“Women make up a little over half the world’s population, but their contribution to measured economic activity, growth, and well-being is far below its potential, with serious macroeconomic consequences.Despite significant progress in recent decades, labor markets across the world remain divided along gender lines, and progress toward gender equality seems to have stalled. Female labor force participation (FLFP) has remained lower than male participation, women account for most unpaid work, and when women are employed in paid work, they are overrepresented in the informal sector and among the poor. They also face significant wage differentials vis-à-vis their male colleagues. In many countries, distortions and discrimination in the labor market restrict women’s options for paid work, and female representation in senior positions and entrepreneurship remains low.”
Women, Work, and the Economy: Macroeconomic Gains from Gender Equity
Извор: WUNRN – 19.12.2014
Global wage growth stagnates, lags behind pre-crisis rates. The latest ILO Global Wage Report warns of stalled wages in many countries and points to the labour market as a driver of inequality.
Some groups suffer from discrimination and wage penalties
The report shows that in almost all countries studied there are wage gaps between men and women as well as between national and migrant workers. These gaps arise for multiple and complex reasons that differ from one country to another and vary at different points of the overall wage distribution. These wage gaps can be divided into an “explained” part, which is accounted for by observed human capital and labour market characteristics, and an “unexplained” part, which captures wage discrimination and includes characteristics (e.g. having children) that should in principle have no effect on wages. The report shows that if this unexplained wage penalty was eliminated, the mean gender wage gap would actually reverse in Brazil, Lithuania, the Russian Federation, Slovenia and Sweden, where the labour market characteristics of the disadvantaged groups should result in higher wages. It would also nearly disappear in about half the countries in the sample of developed economies.
On November 20, Uganda’s parliament passed the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Control) Bill, also known as the Narcotics Law. A draconian piece of legislation, the law purports to deter drug abuse by imposing inhumanely long prison sentences—a conviction for simple possession can land a person in a cell for 25 years.
The Narcotics Law is the fourth in a disturbing series of laws passed in the last 12 months, all of which defy public health principles and show blatant disregard for dignity and human rights.
These laws target individuals who are already marginalized by society and most in need of health services and support: people who sell sex to make ends meet for their families; LGBTI people living in fear of community violence; people hiding their HIV medication from their own families; and people struggling to manage drug dependence and other illnesses. Perhaps most harmful of all, parts of Ugandan society are interpreting these laws to justify violence and exclusion.
Taken together, these four laws amount to a full-fledged assault on public health and, if implemented, will result in rampant misuse of imprisonment.
Dr. Yakin Erturk
By Women’s Learning Partnership Board Member and former UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, Dr.Yakın Ertürk. This statement was given at the 2014 Transnational Partners Convening Meeting organized by Women’s Learning Partnership.
A New Feminist Vision?
So far the women’s movement has been preoccupied with demystifying the existing patriarchal order that has for centuries subordinated and oppressed women. In doing so, the primary task has been to understand ourselves as women, how we are positioned within this order, and how to change the terms of engagement to achieve an equal status. This has entailed largely a liberal agenda calling for an equal representation in public institutions and equal opportunity. This meant using basically a male yardstick in identifying goals and making wrongs right.
In the process, women have mobilized from the local to the global around common goals and effectively used the multilateral diplomacy and mechanisms of the UN. The engagement of women with the UN resulted in a comprehensive international regime for gender equality and women’s human rights. The UN provided women with a platform to voice their concerns, and women’s activism helped to widen the scope of UN mechanisms and instruments to become more inclusive.
The formation of the international gender agenda, starting with the demand for formal equality, has undergone paradigm shifts from WID/GAD (women in development/gender and development), to empowerment, to human rights, to peace and security, reflecting the demands of diverse women’s groups, women’s activism, and feminist scholarship. The gender equality standards adopted at the international level empowered women to push for change in their respective countries in all parts of the world. As a result, considerable legislative and institutional reforms have taken place in individual countries, which have had a positive impact on many women’s lives.
Authors/Editor(s): Allison. J Petrozziello
Around the world, a record number of women are now migrating to seek work and better lives. For many, migration yields these benefits; for others, it carries dangerous risks, such as exploitation in domestic work, and vulnerability to violence. Migration policies and practices have been slow to recognize these risks and take steps to make the process safe for women.
Migration and remittances have great potential to contribute to development, but also present new challenges. The training manual "Gender on the Move: Working on the Migration-Development Nexus from a Gender Perspective", aims to build the gender analysis capacity of those working in the field of migration and development to bring about a model of development that is centered on people, human rights, and on the principle of gender equality.
The manual also offers a series of tools to help design programmes and policies that strengthen the positive effects of migration in terms of development, both in origin and destination countries. The manual, which is available in English and Spanish, is divided into a facilitator’s guide and four training guides, each of which has a self-directed learning section and an activities section for designing face-to-face trainings.
