WORKING WITH WOMEN

Women = a Top Priority
The empowerment of women is our top priority. This is why working with the marginalised communities of women is a critical element for choosing groups. This is why we operate in some of the world’s disadvantaged areas. This is why we work with Internally Displaced People (IDPs), HIV/AIDS sufferers, child-mothers, victims of abuse and others exposed to extreme insecurity and poverty. Most of the women we work with are the sole breadwinners in their households.
The money they earn while working with us is their only source of income and is what enables them to buy food, pay for school fees and medical care etc. Moreover, working with us is an opportunity to escape other forms of labour, often dangerous, hard and barely rewarding. In some of the areas we work in, women are excluded from important decision-making processes and do not have a voice in community life. Even worse, a number suffer abuse such as domestic violence, female genital mutilation and other atrocities.
Why we work with women?
Because women are the stronghold of their communities. Because they are the ones running the household. Because we know that if a woman earns something - however small - it will be shared with children and those most in need. Statistics show that the women spend 80% of their income on family expenditures while the men contribute just 18%. In addition, work that is dignified and remunerated fairly enables these women to gain respect and a social status among their peers. These facts are clearly demonstrated in the Social Impact Assessment activities we conduct regularly.
How we achieve this?
The ITC’s Ethical Fashion Programme enables distributors and designers to source fashion and lifestyle products from marginalised communities of women and groups of micro-producers in Africa. Our job is to create the link and to organise the work while building capacities. It is African women, through their outstanding skills and commitment, who make the system work. The Ethical Fashion Programme is not a charity, but a 100% market-based initiative. We believe that giving employment opportunities, meaning a dignified job with fair wages, is the way forward to poverty alleviation and gender equality. Furthermore, the skills that these artisans build while working with us give them added-value and are assets that will stay with them forever.