Black Women earn less?

One of the projects I have been most honored to participate in is the award-winning documentary called “Como Ela Faz” (titled “Women at Work” in English). It documents the lives of sixteen women in Brazil, from different ethnic and racial, socioeconomic, education and work backgrounds, and presents their struggles and successes as they strive for equity in the workplace and better opportunities. ?

So much of this documentary has made me reflect; however, there is one fact in the documentary that I especially remembered on July 25th, when we observed the International Day for Afro-Latina, Afro-Caribbean and African Diaspora Women. It asserted that Black women in Brazil earn less and have less opportunities than a white woman, a black man, and a white man.?To put it simply, black women are marginalized and discriminated for both their race and gender.

Did you know there are over 130 million people of African descent in Latin America, and that in Brazil, 56% of the total country population is black?

These realities drove a group of black women in the Dominican Republic to create a network to pressure the United Nations (UN) to fight race and gender oppression. That was almost 30 years ago, and while some progress has been accomplished, black women in Latin America and throughout the world continue to have less access to quality education, housing, employment, and healthcare. They are also affected by policies, laws, and practices that intentionally or unintentionally create discrimination.

As a business leader, I feel we can do much more to address this inequity, beyond voicing the need for change and advancing awareness. We can influence real change with programs to attract and increase the representation of black employees (men and women), mentor and advocate up and coming black talent, as well as share business expertise with black-owned businesses and black-owned social enterprises. We can support pay equity, and ensure we remove any trace of racial discrimination in the workplace.

At SAP in Latin America, we have put in place similar campaigns to attract and support black employees, such as our Black Talent Attraction and Development Program, and our black Employee Network, which continues to grow. Yet, this is just the starting point. In Brazil, we even have set ourselves the goal to increase the representation of black employees by 1% YoY and have just granted 20 external women candidates the chance to participate in our Learning Hub courses to build up their skills.

My hope is that we can jointly shape organizations to better reflect the diversity of society of the countries where we operate. Once we do, we will have accomplished true equity, where everyone, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, disability status, etc., has equal access to opportunity and is valued and respected for who they are.

I would love to hear from you. What are you or the organization you represent doing to support and take action toward racial equity?