Johannesburg - South Africa will continue to pay the economic price for gender inequality if nothing is done to resolve this issue, says International Labour Organisation (ILO) senior gender specialist Mwila Chigaga.
Chigaga told young people at labour federation Fedusa's youth summit that it did not make sense for women to be marginalised especially because they outnumbered men.
The four-day summit is attempting to find solutions to the country's youth unemployment crisis.
Chigaga says the reason for the shocking gender inequality was lack of opportunities given to women.
“Most bureaucrats and most politicians only look at the numbers of the integrated labour force survey in South Africa and they don’t relate the numbers to reality. 80 percent of the country’s economy is in the informal sector and 20 percent is in the formal sector,” says Chigaga.
“The majority of the informal sector is the township economy, micro business which are dominated by women.”
She said the ILO wanted a formalisation of the informal economy as this would help raise productivity.
“We want to promote international labour standards in the informal economy so that we can see increased productivity in the informal economy,” says Chigaga.
Nonhlanhla Ngwena (31), who attended the summit, says, even though she was not pleased with the slow pace of women upliftment in all sectors of the economy, she fells empowered to make a change and contribute to their empowerment.
“This summit has been very empowering and I feel like I know what I need to do and empower myself through the opportunities provided and take charge of where I want to be as a woman and a young person,” says Ngwena.
LABOUR BUREAU