa, young women and men are not given the
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Women in sports: How level Is the playing field?
International Women's Day 2006: Statement by ILO Director-General
Juan Somavia
There is no doubt that women continue to transform the workplaces of the world
- a critical arena for the advancement of women in society. Over the past decade,
the number of working women has increased by 200 million. Today, women
represent more than 40 per cent of working people worldwide. Women are also
continuing to make inroads in the world of professional sports.
Despite the advances, glaring inequalities persist in workplaces throughout the
world. The pay gap is still a reality. The "jobs gap" between men and women especially in terms of quality - remains wide. We estimate that women represent
60 per cent of the world's working poor.
The ILO chose the theme of women in sports and the world of work to draw
attention to gender inequalities and barriers that exist across all professions,
including sports.
In professional sports, for instance, women earn far less money than men, with the
rationale that women's sports do not attract the audiences or draw an equal level
of media coverage, advertising revenue or endorsements.
same attention," said Tirunesh Dibaba, a long-distance runner from Ethiopia,
in an IWD interview with the ILO. "For women, what makes it difficult to go
running is the family. The family does not allow you to run, but they also don't
want you to go to school. A girl works at home, always at home."
Once a woman's athletic career is underway, the most apparent
inequalities between male and female professional athletes can be measured in
pay and media coverage. For instance, according to the US National Committee
on Pay Equity, the average salary in the Women's National Basketball
Association (WNBA) is only 2 per cent of the all-male National Basketball
Association's (NBA) average (www.pay-equity.org). Media coverage of sports
is similarly lopsided: the coverage ratio as of 2004 between male and female
professional sports was 9 to 1 in US television and 20 to 1 in US print media
(Afs., Summer 2004).
So who's setting the agenda in the media? The editors who assign stories
and coverage, or the readership? How can such a huge gap exist today? A survey
of sports editors and deputy editors from 285 newspapers in the south-eastern
United States in 2003 found that 25 per cent of the editors still believe women
are naturally less athletic than men. Nearly half of those surveyed said that
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Gender equality around the world : 2006
men's sports suffered as a result of Title IX, the 1972 ruling that bars gender
discrimination in any educational programme that accepts federal funding.
Nearly 90 per cent were confident that the gender balance in their newspapers'
sports sections reflected reader interests in male over female sports and roughly
45 per cent said they believed women have little or no interest in sports. Only
the younger editors were less inclined to view Title IX as a problem for male
sports (Associated Press, 2005).
Similar views were expressed in a European study in 2005. The study was
conducted of the newspaper coverage of women's sports in Belgium, Denmark,
France and Italy during the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. It evaluated the
number of articles, size, page placement, accompanying photographs and
photograph size in all major newspapers in the four European countries. The
survey found the rate of newspaper coverage was similar to the rate of female
participation in the Games, with only 29.3 per cent of the articles and 38 per
cent of photos dedicated to women's sports. However, no significant gender
differences were found with respect to article size, page placement,
accompanying photographs or photograph size (Research Quarterly for Exercise
and Sport, June 2005).
"Women's sport is much less visible than men's sport," said Silva. "Women
could play a key part in decision-making and ensure that more women
participate in sports by improving their conditions."
Taking the lead
One area directly linked with advancing the cause of gender equality in sports
is leadership. Worldwide, the number of women in decision-making and
leadership positions is still relatively small. Some attribute their lack of presence
at the executive level to "glass-ceiling" effects, social and culture barriers, a lack
of female candidates and a less than supportive professional environment.
Working to kick down these barriers are strong female role models like Pat
Summitt, considered one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all time.
A former basketball player, she took over coaching the women's team at the
Universityof Tennessee in the US in 1974 at the age of 22, and last year became
the most successful US college basketball coach in history, racking up over 880
wins. She also coached the US women's basketball team to its first gold medal
at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles (The Sunday Times, March 2006).
Sports journalism is another sector that has a thick glass ceiling. But the
women who have broken through have emerged as legends. Melissa Ludtke, a
reporter for the US magazine Sports Illustrated, changed history when she filed
a lawsuit after being banned from the locker room during the 1977 World Series
between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers. The suit resulted
134
Women in sports: How level is the playing field?
in a ground-breaking federal court ruling in 1978 granting women journalists
equal access rights to locker rooms and other sports venues (American
Journalism Review, January 2005).
Still, change resulting in equality and balance at the executive level is slow
in coming. As of 2005 only 12 out of the International Olympic Committee's
(IOC) 116 members were women. Out of 202 National Olympic Committees
(NOC), only nine have women presidents, five of them in Africa. As part of its
Women and Sport policy, the IOC established targets in 1997 to increase the
number of women in executive roles to 10 per cent by 2001 and 20 per cent by
2005. For comparison, the percentage of women participants at the
International Labour Conference, by region, including ministers during the
period of 2001 and 2005 was 22 per cent.
According to the article "Women, leadership and the Olympic movement"
in the ILO publication Beyond the scoreboard (di Cola, 2006), authors Ian Henry
and Anita White surveyed each NOC and its current female membershp to
evaluate the process of recruitment, career paths, overall impact on the
organizations and level of support required to ensure the realization of wider
involvement of women in decision-making roles. The results indicated that since
introducing the targets, the proportion of women at the NOC executive level has
indeed risen. Furthermore, the exercise helped to raise awareness of gender
inequalities, bring talented women into the Olympic family and improve Olympic
governance by setting an example and providing moral leadership to the world
of sports in terms of equity representation.
What sports can do for women
Involvement in sports for women and men teaches critical lessons on discipline,
goal setting, communication and work ethics that are widely transferable and
often translate into successful careers down the line. For instance, Marjo
Matikaninen, the World Champion and Olympic Gold Medallist in crosscountry skiing in 1988 from Finland, went on to a Masters degree in
Engineering and is today a member of the European Parliament. "What I find
interesting here is that those women who have been successful in sports have
also applied the goal-oriented learning to their lives studying at university or
establishing their own businesses," said sports psychologist and former
Olympic athlete from Finland Laura Jansson, in an ILO interview. "Elite
athletes reach their peak between the ages of 20 and 30, depending on the
discipline. After that they can be great educators and trainers who have a huge
responsibility to the next generation to help them follow their footsteps."
Cecilia Tait has done Just that. A former professional volleyball player from
Peru, her efforts to promote equal sporting opportunities for women helped her
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Gender equality around the world : 2006
get elected to the country's Congress. "We should keep trying to emulate our role
models, and to create new role models, to show that through sports you can
do it, you can improve quality of life," she said in an ILO interview for IWD.
"Why do you think they have voted for me to be in Congress? Because I am a
woman and an athlete, and because if I hadn't been an athlete you and others
wouldn't have ever known about me. We are public figures, and a country without
history and without examples does not move ahead."
The importance of role models for women in sports is undeniable. In fact,
one could assert that it is a virtuous circle. The more women take positive,
leading roles as athletes, trainers, journalists and decision-makers, the more
women will see that gender inequalities can be overcome - not only in sports
but in all professions.
136
WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS IN AFRICA^
African women entrepreneurs are playing an ever-increasing role in African
economies. The ILO and the African Development Bank (AfDB) have jointly
launched a series of reports providing concrete recommendations for action to
support growth-oriented women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia, Kenya, the United
Republic of Tanzania and Uganda.
African women entrepreneurs are becoming more prominent in many African
economies despite several specific constraints: limited access to land, credit,
education and training. Against this background, the ILO and AfDB intend to
boost their cooperation in developing an integrated solution to support
financing for growth-oriented micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises
owned by women in those countries.
A new ILO-AfDB report (2005) examines good practices and challenges
in policy and programme support. It adopts an integrated approach to helping
women entrepreneurs, including coordination, leadership, financing, training,
business support, information sharing, networks and women entrepreneurs'
associations and the legal environment.
According to the report, the ongoing sub-regional discussions on women
entrepreneurs affect not only Ethiopia, Kenya, the United Republic of Tanzania
and Uganda, but also the rest of the continent. It recommends linking access
to finance with business support services. Based on the findings of the report
for Kenya, the AfDB has approved a new project to provide loan guarantees,
business training and strengthening of associations of women entrepreneurs.
As a further response to the reports in the four countries, the ILO will give
greater priority to women's entrepreneurship in Africa over the next two years.
• Originally published in World of Work, No.56 (April 2006).
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Gender equality around the world : 2006
Making public services work for poor people: Disabled people in
Ethiopia:
Abaynesh Gebeyehu Damtew, a 20-year-old disabled woman from the north of
Ethiopia, let her home town of Alamata eight years ago to get medical treatment
in the capital. She has not seen her family since.
"My family did not need me because of my disability. In the place where I was born
there was no disabled people's organization. There was no awareness about
disability. You cannot find support and services," she explains.
Having completed her medical treatment, Abaynesh became a member of the
National Association of the Physically Handicapped. She wears a short brace, below
her right knee, due to her disability caused by polio. Despite her mobility difficulties
Abaynesh attends late evening classes at Basilios Primary and Junior High School.
"I must learn today In order to change my life tomorrow," she says. "Rather than
sitting idle, working also gives a meaning to my life." Before the classes, she attends
a skills training course to become a tailor four days a week from 8 a.m. to 12.30
p.m. and works as a cleaner at one of the 30 public sanitary service blocs managed
by the Yenegew Sew Sanitary Service Cooperative from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m.
The Cooperative was formed after the proposal by the Ethiopian Federation of
Persons with Disabilities (EFPD) to renovate existing sanitary facilities and create
jobs for unemployed people with disabilities had won a World Bank Development
Marketplace Competition prize in 2003. The proposal was one of 186 chosen from
over 2,700 proposals submitted.
When the project was designed, the Addis Ababa City Administration Sanitation,
Beaulification and Parks Development Agency was planning to build more than
200 new public toilets and to outsource the management of the existing facilities
to private and community organizations interested in running them at affordable
prices. The City Administration and the ILO were both partners in the EFPD's
submission to renovate and manage 30 facilities.
In June 2005 the President of Ethiopia officially opened the first modern public
shower and toilet facilities. In a city where 24 per cent of housing units have no
bathrooms at all and 45 per cent share pit latrines, the EFPD initiative has made
an Important contribution to public health and hygiene and has unlocked the
economic potential of unemployed people with disabilities. The Yenegew Sew
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Women entrepreneurs in Africa
Sanitary Service Cooperative now provides jobs to 250 unemployed persons with
visual, hearing and mobility impairments as well as ex-leprosy patients and
mothers of children with mental retardation.
Cooperative leaders received management training, learning how to run sanitary
facilities as a public utility serace from an ILO-supported urban sanitation projeot
in Dar es Salaam. Cooperative members were trained in customer handling and
marketing, maintenance and plumbing. The ILO and Development Cooperation
Ireland (DCI), the official international aid programme of the Irish Government,
provided training through an existing ILO-DCI project, "Developing
Entrepreneurship among Women with Disabilities" in Addis Ababa and in the
Amhara and Tigray regions of Ethiopia.
Source: World of Work, No.56 (April 2006).
The report also calls for special efforts at the national and regional levels
to challenge existing cultural and social practices and to allow women
entrepreneurs to participate in private sector development and employment
creation activities by reviewing the legal frameworks.
The AfDB, which advocates small and medium-sized enterprise
development and women's access to finance, and the ILO, which provides
technical expertise through its Women's Entrepreneurship Development and
Gender Equality (WEDGE) technical cooperation project, launched the report
during an interactive workshop in Nairobi in November 2005.
139
LIGHTING A TORCH FOR EMPOWERMENT:
"WE MATTER," SAY FILIPINO DOMESTIC
WORKERS*
Ricardo R. Casco*
Domestic workers in the Philippines are being given a voice by SU MAPI, the only
worker's organization in the country for this sector.
2.5 million Filipino households rely on domestic workers to provide relief to
families coping with the conflicting interests of career and family
responsibilities. Filipina domestic workers are now also employed in
households in some 70 countries around the world, and their importance is
increasing with the changing patterns of family life and work. Yet the
contribution of domestic work has continued to be undervalued, and the
struggle to free it from child labour continues.
Milaluna Tibubos (Mila) tells her story:
"I grew up with 12 siblings in a very remote yet peaceful town in Iloilo. At
a very young age, I was confronted with the ugly reality of poverty and how it
affected my family. I was well aware that my parents could not support me in
achieving my aspiration of finishing school. Like many young girls, I wanted to
be educated and earn a college degree. That was all I could think about then, but
I was fully aware of my family's economic condition. Sometimes we could not
eat because there was nothing to cook, nor was there any money to buy food
in the market. So I turned to my teachers, thinking that they could help me. My
teachers in elementary school encouraged me to go to their homes and be their
domestic worker. They promised me that later on they would help me obtain
my high school and college education."
So began Mila's long journey on the path to empowerment - but things
did not initially turn out the way she expected.
* Originally published in World of Work, No.58 (December 2006).
"National Project Coordinator, ILO-DOMWORK.
140
Lighting a torch for empowerment: "We matter," say Filipino domestic workers
"I began working when I was 9 years old so that I could support my
studies and my family despite the arduous tasks I did. In one of my first Jobs,
I had to care for two toddlers aged 2 and 5 years old; I was still a child and I did
not know how to take care of the children. My employer would hit me if I did
something wrong. I was barely receiving any salary, only one peso per day. At
times, I would skip classes on the instruction of my teacher-employer to go
home and take care of her children."
Today Mila is the elected head of Samahang Ugnayan ng mga Manggagawang
Pangtahanan sa Filipinas (SUMAPI), the lone domestic worker organization
in the Philippines. Benefiting from the ILO's Regional Project on Mobilizing
Action for the Protection of Domestic Workers from Forced Labour and
Trafficking (ILO-DOMWORK), SUMAPI is preparing itself this year for
institutional independence after years of nurture from the Visayan Forum
Foundation, Inc. (VFFI), a staunch supporter of domestic workers' rights
and welfare.
SUMAPI was organized by VFFI as a non-stock, non-profit, peoples'
organization working for the protection of migrant children and women
working in the local market. Starting in Manila in 1995, it later expanded its
activities to the provinces of Davao, Bacolod, Batangas, Iloilo and Cebu. It now
has an estimated membership of 8,000 domestic workers and is currently
composed of 21 core groups providing services in parks, schools, communities,
and parishes.
Like Mila, SUMAPI's core leaders today are composed of successfully
rehabilitated domestic workers who have availed themselves of VFFI's
Psychosocial Programme and educational assistance under the IPEC
Programme. Having "walked the talk" and survived a painful past as child
domestic workers, they have earned their credibility in speaking for their
rights and interests; they understand how to build an important role for
the sector.
Low pay, low status
While domestic work has become a highly sought-after service, compensation
for it as defined by present legislated standards in the Philippines is not
commensurate.
In narrating her travails as an impoverished child domestic worker, Mila
describes the meagre income she earned out of the sacrifices she went through
in her fervent desire to finish college. "I transferred from one employer to
another - I had 11 employers all in all in 7 years. I sought work outside my
province, far away from my family, in a place hardly familiar to me, and where
I had no one to go to in case of problems. I had little or almost no
141
Gender equality around the world : 2006
communication with my family; worse, I worked in a household where I slept
at the nipa hut (a native makeshift dwelling) located outside the main house.
I would sleep there without pillows, without blankets, and without other
essential amenities. I was fed with leftover food; my work entailed the entire
household chores. I went through the ordeal of being hit, my hair was pulled
by the daughter of my employer and I was even slapped, not only by my
employer but also by other members of the family. Out of these 11 employers,
only one employer paid me 500 pesos (US$10) a month; others just gave me 25
pesos, 2 pesos or sometimes nothing, especially when they provided me with
the opportunity to go to school."
Even household employers of stature in society, such as Mila's teacheremployers, can be guilty of abuses; a distorted view of domestic service allows
these practices to be perpetuated. In many cultures the engagement of domestic
services is relegated to the level of "domestic helpers or household servants".
These helpers and servants are not treated as workers deserving labour law
coverage and standards of protection.
In addition, recruiters of domestic workers for overseas employment tend
to usurp the profits of this high-demand market. Because the job content of
domestic work is perceived to require very low skill levels, and as more poor
countries join the pool of suppliers, local wages and compensation are
continuing to deteriorate.
As abroad, so at home
The Philippines Department of Labor and Employment has recently
announced publicly that it will vigorously promote the skills training and
knowledge orientation of its overseas domestic workers, acknowledging the
growing number of incidences of trafficking, forced labour and human rights
abuses among them. And consistent with the need to implement the provisions
of the Philippine Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act (Republic Act
8042) of 1995, which provides that the possession of skill-based competence is
key to protection of vulnerable workers, the ILO has extended support to the
Philippines for the development of a skills training, knowledge orientation,
testing and certification system for domestic workers.This facility, managed by
the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA),
promises to empower the overseas domestic sector with leverage as they seek
to preserve their relatively higher compensation and earn a professional stature
in the global market.
But while such orientation and training serves to protect domestic
workers working abroad and make them more competitive, there is much yet
to be done in promoting the use of such facilities in the local market.
142
Lighting a torch for empowerment: "We matter," say Filipino domestic workers
Local initiatives for skills and social protection
Apart from ILO support for the updating of Philippine rules and regulations
governing private recruitment and placement agencies operating in the local
market, a number of initiatives from NGOs and local government units have
captured ILO attention. In December 2004 the Quezon City government
introduced a local ordinance calling for the registration and social security
coverage of domestic workers and the mobilization of a Kasambahay desk
and hotline programme. This initiative led to the development of an expanded
local ordinance model. In February 2006, Makati City passed its own local
ordinance.
"There is no better way to implement service initiatives on the ground than when
you have the Barangay (local government unit) and the homeowners'
associations working together," says Constancia Lichauco, Barangay Captain of
Belair, an elite residential village in Makati. Belair is now in its 11th year of
Implementing its Kabalikat sa Tahahan (partner at home) programme (KST) - a
three-month training programme in skills, knowledge and values for domestic
workers that takes place every Wednesday afternoon. The Employers
Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) has adopted the KST programme as a
basis for its employer-awareness campaign and the formulation of Its Code of
Ethics in the Employment of Domestic Workers.
There is a desire among local domestic workers to upgrade government
regulations and services for them in parallel with the programmes for those
abroad. They are pursuing an omnibus law for domestic workers. Batas
Kasambahay (Magna Carta for Household Workers, House Bill No. 1606), just
as migrant workers have RA 8042.
Being mostly unschooled and uninformed, they want to have access to a
worker orientation and skills training programme. They want to see
recruitment agencies operating in the local market made more responsible and
assume specific obligations. When these are provided at home, they argue, the
government will strengthen its moral ground in negotiating for better terms
and conditions for migrant workers.
In the struggle for empowerment, Mila has shepherded SUMAPI this year
into an intensive schedule of capacity-building sessions on visioning, strategic
and operational planning, principles of human and labour rights, organizing,
resource mobilization, financial management, outreach services and entrepreneurship, under the guidance of the Federation of Free Workers and the
143
Gender equality around the world : 2006
ILO. "I am confident that we have bloomed with this mission to prevent
present and future generations of domestic workers from experiencing the lost
childhood we had to bear," says Mila. "The things done for us - both big and
small - by different social partners mobilized by the ILO in the past few years
can spark us and generations to come into a real state of empowerment.
We have the numbers, and we matter to families and individuals. Ours is a
big voice."
144
AN HONEST DAY'S WORK? CONSIDERING
THE NEBULOUS NOTION OF TODAY'S
WORK-LIFE BALANCE*
Jennifer Monroe*
Atypical and unpredictable work schedules are on the rise worldwide, thanks to an everincreasingly connected, responsive and demanding global economy. Consequently,
work-life balance in industrialized countries is becoming a thing of the past.
Across the industrialized world, working hours are becoming increasingly
unpredictable, creating considerable tensions between workers and employers.
Changes in the global economy to a knowledge- and service-based focus,
consumer demand for access to goods and services 24 hours a day, seven days
a week and other economic and social factors are affecting the standard
employment relationship - and causing concern about working time and the
work-life balance.
To bring to light research on working time, the ILO co-sponsored the
Ninth International Symposium on Working Time in Paris in 2004, and
subsequent publication Decent working time: New trends, new issues (2006).
Editors Jean-Yves Boulin, Michel Lallement, Jon C. Messenger and François
Michon have compiled key papers presented at the symposium to help with the
development of policies and practices that support decent working time.
Focusing on industrialized countries, the research included in the book
represents studies of workers and working time in a number of European
Union Member States (particularly France, Germany and the Scandinavian
countries), Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.
According to Messenger, for decent working time to exist the working
time arrangements must be healthy and family-friendly, promote gender
'' Originally published in World of Work, No. 57 (August 2006).
=:--• freelance journalist, United States.
145
Gender equality around the world : 2006
equality, advance productivity and allow employees to have a true choice in the
hours they work. While these five dimensions are closely linked, worker
control over hours of work (and more importantly the scheduling of those
hours) is vital to the creation - or at least the perception - of a decent work-life
balance.
Real vs. ideal
Within the quest for decent working time there exists what the ILO calls
"decent work deficits" - gaps between required working hours and preferred
working hours. As Messenger points out, three primary categories of workers
have emerged for whom the decent work gap exists: people who are required
to work excessively long hours who want to work less, part-time workers who
are required to work less than 20 hours a week who want to work more, and
people who have odd work schedules but want stable or standard hours.
Closing these decent work gaps, while maintaining decent working time, is
no simple task. As Boulin, Lallement and Michon point out in the opening
chapter, "neither work-life balance policies nor life-course working time
policies are automatically rooted in the philosophy of decent working time" and
"many options offered to employees lead to gender discrimination and social
inequalities". Thomas Haipeter's study of the new working time regulation in
Germany found that "flexi-time" and "time-banking programmes" are promising,
but only when well managed and when there is strong employee participation
and autonomy.
Part-time work, it would seem, could work well in closing the gaps for
both those who would prefer to work more and those who would prefer to
work less. Messenger notes that in general, "short working hours ... appears to
be a widely employed strategy for balance-paid employment with family
responsibilities". In fact, "substantial" hours of between 20 and 34 hours per
week are preferred to "marginal" hours of less than 20 hours per week.
However, the majority of part-time workers are female, causing gendersegregation of part-time work almost everywhere it exists. To take this point
further, Mara Yerkes and Jelle Visser found "danger of marginalization" in the
initial growth stages of part-time work in the Netherlands, Germany and the
United Kingdom because "part-time work developed as a 'second-best' option
for many women, particularly working mothers," and "part-time work was
preferred to staying out of the labour market, or being unemployed - but not
to a full-time job with full rights, earnings and benefits".
While the Netherlands has made some great gains in normalizing
part-time work (see box) and Germany is taking a similar approach, part-time
work in the UK historically has not been well regulated and has "as a
146
An honest day's work? Considering the nebulous notion of today's work-life balance
consequence, become heavily associated with marginal employment, low pay
and little skills training".
Eliminating the decent work deficit for workers whose hours are not based
on a regular schedule may prove the most difficult. According to researchers Jill
Rubery, Kevin Ward and Damián Grimshaw, scheduling of employee time is
increasingly being used strategically by employers. In some cases, working time
is neither agreed nor specified; in others, agreed-upon time is "becoming
fragmented into shorter, discontinuous periods and is being scheduled across the
week or the year to match the requirements of the employers". Organizations
are not looking to return to a more regular time-based approach. In fact,
"managers stressed that hours schedules needed to fit with the interests of the
employer and/or the clients and customers. To achieve this, a major objective was
to regard all hours as equivalent, with no additional costs associated with unsocial
or extra hours". Paul Bouffartigue and Jacques Bouteiller's analysis of "temporal
availability" among hospital nurses and bank managerial staff in France, Belgium
and Spain provides further examples of the growing diversity of types of
employment status and situations, while Isik Zeytinoglu and Gordon Cooke ask
the question, "Who is working at weekends?" Their answer for Canada (although
this must surely be true for other industrialized countries) is that in any society
that some people happily imagine is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, weekend
workers are often those with a number of disadvantages: lower education and skill
levels, temporary contracts and part-time work.
Where workers have a true choice in their work hours (where there are
good options available to choose from), there is an increased opportunity for
decent working time to exist. Despite the belief to the contrary, Didier Fouage
and Christine Baaijens found that among Dutch firms "it is plausible that
employers will grant changes in working hours if requested", and that
"although employees are reluctant to request adjustment of working hours,
their attempts are reasonably successful".
What perpetuates overemployment?
What keeps workers from requesting shorter hours is simple: fear of refusal and
fear of a negative impact on their career. In other cases there is the belief that
working more, even unpaid hours, is valued as dedication to the company.
Some workers "choose" overemployment to meet preferred earning levels,
while others see it as "part of the job". In Jouko Nátti, Timo Anttila and Mia
Vaisánen's study of knowledge workers in Finland, half had trouble defining
their total working hours, with managers and professionals struggling the most
in this regard. They also discovered an erosion of "agreed upon weekly working
time" and a "stretching" of working hours.
147
Gender equality around the world : 2006
Bridging the decent work gap: The Netherlands
The Netherlands has made the greatest gains in fostering a healthy work-life
balance through the normalization of part-time work. In Mara Yerkes" and Jelle
Visser's comparison of the development of part-time work in the Netherlands,
Germany and the United Kingdom, they share the secrets behind the Dutch efforts
to create decent working time.
Although the Netherlands faced the same initial dangers of marginalization found
wherever part-time work exists, the acceptance of part-time work today has led
to the one-and-a-half earner household becoming the dominant model.
According to Yerkes, "involuntary part-time work is low in the Netherlands, with
only a minor gap between women's preferred and actual working time".
What is behind this shift? Both the Dutch Government and social partners
supported families in choosing part-time work and shorter working hours as a way
to achieve a work-family balance. Policies were put in place to create standards
in terms of part-time workers' rights, earnings and equality.
It did not happen quickly - growth of part-time work in the Netherlands lagged
behind other European countries until the 1980s when it began to grow along with
the number of women entering the workforce to boost household incomes. At
first, women chose part-time work due to the lack of daycare options; however,
employers embraced its flexibility and cost savings.
In the mid-1990s, legislation made it possible for part-time workers to be covered
by minimum wage laws, and to earn pensions. Employers still favoured part-time
work, and today part-time positions are found in all economic sectors and across
all occupations.
However, more work needs to be done. Although part-time workers are afforded
equal treatment and have a choice of quality jobs, part-time work is dominated
by women and they remain responsible for the majority of domestic
responsibilities.
It does appear that women are, by in large, choosing part-time work. Nearly 60
per cent of all jobs held by women in the Netherlands are part-time, the highest
in the EU. According to the researchers, "even among younger generations,
mothers who have chosen to work part-time when raising young children do not
return to working full-time when their children grow older".
148
An honest day's work? Considering the nebulous notion of today's work-life balance
This is similar to Lonnie Golden's study of overemployed workers in the
US. Golden's work indicates that overwork is higher among "long-work-week
workers and selected occupational classifications such as managers,
administrators, scientists, engineers and some technicians, and in industries
such as healthcare, utilities and transportation".
In both studies, the long hours seem to be accepted as the norm for
managers. This did not, however, impact the number of Finnish workers who
would prefer a reduction of weekly working hours. Those who work a long
week (41 hours or more) were more likely to prefer reduction of hours
compared to those working a shorter week (1 to 40 hours).
At the other end of the spectrum there are those who desire to increase
their hours, but because overwork exists, there are few opportunities to do so.
Again, the research suggests the elimination of the stigma often associated with
part-time work or shorter hours. It also suggests that the acceptance of parttime work across all levels of work (hence, "normalizing" part-time work)
would go a long way in closing this decent work deficit and promoting healthy
and family-friendly working time, as well as gender equality.
Changes in the global economy have brought about a tremendous growth
in part-time work, but often these are not career-building positions. Messenger
stresses that working time policies can only promote gender equality when they
"enable women to be on an equal footing with men in employment" and "enable
both partners to combine paid work, family responsibilities and lifelong learning".
149
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152
Other ILO Publications
Gender equality and decent work:
Selected ILO Conventions and Recommendations promoting gender equality
This useful reference provides the text of some of the key Conventions for promoting gender
equality in the world of work such as the Discrimination (Employment and Occupation)
Convention, 1958 (No.lll), the Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100), the Workers
with Family Responsibilities Convention, 1981 (No. 156), and the Maternity Protection
Convention, 2000 (No. 183), and others with particular implications for gender equality. Also
available in French and Spanish.
ISBN 978-92-2-119256-5 [2006]
30 Swiss francs
Reconciling work and family responsibilities: Practical ideas from global experience
Catherine Hein
Conflict between work and family responsibilities is increasing in many countries and can cause
major problems for societies, enterprises, families, men and particularly women and is a major
source of gender inequalities in employment. These examples provide useful ideas for action
by governments and employers' and workers' organizations as well as concerned civil society
organizations.
ISBN 92-2-115352-5 [2005]
35 Swiss francs
Support for growth-oriented women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania:
An overview report
Lois Stevenson and Annette St-Onge
The African Development Bank (AfDB) and the ILO join forces in support of women-owned
businesses in Tanzania, Ethiopia and Zambia. This report provides background information
on the ILO-AfDB country-level studies on the role of women entrepreneurs in private sector
development, poverty reduction, and sustainable growth and development. It discusses the
growing global interest in the phenomenon as well as an overview of the situation facing
women entrepreneurs in these countries.
ISBN 92-2-117005-5 [2005]
25 Swiss francs
Employers' organizations taking the lead on gender equality: Case studies from 10 countries
The case studies presented here provide insights into the efforts being made by employers and
their organizations in countries across the world to attain greater levels of equality between
men and women at work. The gender equality issues that employers' organizations address
vary considerably from country to country. But when employers act together through their
representative organizations, they can influence reform in a way that is beneficial both to themselves and to society as a whole.
ISBN 92-2-117277-5 [2005]
25 Swiss francs
Gender equality and decent work: Good practices at the workplace
Drawing on the experiences of 25 countries, this book shows how governments, employers'
organizations and trade unions around the world bring gender equality into their institutional
structures, policies, programmes and activities. Examples from good practice include the use
of sex-disaggregated data; strategic partnerships; multi-sectoral approaches in legislation,
policies and strategies; strategically placed gender expertise and more. Also available in
French and Spanish.
ISBN 92-2-116991-X [2005]
25 Swiss francs
Prices subject to change without notice.
Order ILO publications securely online at www.ilo.org/publns
ender equality
around the world
This compelling and comprehensive collection of articles highlights challenges
and good practices in gender equality in the world of work. The articles, all of
which have been featured in the ILO's World of Work magazine from 1999 to
2006, are international in scope, covering such issues as workplace discrimination, women jobseekers in Estonia, an innovative life-cycle approach to gender
equality in Tanzania, self-employed women in India, progressive policies on
paternity leave in Norway, female domestic workers in the Philippines, women
war reporters and soldiers, women in sports, work-life balance, and many more.
m
The initiatives presented here not only reveal the intrinsic nature of gender
equality in decent work, but reflect on the ILO's response to critical issues
through the support of governments and employers' and workers' organizations
across the globe.
25 Swiss francs