ITF Latin America renews its commitment to women's rights

The ITF Latin America Region renews its commitment on International Women's Day to achieve the effective participation of women in having the same opportunities, voice and space in the workforce.

The ITF region, which has offices in Rio de Janeiro and Panama, continues to promote the rights of women transport workers through various projects and programmes, supporting them to organise in the struggle for human and labour rights.  

Current projects in the region include: 

Building union power in logistics, supply chains and e-commerce  

The overall objective is to strengthen worker power, increase union capacity and social dialogue; to improve labor standards and achieve safe, equitable and decent working conditions and a fair wage for drivers, warehouse and logistics workers in national and multinational logistics companies that operate in supply chains in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Panama. This project is supported by FES. 

Women’s advocacy in Brazil 

This global programme supports unions to develop and implement a union and workplace response to violence against women; supporting individual survivors of violence as well as working preventatively to change the conditions that support violence and women’s inequality. 

From manufacturing to mobility 

The aim of this project is to ensure gender perspective is included and considered as part of each sectoral demand. This project is in cooperation with FES and UNI Global Union. Brazil and Argentina are currently planning and developing this work.  

Organising in Brazil 

We support organising and training to increase reinforce affiliate unions structures, with gender inclusion and effective participation in unions, workplaces and negotiations. 

The ITF regional office also supports the global campaign on the ratification of ILO Convention 190. Meetings will be held in Colombia and other countries to promote its ratification. 

Andrea Privatti, regional gender lead and projects coordinator, declared that the implementation of these global and regional projects, emphasised the importance of working in close contact with the affiliates to address their issues. “The ITF Women’s Global Team, our regional office, and the fluid communication with women in the region are achieving inspiring results. We can do and we will do much more together!” 

“The inclusion of women workers is more than a ‘gender issue’, it is a commitment to social justice, it is a human right. We want all workers to be respected and recognised without discrimination.  

“We are working to empower women and their unions with training and materials, we want the unions to become powerful and to spread the sense of unity for all workers" Privatti ended. 

Edgar Díaz, ITF regional secretary for Latin America, commented: "Today, on International Women's Day, we renew our commitment to fight for the human and labour rights of working women. There is still a long way to go, but I am sure that with the work that the ITF is doing at the global and regional level, we will ensure that more women have opportunities, with working environments free from violence and harassment and that they are heard in all areas of society. We send our solidarity to all women workers around the world".