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Today the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados joins with the world wide labour movement in observing International Women’s Day 2012; which is being celebrated under the theme of ‘Empowering rural women…end hunger and poverty.’
The annual celebration is a time to salute the achievements of women, who are known to make up a significant percentage of the workforce. However, it is also an occasion to highlight the plight and challenges faced by women in the workforce.
The call for the empowerment of rural women and an end to hunger and poverty may not be a looming feature in the local employment sectors, but it is certainly a phenomena that is known to exist within other global societies such as in Africa, India and Pakistan. This remains a matter of genuine concern.
In these societies women are deeply involved in the agriculture sector. Making a comparison to what obtains in the Barbadian community, they are as vulnerable as the domestics and other categories of workers, who have poor working conditions, and are the recipients of poor wages.
There is no comfort in the fact that the majority of the world’s 1.3 billion absolute poor are women, and moreover, that on average they receive 30-40 percent less pay than men for the same work. The fact that 1.6 billion women worldwide rely on farming for their livelihood, is more than adequate reason why they should be empowered.
The Barbados labour movement supports sustained efforts to address the plight of women in rural communities. All such efforts should be directed at ensuring that rural women are not deprived of an education, nor are subject to gender inequality. It is therefore important to stress that investing in women is likely to prevent intergenerational cycles of poverty, and in turn lead to high economic and societal returns.
DENNIS DE PEIZA
General Secretary
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