|
Tomorrow marks International Women's Day and important issues such as wage equality and better access to schooling for girls will be discussed widely. A subject that should top the agenda is the importance of quality childcare for millions of women who make up the "working poor" in the world. Laura Alfers explains how efforts are being made to address this crucial - and economically valuable - issue.
Elsewhere in our special newsletter, Ashwanee Budoo questions what can be done to make a protocol dedicated to women's rights in Africa more than merely words on paper. And Lara Bianchi examines how Kenya's flower industry dramatically improved women's working conditions and what other countries and sectors could learn.
|
Informal Head Porters carry take their babies with them in Accra’s Kantamanto Market, in Ghana.
Jonathan Torgovnik/Getty Images Reportage
Laura Alfers, Rhodes University
Adequate and quality childcare determines women’s participation in the labour force and the type of work they can take on.
|
Politics + Society
|
-
Ashwanee Budoo, University of Pretoria
There have been great strides towards the protection of women’s rights in Africa but progress has been slow. A new body to actively implement rights protections and monitor progress must be set up.
-
Dr. Bipasha Baruah, Western University; Dr. Kate Grantham, McGill University
NGOs (non-government organizations) run by women in India and Tanzania fuel the success of development projects, but the women are too easily marginalized once the projects get off the ground.
-
Anwar Mhajne, University of Cincinnati ; Crystal M Whetstone, University of Cincinnati
Activists often face intransigent regimes and ruthless warlords. But women can use traditional insights into femininity and motherhood for political mobilisation and resistance.
|
|
Business + Economy
|
-
Lara Bianchi, University of Manchester
Large companies have a big role to play in ensuring women’s rights are protected in industries such as horticulture.
|
|
Education
|
-
Laura Stark, University of Jyväskylä
Creating more opportunities for young women and girls to work and earn money is a possible solution to early marriages. Subsidising secondary education to keep poorer girls in school is another.
|
|
Health + Medicine
|
-
Nadia Chanzu-Ikumi, University of Cape Town
The placenta could hold the answers to why HIV positive women report higher rates of premature deliveries.
|
|
Science + Technology
|
-
Ndoni Mcunu, University of the Witwatersrand
Family, marriage and culture are among the factors that influence black women's experiences as scientists.
|
|
