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	Gender Justice During and Beyond the COVID-19 Crisis by The Elders, Namati, agencies   June 2021   Mary Robinson, Graca Machel and Hina Jilani outline the Elders' call on leaders to prioritise access to justice and gender equality.   'This is a message for all women, everywhere. And men, we need you too! COVID-19 has dramatically exacerbated inequalities. It has threatened to halt, or even reverse the gains of decades of collective action. We must not let this happen. We must not rebuild the status quo.   The Elders are calling for a new approach: one that prioritises access to justice and gender equality.   We call for the full participation of women in the justice sector and we must see more women in leadership positions. We urge leaders to increase funding for legal empowerment and justice services that meet the needs and lived experiences of women and girls.   A better world has to mean ending violence against women and girls. Justice services for survivors of gender-based violence must be regarded as essential by governments.   And when we are talking about ending violence against women, it is critical to acknowledge the role men can, and must, play.   Men, in particular men in roles of influence and power need to speak out on violence against women and girls and defy the stereotypes that normalise and perpetuate gender inequality.   And to build a better world we need quality data. When women are not counted in the data, it is easy to disregard their needs.   We stand in solidarity with all who call for this generation to be the generation that brings about equality. And we champion access to justice for women and girls as a critical component in building a better world for us all.   Gender equality is at the heart of the global recovery from COVID-19, says Graca Machel   While the pandemic has had severe consequences in all parts of the world, vulnerable and marginalised groups have been hit the hardest. Women in both informal and formal sectors uniquely feel the economic toll of the crisis.   Adolescent girls in particular are at risk of child marriage and early pregnancy. Millions of children have been locked out of the classroom due to lockdown measures, and a disproportionate number of girls are at great risk of never returning to school.   Women and girls in rural and peri-urban areas have faced food insecurity at astounding levels, and the lack of adequate nutrition continues to be a key contributor to unacceptably high levels of both maternal and child mortality and stunting.   The impacts of COVID-19 go far beyond the obvious impacts of the virus itself.   We must also address justice for survivors of gender-based violence with renewed vigour. Services for survivors of gender-based and domestic violence must be placed as essential by governments and should be resourced and made easily accessible, especially to marginalised and impoverished groups.   Accountability for the unlawful and dehumanising acts taking place, such as widespread rape, sexual assault and other forms of gender-based violence, must be vigorously addressed to deter future crimes and provide justice for women and girls.   A lack of intersectional and feminist leadership in the justice sector – and the lack of diverse women’s voices in decision-making – undermines progress to advance women’s rights.   As Elders, we call on all leaders to prioritise access to justice for women and girls, everywhere, and speak out against injustice.   http://theelders.org/act-equal-and-act-justice http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/generation-equality-forum-paris http://www.wiego.org/events/generation-equality-forum http://odi.org/en/insights/generation-equality-forum-how-to-shift-power-for-a-gender-just-world/ http://www.alignplatform.org/ http://eige.europa.eu/gender-equality-index/2021 http://repository.gheli.harvard.edu/repository/11683/ http://www.article19.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Gender-Paper-Brief-1.pdf   June 2021   Gender Justice During and Beyond the COVID-19 Crisis: Institutional Responses to Gender-based Violence and the Role of Legal Empowerment Groups.   The measures taken to contain the COVID-19 pandemic led to a surge in gender-based violence around the world. As governments moved to limit, suspend, or digitize vital victim support services, civil society organizations – and in particular grassroots legal empowerment groups- found new ways of helping women to seek safety and justice.   This report examines institutional and civil society responses to gender-based violence (GBV) during the pandemic, in particular domestic violence (DV) and intimate partner violence (IPV). It investigates the role of legal empowerment groups in filling justice gaps, reducing violence, improving service provision, and demanding accountability.   This publication is the result of a participatory research initiative organized jointly by The Legal Empowerment Network, convened by Namati, and Themis – Gender, Justice and Human Rights (Brazil). The research was co-led and implemented by lead members of the network: the Association for the Emancipation, Solidarity and Equality of Women – ESE (North Macedonia), the Uganda Association of Women Lawyers – FIDA (Uganda), and the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST).   http://namati.org/resources/gender-justice-during-and-beyond-covid19-crisis-en/ http://data.undp.org/gendertracker/ http://www.hrw.org/news/2021/03/08/international-womens-day-interview-covid-women-and-building-back-better http://actionaid.org/news/2020/new-actionaid-research-shows-stark-reality-covid-19s-impact-young-womens-lives-developing http://plan-international.org/covid-19-pandemic http://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/library/publications/2020/gender-equality-in-the-wake-of-covid-19-en.pdf http://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Women/SRWomen/Pages/COVID19AndViolenceAgainstWomen.aspx Visit the related web page
	75.6 million domestic workers still waiting for implementation of labour and social security laws by ILO, WIEGO, HomeNet, agencies   June 2021 (ILO News)   Ten years after the adoption of an historic International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention that confirmed their labour rights, domestic workers are still fighting for recognition as workers and essential service providers.   Working conditions for many have not improved in a decade and have been made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new ILO report.   At the height of the crisis, job losses among domestic workers ranged from 5-20 per cent in most European countries, as well as Canada and South Africa. In the Americas, the situation was worse, with losses amounting to 25-50 per cent. Over the same period, job losses among other employees were less than 15 per cent in most countries.   Data in the report shows that the world’s 75.6 million domestic workers have suffered significantly, which in turn has affected the households that rely on them to meet their daily care needs.   The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated working conditions that were already very poor, the report says. Domestic workers were more vulnerable to the fallout from the pandemic because of long-standing gaps in labour and social protection. This particularly affected the more than 60 million domestic workers in the informal economy.   “The crisis has highlighted the urgent need to formalize domestic work to ensure their access to decent work, starting with the extension and implementation of labour and social security laws to all domestic workers,” said ILO Director-General, Guy Ryder.   A decade ago the adoption of the landmark Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189) was hailed as a breakthrough for the tens of millions of domestic workers around the world – most of whom are women.   Since then there has been a little progress – with a decrease of 16 percentage points in the number of domestic workers who are wholly excluded from the scope of labour laws and regulations.   However, a large number of domestic workers (36 per cent) remain wholly excluded from labour laws, pointing to the urgent need to close legal gaps, particularly in Asia and the Pacific and the Arab States, where the gaps are largest.   Even where domestic workers are covered by labour and social protection laws, implementation remains a significant issue of exclusion and informality. According to the report, only one-in-five (18.8 per cent) domestic workers enjoy effective, employment-related, social protection coverage.   Domestic work remains a female-dominated sector, employing 57.7 million women, who account for 76.2 per cent of domestic workers. While women make up the majority of the workforce in Europe and Central Asia and in the Americas, men outnumber women in Arab States (63.4 per cent) and North Africa, and make up just under half of all domestic workers in Southern Asia (42.6 per cent).   The vast majority of domestic workers are employed in two regions. About half (38.3 million) can be found in Asia and the Pacific – largely on account of China – while another quarter (17.6 million) are in the Americas.   * Access the report: http://bit.ly/3vE4K1a   http://www.ilo.org/ilc/ILCSessions/109/live-coverage/lang--en/index.htm#/event/domestic-workers-day/segment/full http://bit.ly/3gIYyRp http://idwfed.org/en/updates/the-silver-lining-domestic-workers-organizing-one-decade-on-idwf-statement-on-june-16-2021 http://www.wiego.org/events/ILO2021 http://www.wiego.org/COVID19-Platform http://www.wiego.org/covid-19-informal-workers-and-wiegos-work-during-crisis http://www.wiego.org/blog/informal-economy-workers-tell-covid-19-crucial-issues http://www.wiego.org/blog/homes-double-workplaces-many-urban-poor-especially-women http://www.wiego.org/blog http://www.homenetinternational.org/   June 2021   10 years since the Domestic Workers Convention - what's changed? (Freedom United)   Ten years have passed since the adoption of the International Labour Organization’s Convention on Domestic Workers (C189), but new findings from the UN agency suggest they have seen little progress.   In a new report, the ILO finds that the working conditions and social protections for the world’s 75.6 million domestic workers have scarcely improved—and in many cases have worsened as a result of the pandemic.   The ILO’s data shows that domestic workers have been among the hardest hit by the economic damage left by COVID-19, accounting for a disproportionate number of job losses.   Many domestic workers are also migrants, meaning their subsequent personal risks can be much greater, with their housing and immigration status often directly tied to their jobs.   Meanwhile, the high rate of informal work arrangements among domestic workers already places them at higher risk of exploitation and modern slavery than the general population.   Guy Ryder, the ILO Director-General, said the pandemic has underlined the vulnerability of domestic workers and the urgent need for action.   “Informal employment is characterized by poor working conditions, a lack of protection. And so, we find that the vulnerability of many domestic workers, earning their living behind closed doors and in private households, is that vulnerability is magnified by this condition of informality,” he said.   Ryder says the crisis highlights the need to formalize domestic work to ensure their access to decent work and laws that can protect their rights.   Slow ratification of C189, the most important international law regarding domestic worker’s rights, has been a major obstacle to progress.   Although C189 was lauded as a turning point when it was adopted in 2011, so far only 30 countries have ratified it, significantly limiting its impact.   Recognizing the key role the convention plays in safeguarding domestic workers’ rights worldwide and ending domestic slavery, Freedom United has been a vocal proponent of C189.   Feb. 2021   Help End Domestic Slavery.   People leave their homes every day to find jobs as domestic workers in the cities of our countries. Women make up by far most of those working in private homes, but what’s shocking is that a quarter of domestic workers are children,1 and the majority are aged under 14, with some starting work at just five years old.   Although domestic work need not be exploitative, it is isolated and so unprotected. Combined with the worker’s extreme dependency on an employer and a lack of rights, they are especially vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.   This is particularly true for children and migrant workers. Locked inside the homes of strangers, some domestic workers find themselves caught in the nightmare of modern slavery. They are deceived by false job offers and unscrupulous employers who extract their labor under threat, preventing contact with their families, and withholding their wages. Physical punishment, as well as sexual abuse, is not uncommon in domestic servitude.   But there is a global standard to protect domestic workers. It’s called Convention 189 and it sets out measures for governments to follow to better protect them.3 29 key countries have already signed4 on however momentum has slowed since it was introduced in 2011, and we need to push our governments to act.   Call on the Government of your country to ratify Convention 189 immediately and help protect children and adults from domestic slavery.   It’s not known how many thousands, or millions, of domestic workers, including children, have been trafficked into servitude.5 Poverty, rural-urban and cross-border migration, to deep-rooted practices like sending children to live elsewhere, as well as discrimination, are all factors that contribute to trafficking into domestic servitude.   Pham Thi Dao’s Story   Pham Thi Dao left Vietnam to become a domestic worker in Saudi Arabia where she was forced to work from 5am until 1am, beaten and given little food. “As soon as I arrived at the airport in Riyadh, they (employees from a Saudi company providing domestic workers) pushed me into a room with more than a hundred of others,” she said. “When my employer picked me up later, he took my passport and employment contract. Most women I’ve talked to here experience the same thing.”   In Haiti, restaveks are children who are sent to a host family by their biological families in the hope of a better life in exchange for doing chores. However, many are forced to work without pay, beaten, starved, cut off from their families and at high risk of physical and sexual abuse.   June’s Story   June was given away by her parents aged five to become a restavek. She was sent to the capital city, Port-au-Prince, eight hours away from her hometown, Jérémie, where she would endure over ten years of abuse. Promises from host families to provide her with an education would be repeatedly broken. Today, there are over 300,000 children like June in Haiti.   Latifa’s Story   Latifa was 12 years old when she was sent to work for a family in Casablanca, Morocco’s largest city, as a petits bonnes or child domestic worker. Latifa worked 18-hour days caring for four children, cleaning and cooking without rest. She was allowed to eat at 7am and once more at midnight before going to bed, all whilst enduring physical abuse from her employer.   “I don’t mind working, but to be beaten and not to have enough food, this is the hardest part of it.” Luckily, Latifa managed to escape and rejoin her family but many of the thousands of children in domestic work in Morocco, some in domestic slavery, are trapped.   Around the world, there are tens of millions of domestic workers – millions of them children. Women make up 81% of national domestic workers and 73% of migrant domestic workers. If all domestic workers worked in one country, this country would be the tenth largest employer worldwide.   Domestic work is an important source of employment but the people behind these numbers are too often invisible behind the doors of private households and unprotected by national legislation. This allows for the worst types of abuse often amounting to modern slavery.   Tougher rules to protect domestic workers are long overdue. By sending a message to the Government of your country today you can help start a domino effect until all countries take action. 31 countries have already taken this step – will yours be next?   Countries that have ratified (as of December 2020):   Argentina, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Finland, Germany, Grenada, Guinea, Guyana, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mexico, Namibia, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay   * Call on your country to ratify C189 to help end domestic slavery: http://www.freedomunited.org/advocate/c189/ Visit the related web page
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