Background:
The African labour movement continues to play a vital role in defending workers’ rights, promoting social justice, and advancing inclusive economic transformation. Yet the conditions under which many women work across the continent remain marked by structural disadvantage. Women are disproportionately concentrated in informal, low-paid, insecure, and undervalued work; they continue to face barriers in access to leadership and representation; and they carry a highly unequal share of unpaid care and domestic work, all of which shape their labour market outcomes and reduce their effective access to decent work (International Labour Organization [ILO], 2018; UN Women, 2024a; World Bank, 2024).
Against this reality, the First ITUC-Africa Women’s Conference, held in Cotonou, Benin in August 2024, adopted a landmark declaration containing fourteen demands to governments and institutions. Significantly, the first demand placed feminism at the centre of structural transformation.