‘Feminist foreign policy’ is an evolving concept aimed at improving women’s rights around the world through diplomatic relations. Its scope can range from funding development projects aimed at fostering gender equality to increasing women’s representation in the diplomatic sphere and giving them a [...]Read the full article
Women in Mexico are waging a fervent battle against the huge upsurge in gender-based violence and the impunity surrounding too many cases of femicide.Read the full article
The trauma of the pandemic, reduced pay in the context of inflation, and the weight of years of austerity in government health spending. Under these combined pressures, midwives in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service are choosing to leave the occupation entirely – leading to critical [...]Read the full article
Luc Triangle:“Most poor people in the world work. The systematic attacks on unions significantly reduces the ability of working people to secure and defend decent wages. Wages are not a neat calculation based on supply and demand and the price of labour; they are born from a bargaining [...]Read the full article
“Although they were inspired by the success of the Bangladesh Accord that followed the devastating collapse of the Rana Plaza factory complex in 2013, what sets the Lesotho agreements apart is that they were the first to incorporate International Labour Organization Convention 190 (C190), a [...]Read the full article
Acquiring new skills, enriching social relations and, above all, achieving a degree of financial independence: these are just some of the benefits that women around the world seek through access to decent employment.Read the full article
Some 30,000 women are currently in prison in Egypt for failing to pay off small loans. NGOs are fighting for a relaxation of the law on debt.Read the full article
While workplace childcare policies are relatively new in Bolivia, the country is making progress, for example by promoting breastfeeding rooms and day-care facilities. However, such policies are of little use when employers fail to respect labour [...]Read the full article
Teleworking has expanded rapidly and haphazardly due to the pandemic. The risks include teleworking being confused with work-life balance and certain costs being placed on workers.Read the full article
Whether in public or private, in the domestic or labour sphere, the killing of women, girls and non-binary people because of their sex and gender is a global phenomenon. According to a 2021 UNODC report, a woman or girl was killed by someone in their family every 11 minutes in [...]Read the full article
This photo essay is an immersive insight into the transgender communities of Pondicherry and Tamil Nadu in southern India, a testament to the day-to-day struggles and resilience of transgender women.Read the full article
Svitlana Iukhymovych :Chronic informality and gender inequity have paved the way for the platform economy’s current success in Ukraine.Read the full article
Manuella Libardi:Given the amount of research that shows how ineffective punitive laws are in curbing the number of abortions women carry out, it is difficult to imagine any other reason that they exist, other than to keep women out of the workforce and in [...]Read the full article
In the DRC, access to sanitary towels remains a headache for women. According to a U-Report survey, 31 per cent of respondents considered lack of money to be the main difficulty they faced during their periods.Read the full article
Marginally represented in the negotiations and side-lined during the transitional period that followed the revolution of December 2018, Sudanese women are ramping up their demands for equal rights in a bold move that challenges the patriarchal [...]Read the full article
“AI registers by themselves won’t solve everything. Transparency is a necessary first step, but in the end, better AI governance requires a comprehensive approach.”Read the full article
Adrian Durtschi:Fixing care is about rebalancing the ways in which the decisions that shape it are made. Ensuring workers have a strong say is fundamental.Read the full article
The coronavirus crisis has highlighted a crisis of care around the world, not only for the very young, but also for the old. It is one of the great challenges we have to approach from an international angle, without letting another day go [...]Read the full article
Across the continent, there have been advancements in gender equality provisions in land access on paper, but now governments, civil society and local communities are being urged to come together to work on implementation.Read the full article
Tunisia has the most comprehensive laws to protect women from gender-based violence in the MENA region, but the coronavirus pandemic has exposed some of the gaps between policy and practice.Read the full article
“The effectiveness of exoskeletons in the workplace depends on a complex interaction between the specificities of the exoskeleton, the specificities of the task, and the specificities of the worker.”Read the full article
Trailblazing municipalities within Europe have decided to adopt gender budgeting to tackle inequalities. In Belgium, the commune of Ixelles is trying to show more sceptical authorities the way.Read the full article
“There are tools for government and employers to address this increase in violence. We know that there is a strong connection between violence at home and violence at work, and we absolutely need to address this in terms of human [...]Read the full article
The Nordic country rose to international headlines last year with a majority female cabinet and a 34-year old prime minister. The new government promises to continue furthering equality, but challenges remain.Read the full article
“Given that we have a federal government that has labelled itself as ‘feminist’, we’ve been hoping that this will be the period in which a National Action Plan on Violence Against Women happens. We’re still waiting.”Read the full article
The most frequent form of violence is bullying, with supervisors screaming and cursing at workers, threatening them if they do not produce at the required pace and harassing them for using the bathroom.Read the full article
Andrew Firmin:This global backlash of conservative anti-rights activism has been eroding hard-won human rights across the globe. But it is being met by an impressive civil society response that is increasingly seeking to build new coalitions and reach a broader range of [...]Read the full article
Campaigns aimed at stopping the legalisation of abortion, denying gender-based violence or advocating therapies to cure homosexuality are being promoted by international networks forming a powerful lobby. They talk of ‘gender ideology’ and their target is [...]Read the full article
Chidi King:The Violence and Harassment Convention (C190) and its accompanying Recommendation (R206) may be the most wide-reaching set of labour standards yet adopted by the ILO, establishing the right of everyone to a world of work free from violence and [...]Read the full article
Over the last 22 years, Spain has gone from being a country that was lagging behind in terms of legally classifying and eradicating gender-based violence to being one of Europe’s frontrunners in the area.Read the full article
Sierra Leone has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the world, with estimates that 28 per cent of girls aged between 15 and 19 have been pregnant or given birth at least once.Read the full article
Motherhood is one of the main instruments traditionally used to dominate and domesticate women, hence the rejection it faces within some feminist circles. How to be a mother and a feminist, and live to tell the story?Read the full article
“What is at stake here goes far beyond the sporting challenge. What we want to achieve is a level of visibility that will finally put women’s football on the map, across the whole of the country and abroad, and to reach the stage where we stop talking about women’s football and talk about football [...]Read the full article
Sharan Burrow:This month, the ILO will complete negotiations on a new international law to prohibit, prevent and remedy violence and harassment. If the negotiations are successful, the new law will place clear responsibilities on employers and governments for tackling the scourge of violence and harassment [...]Read the full article
By demanding that her aggressor be brought to justice, Marija Lukić became an inspiration for women who are victims of violence, and a problem for political leaders trying to maintain their progressive image.Read the full article
Klara Rydström :Menstruation clearly makes for a substantial part of life, so why is it still taboo in discussions of work environment and work-life balance?Read the full article
“In rural and mountainous areas especially, where poverty is the most problematic issue, people find ways to survive by entering in underage marital relations.”Read the full article
Maria Tsirantonaki:This Labour Day the International Trade Union Confederation is launching a call for a New Social Contract. What does this mean for working women? In the aftermath of #MeToo, 2019 is shaping up to be a key year in tackling gender-based violence at [...]Read the full article
A Dutch initiative which allows transgender people to take their medical care and needs into own hands marks a major milestone in the struggle for transgender rights.Read the full article
Through their union, female farmworkers in Meknes have achieved valuable skills that have enabled them to gain economic opportunities at work and new a sense of dignity.Read the full article
Clean Clothes Campaign:“Taking decisive action would demand that brands reach deeper into their profit margins and cut a bigger slice of the pie for those whose hard labour is behind the clothes that fills their glossy shops.”Read the full article
“What’s on trial here aren’t just these two villains. It’s the courts that give reductions for ‘unjust provocations;’ it’s those who don’t implement the Istanbul Convention; it’s those who say women and men aren’t equal by their nature.”Read the full article
In France, the high proportion of women amongst the ‘yellow vests’ protesters reminds us that this particular group of workers turn the wheels of essential services, such as health and education. They represent the ignored power of the social [...]Read the full article
Our relationships are freer, more independent, but also – as the Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman warned – more fragile. It was he who coined the phrase “liquid love” to refer to those increasingly brief and superficial encounters characterising modern [...]Read the full article
“Women’s economic empowerment does not happen in a vacuum but is tied to other key areas like sexual and reproductive rights, access to a living wage and labour rights.”Read the full article
Philip Jennings:There is nothing complacent in the tone of the ILO Global Commission’s report on the future of work. Rejecting business as usual, it sows the seeds of hope for working people. The time has come for a reinvigorated social contract.Read the full article
“With low pay, no public transportation and no daycare, there are no incentives for women to remain in the workforce. Sometimes it is cheaper for them to just stay at home.”Read the full article
“Education is an essential means for gender equality in Togo, but this won’t happen if negative beliefs and social norms are not analysed and changed.”Read the full article
In the midst of economic ‘recovery’, and despite the improvement in macroeconomic indicators and the OECD’s announcement of four per cent growth in global GDP, many people are still halfway between poverty and a precarious existence. And even work no longer necessarily provides a way [...]Read the full article
Brazil is set to elect its new president in October. As tensions are heightened by Lula’s imprisonment, the recent assassination of councillor Marielle Franco and the stabbing of the ultra-right candidate, women are continuing to battle on the sidelines and are gaining ground in party politics [...]Read the full article
“When feminist movements aspire to bring about a radical change in society, their demands inevitably go much further than equal representation, the bridging of the gender gap or the eradication of gender-based violence.”Read the full article