Oxfam International Climate Change Blog (EN)

While gender equality is enshrined in the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights, in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and in legislation in most countries, women’s conditions of participation in markets and their rewards from that participation, still remain woefully unequal to men’s.  Many women work in temporary or informal positions and are therefore “invisible” to laws and regulations.  Women also currently bear a disproportionate share of household and domestic labor performing 80 percent of unpaid care work.

The tragic collapse of a garment factory in Bangladesh has put a spotlight on the poor pay and working conditions endured by millions of people who make our clothes or grow our food.

For many people around the world the first of May is International Workers’ Day, a chance to celebrate the role of workers and labourers in our society. So we thought this would be a good time to look a little harder at how the 'Big 10' food and beverage companies score for their policies towards workers rights on our Behind the Brands companies scorecard. It's a mixed picture.

With your help, Oxfam has been campaigning since September on land grabs, as part of our GROW campaign for food justice. We wanted the World Bank to take some urgently needed action to help end land grabs in many developing countries, which help keep one in eight people on our planet hungry.

More sweet news today for chocolate lovers: the biggest chocolate maker in the world, Mondelez International, has agreed to take steps to address inequality facing women in their cocoa supply chains - thanks to pressure from customers like you.

Less than two months ago, Oxfam called on the three largest chocolate companies to do more for the women who grow the cocoa that is used in Oreos, M&Ms and Crunch bars—just to name a few.

To support Earth Day, 22 April we’re posting this analysis of how Big food companies must deal with the causes and the consequences of climate change.

When I read headlines like this one last week, “Vietnam Coffee Harvest May Drop 30% on Drought,” I’m left with the feeling that the tablecloth is being pulled out from under the dishes on the table.