The second session of the 4th The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) World Women’s Conference will be held online, 30 – 31 March, putting a new social contract, grounded in equality and equity, at the centre of recovery and resilience.
The 4th ITUC World Women’s Conference is an important opportunity for women trade unionists from around the world to discuss and strategise to advance gender equality and equity within the context of a global health, economic and social crisis and beyond.
The Conference takes place at a crucial time for workers and the trade union movement as the world is still navigating a global health pandemic which continues to claim lives, cause serious illness, affect livelihoods and disrupt our normal trade union activities.
The current health crisis is being compounded by an unprecedented loss of jobs and workers’ livelihoods. While this is a crisis that affects us all, not all are affected in the same way, nor to the same degree.
The effects of COVID-19 pandemic are not gender neutral. Understanding the gendered impacts of this crisis is crucial to shaping the most effective, efficient, and fair responses – both now and after the pandemic.
The main themes of the Conference are:
- The differentiated impacts of COVID-19 on women
- Building a caring economy – #InvestInCare
- Eliminating gender-based violence and harassment in the world of work – #RatifyC190
- Securing equal pay for work of equal value and gender-responsive social protection
- Building women’s transformational leadership in the unions
- Climate justice and just transition – women as actors for a just transition
- Women’s struggles for peace, freedom and democracy
- How do we ensure that equality and equity is at the heart of recovery.
The Conference will take an intersectional approach across the different themes that will be discussed and will be highlighting experiences of youth, older, indigenous, LGBTI+ women, racialised women and disabled women and inclusive of migrant communities and women working in the informal economy.
ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow said: “This session will look at how women activists can organise to advance gender equality and equity in some of the key challenges for the trade union movement and all of society.
“These challenges remain as working people deal with the effects of a pandemic that have not been gender neutral. It’s more important than ever that we work together for effective, efficient, and fair responses, with a new social contract at the centre.”
