Employment
'Empower Them Through Work'
On the 35th anniversary of International Women's Day, founder of India's 1.2 million-strong SEWA (Self Employed Women's Association) trade union Elah Bhatt reflects on the obstacles that remain to women's equality.
"Looking at it globally, we are very far from equal rights for men and women."
Gro Harlem Brundtland
Across the world, women's work is under-valued and under-paid - if paid at all. The overwhelming majority of work outside the formal paid economy, from childcare to farming, falls on women.
Women also face barriers to earning a living outside the home and winning respect for what they do which simply don't exist for men.
This widespread prejudice not only hurts women but damages our economies, reducing productivity, economic development and wealth creation.
In recent decades there has been remarkable progress. Women have gained jobs and earned salaries that their grandmothers could never have imagined.
However they are still not treated equally at work or at home - and it is only when women's contributions are properly recognised that societies can fully prosper and grow.
Women perform two-thirds of all labour and produce more than half the world's food. Despite this, they are paid less than men or not at all - and make up 70 percent of those living in absolute poverty.
The work that women do underpins communities and economies. Yet in both developing and developed countries women's unpaid work is rarely recognised or counted in a country's gross national product. Prejudice and traditions which undervalue the contributions of women to society are at the root of this discrimination. More »