Consultation with young girls in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with UNICEF, April 2013 (Photo: Flavio Lopes UNV/UNDP Brazil)
of the countries in Latin America and the Caribbean young women are 50 percent more likely to be unemployed than their young male counterparts. The consultations reveal the discrimination women experience as they seek employment. Not all economic sectors are open to them, and competition is fierce. For those women who are also mothers, jobs with flexible schedules are scarce and mainly in the informal sector. And even then, benefits are few, as narrated by female housekeepers in Guatemala, Peru and Costa Rica. These patterns of exclusion can only aggravate an already significant gap in the region in terms of female participation in the labour market. Beyond questions of youth and gender, many participants brought evidence of discrimination in hiring decisions based on criteria such as social and economic background, ethnicity, sexual orientation or migrant status. Indigenous peoples’ representatives in
Guatemala feel that women suffered a three-pronged discrimination. People talk about the pernicious effects on women’s lives of the intersection of poverty, lack of education, and a rural geographical location and indigenous affiliation. Migrants in Trinidad and Tobago and Costa Rica share stories about how they leave home because of economic disadvantages yet encounteri a new set of challenges on entering the labour market in the host country. Women migrants from Nicaragua to Costa Rica cannot work in agricultural jobs due to restrictive policies to protect local employment. Most of the time, work has to be clandestine, which makes them vulnerable to exploitative job conditions. In Trinidad and Tobago, migrant workers fill labour shortages, especially in the private security, fast food and trade industries. However, migrants who are employed in these sectors experience poorer working conditions and wages below the average.
64 A M i l l i o n V o i c e s: The World We Wan t | A Sus tain able Fu t ure w it h Digni t y f or All
Across the diverse countries and each of their particular labour markets and challenges, it is striking how participants converge in describing an ideal job as one that respects minimum labour rights. On more than one occasion they referred to it as decent and dignified work, in the terms used by the International Labour Organization (ILO). This includes the prohibition of child labour, a practice that persists in much of the region and is reaffirmed as a pressing issue in some of the consultations. The call for dignified work was echoed by labour unions as well as the private sector. In Brazil, for example, representatives from the country’s principal unions agreed that society should demand and require the State to implement UN/ILO norms and guidelines. They also highlighted the importance of civil society‘s role to monitor the implementation of these guidelines. In Ecuador, a representative from the private sector wishes for “a country without precarious employment”. Colombian businessmen stress the need to develop a joint strategy for all stakeholders whereby solutions could help vulnerable communities, including internally displaced persons, find access to decent jobs. People in Latin America and the Caribbean are concerned about the environment and climate change
Across many of the constituencies, including the private sector, there is great concern in the region about the levels of deforestation and the general lack of adequate regulation of natural resources. The perception that climate change is contributing to a deteriorating environment is prominent around the region. The Latin America and Caribbean region contains 40 percent of the world’s biodiversity and is also considered one of the most vulnerable parts of the world to disasters related to climate change. These opinions are confirmed by the MY World survey, in which ‘Protecting rivers and forests’ emerges as the fourth priority in South America.