GENEVA (ILO News) ─ The International Labour Organization is launching a one-year global campaign to highlight the central role of gender equality in its Decent Work Agenda and in the work of its constituents – governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations.

The campaign is built around 12 different Decent Work themes. These themes will be looked at through a gender lens to illustrate how various issues in the world of work may affect women and men in different ways, particularly in their accessing rights, employment, social protection and social dialogue.

“Mainstreaming gender equality is central to the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda,” said ILO Director-General Juan Somavia. “Although progress is being made, gender equality is still lagging behind in the rapidly changing world of work. By increasing overall awareness and understanding of gender equality issues, we can actively contribute to securing Decent Work for all women and men.”

For the past decade the ILO has had an active gender mainstreaming strategy to redress gender-based inequalities in policies, programmes and projects, and to promote the empowerment of women so that they may participate in – and equally benefit from – development efforts.

The awareness-raising campaign will be effective for one year and will lead into a general discussion on gender equality at the heart of decent work at the International Labour Conference in June 2009. Delegates from governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations of the ILO member States will then have the opportunity to study the issues and draft a roadmap to promote gender equality for the decade to come.

“During the next 12 months we will actively reach out to our constituents and other international partners, provide information on different themes and facilitate access to a body of material that the ILO has developed on gender equality around the world”, explains Evy Messell, Director of the ILO’s Bureau for Gender Equality.

The campaign will produce an information brief for each theme, accompanied by a poster and postcard. A specific campaign website has been developed and during the one-year campaign new materials on different themes will be uploaded regularly.

For more information on the campaign, please visit: /gender/Events/Campaign2008-2009/lang--en/index.htm or contact the ILO Bureau for Gender Equality at +4122/799-6730, gendercampaign@ilo.org

Media can contact the ILO Department of Communication at +4122/799-7912. communication@ilo.org