Empowering women in economic activities is key to achieving gender equality and boosting the growth of national economies. Economic empowerment is at the core of some of the most successful initiatives at WOWOFU. Women’s economic justice as the fulfillment of women’s fundamental human right to economic resources and the power to make decisions that affect their lives. This requires women to have equitable access to, and control over, economic resources, including by having the time and opportunity to engage in economic activities.
It also requires changes to discriminatory social norms and economic structures, laws, policies and practices that marginalize women. WOWOFU goal is to ensure that by 2030, more women will have more equitable access to, and control over, economic resources and opportunities.
The disadvantages and discrimination faced by women severely limits their ability to lift themselves out of poverty. As a result, women are more likely to work in informal, low-wage jobs with exploitative and unequal working conditions, and have restricted access to affordable, quality financial products and services, like a savings account or small loan. Addressing discrimination against women sets a path for advancing gender equality.
WOWOFU is empowering women to overcome discrimination and build better livelihoods, earn more income, and create businesses that provide jobs and boost local economies. Through this strategy, WOWOFU in collaboration with a range of stakeholders, have made significant progress towards women’s economic justice.
WOWOFU is focusing on supporting women to access financial services, participate in dignified work and thrive as entrepreneurs and small-scale producers. Through an emphasis on economic justice, WOWOFU is committed to changing the discriminatory social norms and economic structures, laws, policies, and practices that marginalize women. WOWOFU is working with economically marginalized women who have no or limited access to and control over economic rights, resources, and opportunities.
We work with workers, entrepreneurs, and small-scale producers, as well as women Village Savings and Credit associations. WOWOFU works with women living in fragile or conflict-affected contexts, and those who have been displaced. WOWOFU is building on its past successes, including on dignified work, financial inclusion, and entrepreneurship.
WOWOFU advocates for women’s economic rights focusing on institutional change and accountability to create feminist economies that work for women. WOWOFU is supporting women to ensure that women’s work, formal and informal, paid and unpaid is valued. WOWOFU is working to ensure that women have access to social protection systems like maternity leave and social security, have decent work conditions, and are free to make decisions about how best to utilize their resources.
Unpaid care work, lack of fair and job security, poor working conditions, and limited opportunity to own and control land and inherit property are all undermining women’s rights. Women can’t earn a living and take control of their lives. When a woman doesn’t have the freedom to earn a wage, have social security or own her own land or property, it affects everything – from her ability to make her own choices to an increased risk of violence.
WOWOFU is empowering women to take control. Having an independent income gives women more control and autonomy over their lives. They can get an education, access healthcare or own a plot of land. This gives them financial security and means they can feed their family and make choices in their lives. While the right to work is vital, women’s economic rights go beyond this. Women have the right to an adequate standard of living. The right to food and the right to housing. They should have access to public services such as healthcare, education, social protection, VAWG services etc.
In Uganda, women take on the burden of unpaid care and domestic work, from looking after their children and caring for relatives to doing household work. This reinforces gender inequality as women have less time to do paid work and to attend to their own wellbeing and self-care. When women do find paid jobs, they struggle to find decent work. This means finding a job that guarantees a fair income, safe working conditions and social protection. In fact, in some communities, husbands can stop their wives from working.
Women are paid less than men. Most women are left out of decision making around the use, ownership and control of land and resources. This violates their right to economic rights including the right to own and control land, food and water. In turn, they can’t earn a livelihood.
WOWOFU has a network of Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) working to promote economic justice and advance the rights of women. WOWOFU WHRDs are self-identified women and lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LBTQI) people and others who defend rights and are subject to gender-specific risks and threats due to their human rights work and/or as a direct consequence of their gender identity or sexual orientation. WOWOFU WHRDs are subject to systematic violence and discrimination due to their identities and unyielding struggles for rights, equality and justice.
WHRDs are exposed to the same types of risks that all other defenders who defend human rights, communities, and the environment face. However, they are also exposed to gender-based violence and gender-specific risks because they challenge existing gender norms within their communities and societies.
WOWOFU is working to promote a holistic approach to protection which includes:
1. Emphasizing the importance of self-care and collective wellbeing, and recognizing that what care and wellbeing mean may differ across cultures
2. Documenting the violations targeting WHRDs using a feminist intersectional perspective
3. Promoting the social recognition and celebration of the work and resilience of WHRDs
4. Building civic spaces that are conducive to dismantling structural inequalities without restrictions or obstacles
5. Collaborating with local, national, international partners as well as the WOWOFU membership to raise awareness about these risks and threats, advocate for feminist and holistic measures of protection and safety, and actively promote a culture of self-care and collective wellbeing in our movements.