International Women

International Women’s Day first emerged from the struggles by women garment workers nearly 100 years ago in North America and across Europe for the recognition of the trade union to improve desperately exploitative working conditions. (Click here for history of International Women's Day)

Today, StreetNet notes with sadness how the casualisation of labour and retrenchment of workers as a result of globalisation has resulted in new forms of work. Women workers have begun to fight a new battle for union recognition in the informal economy where they are often just as vulnerable to exploitation under capitalism as they were 100 years ago.

International Women's Day is a time to reflect on progress made by trade unions and labour organisations in recognising women’s equality with men as workers and their representation in the leadership structures. Equally, it is a time to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary working women.

StreetNet International salutes women street vendors whose efforts to earn a living are fraught with daily difficulties and even danger.

They have no employer, work security or income security nor the protection of health or social security. In many countries of the world we are unionising as informal economy workers to fight for recognition from local authorities, national governments and international bodies for the laws and the policies that will:

Regulate public spaces, the pavements, streets and squares, as work space for the own account workers/ independent workers;

Provide appropriate infrastructure and services, including childcare, and that levies are set at rates that the working poor can afford;

Stop the extortion of illegal taxes and levies by illegal bodies and organisations from street vendors who fall prey to ‘black market’ operators that take advantage of the lack of regulations and laws;

Stop corruption and the use of police violence and goons/gangsters for the so-called “cleaning of the streets” in which street traders find their livelihoods under threat and frequently have their goods impounded;

To educate police and public authorities to work with women to stop sexual harassment, rape and violence against women working as street and market traders and hawkers.

Women are the majority of street vendors in many countries of the world and contribute to their families as breadwinners, their villages and towns and national economies. The time has come for governments to recognise the contribution they make and to introduce legal reforms that will extend existing labour regulations to cover vulnerable workers in the informal economy.

StreetNet’s first international congress in 2003 recognised the importance of gender equality and 50% representation of women in the leadership structures.

Executive Committee:

StreetNet Deputy-president: Clarisse Gnahoui (Benin)

StreetNet Treasurer: Therese A’kongo (Kenya)

Members of International Council:

Fatou Binetou Yafa (CNTS, Senegal)

Madeleine Tounkara (CNTG, Guinee)

Sandra Yadira Florez Jimenez (CTCP, Nicaragua)

Shikha Joshi (NASVI/SEWA, India)

Juliana Afari Brown (Ghana StreetNet Alliance)

StreetNet’s affiliates are organising activities as trade union women. Below are 2 examples.

Send us your stories on informal economy organisation as women and StreetNet will publish them as part of International women's Day

Makola Market, Ghana

StreetNet Ghana Alliance’s members from Makola Market Union have built a childcare centre at Makola Market for the children of the market women, who would otherwise have to take their young children with them to work at the market. In the picture below Marianne Holst (far left) representing Denmark at TUC, makes a donation for the childcare centre's education programme in 2007. Second from the left is Deborah Yemoteley, Chairperson of the Makola Market Union and Acting President of StreetNet Ghana Alliance, Headteacher Mad. Esther Quartey and StreetNet International Council member Julia Afari-Brown.

Ligue pour le Droit de la Femme Congolaise

The World Social Forum (WSF) made a call for a global day of collective action to be organised in the localities where social movements and organisations are based on the 26^th of January, 2008.

Angélique Kipulu Katani Secretary General of Ligue pour le Droit de la Femme Congolaise (LDFC), StreetNet affiliate, sent its programme of action which was posted on the world map of Global Action on WSF website and StreetNet also added its solidarity.to the LDFC action.

LDFC hosted a public debate on the problem of illegal taxes (“Tax Anarchiques”) that women market and street vendors are forced to pay by police and security guards in the informal economy which was attended by 80 people in Kinshasa. Angelique Kipuli Katani explained what WSF Global Day of Action was and the history of the World Social Forum. She encouraged informal traders to pay the taxes they are required to as these go towards providing schools, infrastructure and for police etc, but to refuse to pay illegal taxes. She proposed that 26^th be marked every year by LDFC in working towards “Another World”.

Photo of participants at the LDFC WSF meeting on January 26th 2008 Photo: LDFC

Angélique Kipulu Katani, the Secretary General of LDFC during her presentation. Photo: LDFC

Secretary General of the LDFC with the organisers of the event Photo: LDFC

Decent Work, Decent Life for Women Campaign

Investing in Decent Work for Women - Trade Union Statement (March 2008). ITUC EI PSI

Click here to open poster