Sanyu Awori on Gender and Racial Discrimination in the Workplace

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Sanyu Awori, programme officer at the International Women's Rights Action Watch (IWRAW) in Kuala Lumpur, speaks to IHRB's Salil Tripathi about the gaps between corporate policies and performance with regard to respect for women's rights. While there has been progress in some areas, companies need to do much more. Women in developing countries working in supply chains of multinational corporations remain disadvantaged despite state-of-the-art policies designed at the headquarters. When race, religion, disability, and other dimensions are added, the woman at the centre of the intersectionality is acutely vulnerable to exploitation. 

IWRAW  contributes to the progressive interpretation, universalisation, and implementation of women's human rights through the lens of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and other international human rights instruments. At IWRAW, Sanyu coordinates their work on business and women’s human rights. Her work focuses on amplifying women’s voices and lived experiences in the Global South, and influence regional and international processes to integrate women’s human rights in strategies to address corporate responsibility and accountability. Kenyan-born Sanyu has earlier worked with the  Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative based in New Delhi, where she specialised in human rights advocacy in Commonwealth countries. She graduated with a Masters in Human Rights Law from the University of Nottingham. 

This podcast is part of a mini-series dedicated to the theme of business, equality, and non-discrimination, to mark International Women's Day on 8 March 2018 and International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on 21 March 2018.