8M International Women's Day: preventing inequality

Fraternidad-Muprespa celebrates International Women's Day this March 8, highlighting, as always, the importance of initiatives aimed at promoting equality, equity and social justice, because according to the 2023 Report According to the World Bank Group, women enjoy 77% of the rights that men have. 

Therefore, aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 5, “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls,” we have made a video that reviews some of the most relevant milestones and data around the necessary demands that today still make complete sense, and that involve the elimination of social, economic and legal obstacles.

In the workplace, the gender gap is a reality that, if it did not exist, would boost the GDP of emerging economies by 8% in the coming years, according to the International Monetary Fund. And although there is progress, there is always pending work: 98 economies have regulations that require equal salaries for jobs of equal value, but only 35 economies have salary transparency measures or enforcement mechanisms so that this gap effectively disappears.

Not to mention how the most precarious jobs fall to women, how they take on the role of caregivers of children, the elderly and sick people, how they face double shifts, in work outside the home and in work inside, and take on more hours of home care tasks, how all this hinders their professional development and prevents their promotion, since in addition, they are the ones who mostly work reduced hours or take leaves of absence.

Equality in the workplace must also be seen from the point of view of prevention. If it is always necessary to anticipate the harm that workers may suffer, it is key to talk about occupational risk prevention with a gender perspective, so that it is observed in a detailed and differentiated way how it works for them. Two conferences held with the participation of

Among the most eloquent examples, that PPE pay attention to the differences between male and female bodies, that the limits of exposure to certain chemical substances are established based on the tolerance of both sexes and not only the male or that they are taken into account. Account for the difference in strength, size and morphology. 

Outside the workplace, 8M is also a day to denounce the intolerable numbers of women and girls murdered for being women: 48,800 in 2022, according to UN Women, which also puts the emphasis in the importance of having sexual and reproductive rights aimed at reducing deaths during pregnancy and childbirth, eliminating trafficking and sexual exploitation or banishing such aberrant practices as genital mutilation or child marriages, since every year twelve million girls marry as minors.

___Equality policies must be imperative from the perspective of human rights as they are the basis on which the most inclusive societies are based.