Bolivia’s urban contraband markets are a reflection of the country’s economic, social and historical reality. Operating on the margins of legality, they provide a vital lifeline for many families and reveal a complex relationship between necessity, informality and economic [...]Read the full article
‘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
Until the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greek athletes had world-class funding, trainers and facilities. This golden age ended when the economic crisis broke out and the Greek government cut funding to sport. What does this mean for promising young athletes like wrestler Nikoleta [...]Read the full article
Given how underresearched menopause is, we are yet to see what impact rising global temperatures will have on women, particularly for the 47 per cent of women participating in the global labourforce. But limited research and anecdotal feedback suggests that “pollution and menopause may [...]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
“The work of a caregiver is no joke. We make all other work possible, and we work not only with our hands but with our hearts, because the people under our care also deserve love, respect and dignity.”Read the full article
The success of the far right in Argentina “cannot be separated from a critical political and economic situation [with galloping inflation] that makes you feel like your income is losing value from one minute to the next. It’s a daily battle through the economy, which causes tremendous [...]Read the full article
Despite medical breakthroughs, the stigma attached to HIV remains firmly entrenched in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the impact on those affected is devastating. Structural and economic inequalities are also hindering access to effective [...]Read the full article
In the first year of Taliban rule, the Afghan economy lost US$5 billion, wiping out the previous ten years of growth. One in three businesses shut down, and women bore the brunt of the crisis, with the number of women in employment dropping by 25 per [...]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
“Maybe it’s not the right to the city that we need. […] the city represents a form of accumulation that feeds on the extraction of everything around it: the favelas, the occupations and the countryside.”Read the full article
“In addition to being a health crisis, the pandemic has resulted in a global restructuring of our living and working conditions,” says Chilean psychologist Alondra Carrillo, former spokesperson for the Coordinadora Feminista 8M and member of the Constitutional Convention of [...]Read the full article
The armed conflict has created new employment opportunities for all Syrians, both men and women. Many believe that the war has led to the ‘democratisation’ of the civilian sector since 2011 and, significantly, to the qualitative participation of women in areas with social [...]Read the full article
“The same individuals who own the garment factories also hold positions in the parliament and cabinet. There is no representative of the workers in the parliament. The rulers are exploiting us.”Read the full article
In March 2022, after 18 years of judicial wrangling, the mainly female workforce at the Radio Corporation of America Taiwanese factories won a lawsuit for recognition of their occupational diseases as well as damages for the anxiety caused to [...]Read the full article
Hawkers in the state of Meghalaya in north-east India have been successful in ensuring that an unfavourable state law is repealed and a more progressive national law is adopted.Read the full article
By re-irrigating agricultural land facing drought – due to climate change and Turkey preventing the flow of water – a women’s project in northern Syria is helping to revitalise local communities from the roots upwards.Read the full article
Kalpana Karki:“According to a study by the International Land Coalition, South Asia and Latin America exhibit the highest levels of agricultural land inequality, with the top 10 per cent of landowners capturing up to 75 per cent of agricultural land and the bottom 50 per cent owning less than 2 per [...]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
Why are evangelical churches in Latin America increasingly influencing the region’s political, social and economic agenda? Argentine sociologist Ariel Goldstein provides some insight into the phenomenon.Read the full article
Being a woman in the Caribbean nation comes at a very high cost that has only increased since 2015 due to Venezuela’s complex humanitarian emergency and the Covid-19 crisis.Read the full article
Maeve O’Sullivan:The world is reeling from recent tech job losses and the global recession. But Ireland is well positioned to respond to these challenges if it can address its labour market inequality.Read the full article
Former housekeeper Rachel Keke entered politics following a successful battle to defend the labour rights of chambermaids in the hotel industry. Now a deputy in the French National Assembly, Keke continues to fight for the rights of essential [...]Read the full article
In Yerevan, Armenia, a group of LGBTQ+ and feminist activists have opened the FemLibrary, the first feminist library in the city, in an apartment.Read the full article
Recognition is lacking when it comes to the ailments and diseases associated with agricultural work, such as those caused by exposure to potentially toxic substances. And the workers affected are often faced with barriers to health [...]Read the full article
The use of solid fuels is damaging to health and the environment. Despite the availability of clean cooking solutions and technologies, the prospects for improvement are compromised by successive crises, Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine, and a lack of structural investment. In many countries, [...]Read the full article
Workers and trade unions have long argued that the management of dependency care – like health and education – should be public. They argue that as public sector employees, not only would their working conditions improve but so too would the care they [...]Read the full article
Economic and political conditions, combined with the effects of the pandemic, are placing the labour market out of reach for millions of young people in the Arab world.Read the full article
Experts have applauded the Canadian government’s decision to move toward a universal childcare system, but are also warning that it will exacerbate geographic disparities and create long waiting lists for subsidised childcare.Read the full article
“Rather than universal systems of care, what we have is a chain of precariousness, with some women paying other women what they can to care for their children.”Read the full article
Peru, Chile and Colombia are the newest cards on the left in a region that is once again shifting in that political direction, as it did in the first decade of this century. But these are not such prosperous times as they were back then, and the agendas have [...]Read the full article
Despite increasingly trying to gain recognition as a profession, the sector is still largely embedded in the informal economy and many of its workers are undocumented migrant women. Could regulation of the sector open up new avenues for legal [...]Read the full article
The economic situation has grown worse with the pandemic and the restrictions on women’s rights have been tightened since Ebrahim Raisi became president in 2021. Poorer and with very limited opportunities, Iran’s women are calling for equal rights, and their demands and grievances are resonating [...]Read the full article
“Women are staging street protests, holding press conferences, organising activities, some are refusing to wear a hijab that fully covers their bodies and faces, while girls are attending schools secretly.”Read the full article
While refugee children are consistently less likely to go to school than others, in Mbera, Mauritania, the percentage of pupils in primary and secondary school is particularly low. But even in this context, ICT and online training are opening new [...]Read the full article
“Even before the outbreak of the war we had issues with illegal employment and even cases of forced labour. Now given the scale of the crisis, we have a lot of concerns.”Read the full article
Administrative abuses, intimidation, economic insecurity – protecting workers in the informal economy is no easy task and many are often forced to rely on themselves when difficulties arise. The Trade Union Confederation of Congo (CSC) is choosing its battles carefully and doing its best to [...]Read the full article
Vietnam’s nearly 4,500-year-old tradition of sericulture continues to provide a livelihood to numerous families. This time-honoured tradition is mostly carried about by women.Read the full article
Agricultural innovation from scratch, entrepreneurship in the face of poverty, leading as a woman in traditional societies, and solving concrete problems on a local scale: this summer reading compilation brings together tales of ingenuity and [...]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
Selma Jesús de Souza promotes community work that brings social, environmental and quality-of-life improvements to her village and her territory. This includes the manufacture of acoustic insulation panels from wild cane fibre, as well as a multitude of initiatives aimed at empowering young [...]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
The same gig economy that promises flexibility to women workers also compels them to work beyond their capacity to break even. Despite the veneer of modernity, the gig economy is no better than the traditional labour market for India’s working [...]Read the full article
Maeve O’Sullivan:
