Overview

What can supply chain actors learn from women workers and their organisations that are developing practical approaches to address gender-specific risks and gaps in protection and accountability?

Women workers are central to global supply chains, yet existing approaches to supply chain accountability do not always reflect the realities of women’s work. Across textile and garment production and digital platform work, informalisation, subcontracting, and platform-based models have expanded forms of work where recognition, protection, and access to remedy remain limited, while gender-specific risks are often insufficiently addressed.

This panel brings together women worker representatives and grassroots organisations from across Asia to share practical solutions developed through their own experience and engagement with workers. Rather than focusing only on the risks women workers face, the session will examine how worker organisations are developing concrete responses to gaps in protection and accountability systems. These include recommendations and mechanisms to expand access to social protection for workers excluded from existing systems, proposals to address gaps in labour protection linked to informalisation and platform-based work, adaptation and resilience measures responding to climate-related impacts on workers, and worker-led grievance mechanisms that strengthen prevention, response and access to remedy for gender-based violence.

The session will explore what these approaches look like in practice, how they have been developed, what has enabled them to work, and what challenges remain. It will also consider a broader question: how can effective solutions developed in specific contexts be strengthened, adapted, and integrated into wider systems of human rights due diligence, accountability, and remedy? Bringing together experiences from different countries and sectors, the discussion will examine what businesses, policymakers, and other stakeholders can learn from worker-developed solutions and how these lessons can contribute to more gender-responsive supply chain governance. The session will conclude with an interactive discussion with participants on opportunities to strengthen the uptake of practical solutions within business and human rights practice.

Why it matters

Human rights due diligence and accountability systems often struggle with implementation, particularly for workers in informal, outsourced, and precarious forms of work, where women workers are often disproportionately affected by gaps in protection and access to remedy. This session brings concrete examples of mechanisms developed by women worker organisations to address these gaps and explores what is needed to strengthen, adapt, and integrate worker-developed approaches into wider systems of gender-responsive supply chain governance and business and human rights practice.

Key questions

• What gender-specific risks and gaps in protection do women workers face across global supply chains and changing forms of work?

• What approaches have women worker organisations developed to address these challenges in practice?

• What enables these approaches to succeed, and what barriers do they continue to face?

• What opportunities exist for collaboration to strengthen worker-led approaches and advance gender-responsive human rights due diligence, accountability, and remedy?

Who should attend?

• Businesses and supply chain actors interested in gender-responsive human rights due diligence

• Worker organisations, trade unions, and labour rights groups

• Civil society organisations and human rights practitioners

• Policymakers working on labour rights and business and human rights

• Researchers, academics, and practitioners working on supply chains, gender, labour, and accountability

What participants will gain

• Direct insights from women worker representatives and grassroots organisations on solutions they have developed and implemented in global supply chains and production networks.

• Practical lessons on approaches that strengthen gender-responsive protection and accountability, including what has enabled worker-led initiatives to succeed and what challenges they have faced.

• Examples of worker-led approaches that can inform stronger supply chain practices, providing useful reference points and opportunities for collaboration and engagement for stakeholders seeking to improve human rights due diligence, worker participation, and remedy.