The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and Women Mobilize Women (WMW) have jointly collaborated to put a spotlight on the stories of women transport workers in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Morocco, and Uganda. These stories are told using a variety of media, such as videos, theater, online posts, and more.
Women transport workers move the world, and we are proud to be part of a project that helps empower some of those remarkable women and their unions, creating visibility around the challenges women face in urban mobility.
Raising the voices of frontline women workers as collective agents of change, the project captures individual and collective stories of women campaigning for women’s inclusion and rights in the urban mobility workforce. By exposing current realities for women transport workers, this collaboration advocates for feminist transport policy and a gender-equitable just transition.
"I have got a lot from boda boda riding. It has helped me pay school fees for my child, to look after my well-being and my home."
Boda boda rider, Uganda
Urban mobility plays an important role in the lives of women, but it remains male-dominated, both in its design and in the transport workforce. Public transport systems in these five focus countries are changing, bringing with it an expansion of urban mobility, which is vital to address the climate emergency and systemic social inequalities.
"Women transport workers move the world – they are the ticket vendors, mechanics, drivers, station assistance personnel for example, and yet they are underrepresented when it comes to decision-making. Strong unions strengthen and represent all workers, and give them a voice at the table. Women belong in transport, and women belong in unions."
John Mark Mwanika, ITF urban transport committee chair
Funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development BMZ and implemented with the German Development Cooperation GIZ, the project works with local unions in each of the five countries to:
- Increase the visibility and awareness of women workers in the urban mobility workforce
- Demonstrate the need for women’s inclusion from the operational level to the policy-making level
- Recognise the importance of unions as active stakeholders in planning and decision-making.
"Female mobility patterns and needs have historically been overlooked in the transport sector. With Women Mobilize Women, we aim to achieve gender-equitable transport systems by incorporating the firsthand experiences of women working in the sector."
Insa Illgen, Head of GIZ’s Sector Project Sustainable Mobility
Over the next few months, this campaign will share some of the content from across the five focus countries and highlight why the voices of women working in frontline transport are key to building urban transport policies. To keep up to date on this project, follow the hashtags #WomenMobilize and #ThisIsOurWorldToo and follow ITF and Women Mobilize Women on socials.
In the first of our features looking at the ‘Remarkable Women Who Move the World’ project work done by ITF with Women Mobilize Women (WMW) we are taking an in depth look at the work done Brazil.
The individual and collective experiences of informal women transport workers in the informal bus sector in the cities and towns of Kampala, Mbarara and Mbale are told using images, photo stories and video clips.
