Urgent action is needed to:

1)Guarantee women’s access to and enjoyment of decent work
Governments and international institutions should:
•Adhere to globally agreed human and labour rights standards by introducing and implementing legislation and policies that guarantee and promote women’s access to decent and safe employment, whether formal or informal sector. This should include a living wage, secure contracts, access to social protection (such as parental and sick leave, and unemployment benefits), women’s right to organise and access to remedy, equal pay for work of equal value, equal opportunities and non-discrimination in the workplace.

•Eliminate al laws that discriminate against women and inhibit their economic equality.
•Develop and implement binding international and national regulations, policies and mechanisms that require companies’ full compliance with international human rights standards throughout their supply chains, including taking responsibility and being held accountable when violations occur, and guaranteeing access to remedy.

Businesses should:
•Abideby ILO decent work standards and conventions, as well as in-country legislation, and support new and implement existing standards and regulations.
•Undertake rigorous gender-sensitive human rights due diligence throughout supply chains.
•Enter into collective bargaining and social dialogue with unions and workers’ organisations, including when ensuring access to remedy where rights violations occur.

2) Recognise, reduce and redistribute unpaid care responsibilities that fall disproportionately on women
Governments and international Institutions should:
• Recognise the contribution of unpaid care work to the economy and invest in infrastructure, time-saving technologies and quality public services such as childcare, care for the elderly, and healthcare.
•Institute family-friendly policies that promote women’s opportunities to access and enjoy decent work, and enable women and men to balance work with their caring responsibilities.

Businesses should:
•Guarantee paid maternity and paternity and medical leave, alongside flexible working hours, and support the provision of childcare services for workers with caregiving responsibilities.

3)Ensure that the economy works for women, not against them, and end the pursuit of growth at any cost
Governments and international Institutions should:
•Systematically review the impact of macroeconomic and fiscal policies on women and implement policies to redress inequality in women’s work, alongside challenging discriminatory social norms and gender stereotyping that underpins this.
•Design progressive tax regimes and institute gender- responsive budgeting that enhance women’s economic rights, their productivity and access to public services and commodities, while redressing discrimination and inequality.
• Prioritise and increase funding for driving gender equality – including funding to support feminist and women’s rights organisations – and for achieving women’s full economic equality.

4)Promote women’s voice, agency and leadership at all levels
Governments and international Institutions should:
•Promote women’s leadership, voice and agency at all levels, from household to international spheres, including through engaging with trade unions, civil society and feminist organisations in economic policy making processes and spaces, such as in national development planning, meetings of the international Financial i nstitutions, G20, or the World economic Forum in d avos.

Businesses should:
•Ensure that women workers and their voices are equally and meaningfully represented at all levels of decision-making.
•Support and invest in women entrepreneurs and invest in training and promotional activities.
•Develop transformational approaches to core business activities that ensure respect for women’s rights and bring down the barriers that women face in the economy.
Civil society organisations and trade unions should:
•Support poor women’s collective organisation and give them a platform to raise their concerns and demands to decision makers at all levels.
•Hold governments and businesses accountable for their commitments to deliver on women’s rights and women’s economic equality.
•Engage in policy dialogue to promote alternatives to the current unsustainable economic model and pursue rights-based alternatives that work for all, especially poor women and men.

5)Ensure that ending women’s economic inequality is high on the agenda of the new Sustainable Development Goals
All development partners should:
• Support a strong, stand-alone gender equality and women’s rights goal with targets on redistribution of women’s unpaid care work, control over economic resources and assets, and women’s full and equal participation at all levels of decision making
• Support an ambitious goal on full and productive employment and decent work, alongside targets to ensure living wage and equal pay for work of equal value
•Agree to the goal on reducing inequality within and among countries, and formulate ambitious strategies to implement and finance all Sustainable development Goals.

in the January 2015 www.actionaid.org.uk
http://www.actionaid.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/womens_rights_on-line_version_2.1.pdf