Benetton's Women Empowerment Program launches the Sustainable Livelihood Project, a two-year calendar of concrete initiatives aimed at empowering and legitimizing women who work from home in Pakistan and those employed in the RMG (Ready Made Garments) sector in Bangladesh .
Presented last October 2015, the WE Program is the current focus of the Benetton Group's sustainability strategy. Based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for 2020, the program will be implemented through five priorities to achieve gender equality and women's empowerment: adequate means for a life in dignity, non-discrimination and equal opportunities, access to quality education and health care, an end to all forms of violence against women in the world.
A key step in empowering women around the world is to ensure that they have the opportunity to thrive through decent work in safe, well-paid places and offer them support so they can achieve social and economic sustainability for themselves and their families. With this objective in mind, Benetton Group has launched the Sustainable Livelihood Project in the context of the WE Program.
The project begins in Bangladesh and Pakistan, where over the next two years Benetton will support the activities of UN Women, the United Nations organization for gender equality and women's empowerment. The funds allocated by Benetton are aimed at improving conditions and reducing the vulnerability of women employed in the textile sector, both at home and in the workplace.
In Bangladesh, 5000 to 6000 women employed in the RMG sector will be supported. We will organize training courses to increase their professional assets; we will help them activate loans, insurance and savings accounts with local banks; we will start a dialogue with their employers to increase the safety of female workers in the factories and surrounding places.
In Pakistan, around 1500 women residing in the industrial district of Sialkot will be supported, with preference for the unemployed, those who work at home or in the fields and those belonging to ethnic and religious minorities. We will help them obtain identification documents, which are needed to vote, open a bank account and access training courses. We will illustrate to them and their families what the rights of women and workers are, reiterating the need for them to be involved in decision-making processes, at all levels; we will encourage their recruitment with regular contracts and we will work together with local textile factories to make working environments more inclusive.
Benetton's WE Program fits into the long history of social commitment of the Italian clothing brand and goes further, to recognize that gender equality and female empowerment are not just a human right, but a necessary step to build a peaceful, prosperous and more sustainable world for all.
