How best to promote gender equality at work?

In a role play that was part of their course on "Employment Creation and Decent Work", participants in the ISS specialisation on Work, Employment and Globalisation (WEG) selected initiatives aimed at greater gender equality in the labour market for the award of a "Gender Equality Prize". They chose from a range of initiatives that have been implemented by government bodies, trade unions and NGOs in various countries around the globe.

The "award-winning" initiatives included the provision of vocational training for predominantly female domestic workers in Brazil. The programme integrates vocational training, formalisation of their previously unregistered - and hence unprotected - work, the promotion of unionisation of domestic workers with a housing programme for the country's more than 6 million domestic workers (see ILO 2007: 71f).

The two other projects addressed women's 'double work burden' in the labour market as well as in their homes. Their unpaid care work for children, the elderly and the sick is one of the main causes for women's disadvantaged position in the labour market.

The Santa Clara Childcare Centre in a landfill of Guatemala City (see Cassirer and Addati 2007: 12) allows poor women who work on the landfill or in other informal jobs to do their work without having to take their children with them. While this way, they can increase their working hours and incomes, the project also prevents child labour and provides early childhood care and education to their children. 

The South African NGO Sonke Gender Justice's campaign "One Man Can" was another featured initiative. Its aim is to raise awareness about different gender roles and the resulting underprivileged role for women in the labour market and the wider society amongst men and boys in order to prepare the ground for change towards greater equality.

Which initiative would you have awarded the prize for the promotion of gender equality at work?

(Images: WEG participants)