mujeres trabajadoras

Food workers throughout global supply chains are on the frontline of the coronavirus. The epidemic adds another crisis onto the almost permanent state of economic crisis in their lives. Now more than ever supermarkets and their suppliers must protect the rights of all the workers and producers who are risking their lives to keep food on our tables.

Economic inequality is based on a flawed and sexist economic system that values the wealth of the privileged few, mostly men, more than the billions of hours of the most essential work – the unpaid and underpaid care work done primarily by women and girls around the world. This has to change.

Women and girls work incredibly hard to care for others. Not only is this work unpaid, but it's often not seen as real work at all. If we valued care work the same as other work, it would be worth nearly $11 trillion US dollars a year. But its true value is much greater. To fight inequality and beat poverty, we must make care count.

A decent education or quality healthcare is a luxury only the rich can afford in too many countries. Across the globe 262 million children are out of school. 10,000 people die every day because they can’t access healthcare. Teachers and public health care workers like Nellie and Dorra dedicate their life to great public services that benefit the poorest. And fight inequality every day.

Did you know that some fishermen in Southeast Asia report working at sea for up to 14 hours a day and 27 days a month, earning as little as $0.50 per hour?  Whether it is fished or farmed, sold in local markets or stocked on supermarket shelves, too much of the food we buy is produced at the expense of human welfare. Learn more and take action.

Dangerous, poorly paid work for the many is supporting extreme wealth for the few. Women are in the worst work, and almost all the super-rich are men. Governments must create a more equal society by prioritizing ordinary workers and small-scale food producers instead of the rich and powerful.

Lan, 32, works in a factory in southern Vietnam, which produces shoes for global fashion brands. She works six days a week for at least nine hours a day, earning around $1 per hour. Read her story and stand with her in the fight against inequality.

Rwandan women head close to a third of agricultural households and provide almost two thirds of the labour on family farms. Despite this, they have very little control over the sale of cash crops. With the support of Oxfam, the women members of the Tuzamurane cooperative grow and sell pineapples together and are no longer trapped in a low income cycle.

Despite some important progress in recent years, in no country have women achieved economic equality with men, and women are still more likely than men to live in poverty. Gender inequality in work costs women in developing countries $9 trillion a year – a sum which would provide a massive boost to the global economy.

Women play a very important role in addressing this major threat to food justice.