ILO to mark 100th International Women's Day

To commemorate Women's Day in India, ILO will organise a Women's Mela in collaboration with Tamil Nadu Trade Unions Joint Action Forum (JAF) consisting of representatives of the six national trade unions (AITUC, BMS, CITU, HMS, INTUC and LPF) March 8 at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Chennai.

On this occasion, a panel discussion - Making the Crisis Recovery Work for Women! - will highlight the role of gender equality in securing a sustainable and equitable recovery, said an ILO release here.

The experts will discuss how policy measures in the wake of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression can ensure equal opportunities and treatment for women and men in job sector and working conditions.

The panel will emphasise on skills development and training policies, contributing to the UN theme for this Day: 'Equal access to education, training and science and technology: Pathway to decent work for women'.

The event will bring together about 400 trade union leaders and cadres from state, zones and 32 districts of Tamil Nadu to demonstrate trade union joint commitment to the promotion of gender equality and gender mainstreaming, create awareness on women's issues, particularly of domestic workers and create awareness on promotion of adoption of the ILO Convention on Domestic Workers.

It will also present a charter of demands on working women's issues to the state government.

The first official International Women's Day was celebrated in 1911 following a decision of the International Conference of Working Women held in Copenhagen the year before.
According to the latest ILO data, both women and men continue to feel the impact of the economic crisis, with the global unemployment rate for men standing at 6 percent in 2010 and 6.5 percent for women.