Supporting Women Through Fairtrade
Did you know that around 60-80 percent of the world’s food is grown by women? Yet they often don’t own the land and see little of the profit made from it.
Our partnership with Fairtrade is working to address this gender gap and that is the message we would like to share with people this International Women's Day on March 8th.
How Fairtrade addresses gender equality
Fairtrade supports women to participate equally in agriculture, earn better wages and diversify their income and opportunities. Fairtrade Standards are designed to prevent gender inequality, increase female participation and empower more women and girls to access the benefits of Fairtrade.
Requirements for producer organisations include:
- No discrimination on the basis of gender or marital status
- Zero tolerance of behaviour that is sexually intimidating, abusive or exploitative
- At least eight weeks of maternity leave for female workers on plantations
- No testing for pregnancy when recruiting workers
- Programmes to support disadvantaged and minority groups, such as women
- Developing a gender policy, over time
We are also working beyond the Standards to increase women’s role in Fairtrade producer organisations and to ensure they receive equal benefits. Learn more about how Fairtarde contributes towards this Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 5) on the Fairtrade ANZ website.
Read more about women coffee growers and the communities they support on our website.
