Celebrating International Women’s Day and Embracing Equity

This article was updated on 3/8/2023

International Women’s Day is a global celebration of women’s achievement and a call for collective action to accelerate gender parity. Although the day wasn’t officially recognized by the United Nations until 1977, celebrations date back to the early 20th century, spurred by labor and universal women’s suffrage movements. While gender equality is now recognized as a human right, gender disparities remain a persistent form of inequality in every country.

We all play a role in building an inclusive world and creating change. In honor of International Women’s Day and this year’s theme, #EmbraceEquity, we’re sharing a report detailing Fair Trade USA’s position and approach to gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Read on to learn more and join us in recognizing the value women bring to supply chains, workplaces, and communities.

What is Fair Trade?

Fair trade is a global movement made up of a diverse network of producers, companies, consumers, advocates, and organizations putting people and planet first. Since 1998, Fair Trade USA has been on a mission to build an innovative model of responsible business, conscious consumerism, and shared value to eliminate poverty and enable sustainable livelihoods.

We achieve this through our rigorous and globally recognized sustainable sourcing and certification model. When you see a product with the Fair Trade Certified? seal, you can trust that it was made according to rigorous standards that protect the livelihoods of farmers, fishers, and workers. And woven throughout those standards is our commitment to ensuring that women in communities and workplaces receive equal share in the benefits of their work.  

"We joined CORA because of the many advantages it provides us producers through their fair trade program. The loans, workshops, access to machinery, and the whole environmental ideal, have been beneficial for everyone. The benefits come back to help us.” Artemia Rodriguez is a lifelong sugar cane producer, and lives in a home built with Fair Trade emergency funds. Tebicuarymi, Paraguari, Paraguay

Gender Disparities in the Workforce

Women are disproportionately represented in low wage jobs and in lower tiers of the supply chain but play a critical role in the global production system. Women make up 80% of the workforce in global garment supply chains, as well as more than 80% of the seafood processing sector. Globally, 1 in 4 women is engaged in agriculture.

Despite being essential to these industries, women workers face a broad range of challenges and barriers to economic opportunity. From discriminatory laws – like restricting women’s rights to own and/or manage assets – to harassment and violence, to harmful social norms and expectations, women face a multitude of daily challenges that impede their ability to have sustainable livelihoods and participate fully in society.

Fair Trade USA’s Approach to Gender

Our vision for a future where women and men have equal opportunities and are equally empowered cannot be achieved without addressing gender inequality and empowering women to be agents of change for themselves, their families, and their communities.

Our approach to gender is three-pronged:

Create a safe space for women: Ensuring that core protections are in place, that individuals feel safe and that basic needs are met, is a critical first step in addressing gender inequities. This is accomplished through a variety of standards such as prohibiting harassment and discrimination and offering protections and needs specific to women (working conditions while pregnant, maternity leave, breastfeeding breaks, and more).

Focus on empowering women: All aspects of the Fair Trade USA program from the standards and certification process, to producer services, to Community Development Funds were designed with empowerment of the program participants in mind and with the goal of raising the voices of those who have traditionally been less heard.

Recognize gender equality as a means of driving broader impact goals. Gender is directly or indirectly related to many of the outcomes that Fair Trade USA works to drive. These outcomes are measured, monitored, and evaluated according to our Impact Management System (IMS). We’re committed to understanding how fair trade impacts women and girls and have improved our approach to monitoring and evaluation gender in recent updates to the IMS and data collection system.

Why Gender Equality is Essential for a Sustainable Future

It’s not a coincidence that when women are uplifted, entire communities thrive. Research shows that women tend to prioritize families and communities. Studies have found that when women work, they invest 90 percent of their income back into their families, compared with 35 percent for men.

Investing in women also makes economic and business sense. Programs improving income-generating activities for women have been found to return $7 for every dollar spent. In smallholder agricultural systems, when knowledge gaps between men and women are reduced via training for women, productivity can increase by as much as 131%. In addition to these productivity increases, studies also show that prioritizing women’s participation in smallholder supply chains leads to improved product quality and better use of inputs.

Together, we can drive change.

Empowering female workers has a profound and positive ripple effect. We have seen this firsthand within fair trade communities across the world, and we remain committed to improving upon our model and approach so more women and girls can succeed on their own terms. 

“With fair trade we’ve been able to create a women’s committee that does training and education in self-esteem, preventative health care, as well as raising small animals like chickens and guinea pigs so the women can increase their income when the money from coffee runs out. There’s a lot of machismo in our society. This way the women have their own source of income.” Esperanza Dionisia, general manager at PANGOA cooperative in Peru 

Click here to view our full report: Gender Equity and Women’s Empowerment.