News & Media

Oxfam reaction to International Court of Justice decision on Myanmar

January 24, 2020

Reacting to today’s decision by the International Court of Justice to order Myanmar to carry out emergency provisional measures, Oxfam’s Head of Humanitarian Campaigns, Fionna Smyth, said:

“This ruling is an important step towards justice and accountability for the Rohingya people. We urge Myanmar to implement these measures immediately and call on all nations to support this independent judicial process.

“Rohingya people along with many other ethnic groups in Myanmar tell us that they continue to face violence and abuse. Over 100,000 Rohingya people remain confined to squalid camps where they have no access to emergency healthcare or formal education.

“As a matter of urgency, the Myanmar government should grant Rohingya people full citizenship, freedom of movement and basic human rights. It should also give investigators, humanitarian agencies and the media full access to central and northern Rakhine.

“More than 100 civil society organizations across Myanmar have voiced their support for this case and other ongoing accountability processes. We support their calls for justice.”

We all want to live in a caring society

January 20, 2020

Let’s make 2020 the year we reset our economies to care for each other, not billionaires’ fortunes.

Click here to tell New Zealand’s political leaders that it’s time to build a caring economy by taxing wealth properly, and ask what they are going to do about it in the election.

We all want to live in a world that values and acknowledges what we do and who we are.

But right now the economy is enriching and protecting the vast fortunes of a privileged few, while billions of people struggle to stay afloat. Oxfam’s new report ‘Time To Care‘ reveals that women around the world are working 12.5 billion hours a day to cook, clean, care and do so much more, for poverty wages or nothing at all. Meanwhile the richest 22 men in the world own more wealth than all the women in Africa.

Unpaid care work

Women’s unpaid and poorly paid care work is the foundation for our economy – and our society. But this work is not recognised or valued. Meanwhile, a handful of people are amassing vast fortunes that they will never be able to make use of. This great divide exists because of the way we have designed our economies to value the wealth of the privileged few, mostly men, more than the billions of hours of the most essential work – the unpaid and underpaid care work done primarily by women and girls around the world. Tending to others, cooking, cleaning, fetching water and firewood are essential daily tasks for the wellbeing of family and whanau, communities, whole societies and the functioning of our economies.

Because this work is not recognised, supported or valued, it means that women and girls miss out on other opportunities. Of course, care work is an important part of showing love and care for other people in our families and communities, and we do this with love and care. But the vast amount of care work across the world is mundane, such as trekking hours a day to get safe water and firewood to cook with. Other care work, such as taking older relatives to health appointments, can interfere with paid employment. Across the world, 42 percent of women cannot get jobs because they are responsible for all the caregiving in a household, compared to just six percent of men.

Women also make-up two-thirds of the paid care workforce. Jobs such as nursery workers, domestic workers, and care assistants are often poorly paid, provide scant benefits, impose irregular hours, and can take a physical and emotional toll. In New Zealand, this is reflected in the fact that women have a higher in-work poverty rate in comparison to men. This inequality is at its highest when looking at couples with children: when the female is the main earner, these homes have an in-work poverty rate of 12.3 per cent, compared to 3 per cent if the male is the main earner.

How can we change this?

The good news is that we can fix this. We can recognise, support, redistribute and reduce the care work that women do. We can put the economy on the right track so that it values the right things – including the care work of millions of women and girls – instead of billionaires’ wealth.

One way of supporting, redistributing and reducing women’s unpaid and poorly paid care work is to provide free and accessible public services for all. People in our governments can make sure that women can get safe water close to their homes so they don’t have to spend hours walking for it. Governments can provide teacher aides and caregivers, paid at least a living wage, to support women who care for children with disabilities and people who are sick at home. Governments can invest in public transport and transport services to make travelling to and from schools, hospitals and childcare centres cheaper and easier for women. Policy actions like these will reduce the amount of unpaid care women and girls do, so that they can get an education, earn a decent living, and have a say in how our societies are run.

Of course, governments need to fund these services. This is where tax systems come in. The only way we can get the services that benefit all of us is through our collective contributions to these services, through taxes. At the moment, across the world, wealthy individuals, families and corporations are not properly taxed. We need to start taxing wealth properly, and change the international tax rules to stop corporates avoiding making their fair contribution in countries where they work. This revenue will provide people in government with much-needed resources to invest in supporting and valuing the care work that women and girls do.

The extreme inequality we witness today is not inevitable. It is the result of the choices we make about how we build economies and societies that are about human well-being, and that value what we truly value. Together, we can reset the economy to look after each other, not billionaires’ fortunes. Properly taxing wealth can help us do that, and build a world where all people flourish in a human economy.

Unpaid care work traps millions of women in poverty

January 20, 2020

Care worker tending to her husband — Arlene Cinco is a shop owner and mother to 4 children in the Philippines. She spends all day working to earn money and doing all the care work for her family. Arlene’s husband, Eduardo, suffered from a stroke in 2016 and was consequently paralysed. She works several jobs to earn money for food, electricity, school fees and her husband’s medicines. Photo: Jed Regala/Oxfam

New Oxfam Report Reveals Sexist Economy

Women and girls put in 12.5 billion hours of unpaid care work each and every day, a contribution to the global economy of at least $10.8 trillion (NZD$16 trillion) a year, and more than three times the size of the global tech industry, reveals a new report from Oxfam today ahead of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.

Oxfam’s report, ‘Time to Care’, shows how our sexist economies are fuelling the inequality crisis – enabling a wealthy elite to accumulate vast fortunes at the expense of ordinary people and particularly poor women and girls:

The 22 richest men in the world have more wealth than all the women in Africa.
The world’s 2,153 billionaires have more wealth than the 4.6 billion people who make up 60 percent of the planet’s population
Getting the richest one percent to pay just 0.5 percent extra tax on their wealth over the next 10 years would equal the investment needed to create 117 million jobs in sectors such as elderly and childcare, education and health.
The minimum estimated value of unpaid care in New Zealand is NZD$41.4 billion.

Global inequality is shockingly entrenched and vast and the number of billionaires has doubled in the last decade. Oxfam India CEO Amitabh Behar, who is in Davos to represent the Oxfam confederation this year said: “The gap between rich and poor can’t be resolved without deliberate inequality-busting policies, and too few governments are committed to these.

“Women and girls are among those who benefit least from today’s economic system. They spend billions of hours cooking, cleaning and caring for children and the elderly. Unpaid care work is the ‘hidden engine’ that keeps the wheels of our economies, businesses and societies moving. It is driven by women who often have little time to get an education, earn a decent living or have a say in how our societies are run, and who are therefore trapped at the bottom of the economy,” added Behar.

Davos 2020, Women cleaning — Ruth is a mother of 7 in the Philippines. She is the first to wake up, feeding the kids and getting them ready for school, and the last to sleep after she cleans the house and washes everyone’s clothes. *If Ruth had more free time, she would want to run her own small business. Photo: Jed Regala/Oxfam*

Women do more than three-quarters of all unpaid care work. They often have to work reduced hours or drop out of the workforce because of their care workload. Across the globe, 42 percent of women cannot get jobs because they are responsible for all the caregiving, compared to just six percent of men.

Women also make up two-thirds of the paid ‘care workforce’. Jobs such as nursery workers, domestic workers, and care assistants are often poorly paid, provide scant benefits, impose irregular hours, and can take a physical and emotional toll.

The pressure on carers, both unpaid and paid, is set to grow in the coming decade as the global population grows and ages. An estimated 2.3 billion people will be in need of care by 2030 – an increase of 200 million since 2015. Climate change could worsen the looming global care crisis – by 2025, up to 2.4 billion people will live in areas without enough water, and women and girls will have to walk even longer distances to fetch it.

The report outlines practical and powerful ways we can recognise, reduce and redistribute this care work. One solution is to make essential public services and infrastructure free and available to all – services like primary healthcare, public transport, early childhood education, water, and care for people who are sick or older. This can be funded through taxing wealth.

Oxfam New Zealand’s executive director Rachael Le Mesurier said Kiwis have an opportunity during an election year to challenge the status quo and demand politicians create change.

“This year, we need to put the global economy on the right track so that we value the right things – including the care work of millions of women and girls – instead of billionaires’ wealth.

“Extreme inequality exists because we have designed our economies to spiral wealth to the very richest people, at the expense of ordinary people. But we can build an economy that values everyone, not just the wealthy elite.

“Governments use tax revenue to invest in the public services that are vital to reducing inequality and poverty. By taxing wealth properly and increasing investment in public services, we can recognise women’s care work for the massive contribution it is to our societies, and help reduce the unfair burden of care work on women so they can get an education, earn a decent living, and have a say in how our societies are run.

“Let’s reset the economy to look after each other, not billionaires’ fortunes. Properly taxing wealth can help us do that.”

Notes

The report, summary and methodology document explaining how Oxfam calculated the figures is available here.

Oxfam’s calculations are based on the most up-to-date and comprehensive data sources available. Figures on the share of wealth come from the Credit Suisse Research Institute’s Global Wealth Databook 2019. Figures on the very richest in society come from Forbes’ 2019 Billionaires List. Billionaire wealth fell in the last year but has since recovered.

Oxfam is part of the Fight Inequality Alliance, a growing global coalition of civil society organisations and activists that will be holding events from 18-25 January in 30 countries, including India, Kenya, Mexico, Pakistan, South Africa, Uganda and the UK, to promote solutions to inequality and demand that economies work for everyone.

Currencies were converted using Reserve Bank of New Zealand figures on 31 December 2019.

Oxfam Report: Time to Care

January 20, 2020

Economic inequality is out of control. In 2019, the world’s billionaires, only 2,153 people, had more wealth than 4.6 billion people. This great divide is based on a flawed and sexist economic system that values the wealth of the privileged few, mostly men, more than the billions of hours of the most essential work – the unpaid and underpaid care work done primarily by women and girls around the world. Tending to others, cooking, cleaning and fetching water and firewood are essential daily tasks for the wellbeing of societies, communities and the functioning of the economy. The heavy and unequal responsibility of care work perpetuates gender and economic inequalities.

This has to change. Governments around the world must act now to build a human economy that is feminist and values what truly matters to society, rather than fuelling an endless pursuit of profit and wealth. Investing in national care systems to address the disproportionate responsibility for care work done by women and girls and introducing progressive taxation, including taxing wealth and legislating in favour of carers, are possible and crucial first steps.

Click here to read the summary of Oxfam’s new report ‘Time to Care’

Click here to read the full ‘Time to Care’ report

Click here to read about the report’s methodology

Standing together – hope in action in 2019

December 19, 2019

What a year 2019 has been. Together, we’ve achieved so much. The global systems of injustice and the extremely rich and powerful people who are enabling them are not easy to tackle. But by using our power as citizens, we are building the foundations of a just, inclusive and sustainable world for all, and are shifting the window of what is politically possible. Here’s an overview of the change you have helped make happen this year.

School Strike for Climate, Auckland - Vernon Rive — *Oxfam joins the School Strike for Climate in Auckland. Photo/Vernon Rive*

Taking collective action for climate justice

Momentum for tackling climate breakdown skyrocketed up the political agenda this year, and we’ve been excited to support movements like the School Strikers, Pacific Climate Warriors and Generation Zero as they’ve walked the streets and the halls of parliament to fight for the climate action we need from our government. We are so pleased New Zealand now has a Zero Carbon Act to provide a starting line for getting our pollution down.

We also worked hard to ensure that our government is starting to lift its support for people who are on the frontlines of climate destruction, including our colleagues, friends and family in the Pacific and beyond, through securing a US$10 million boost to the Green Climate Fund.

With you, the Oxfam community:

Sent powerful submissions on the Zero Carbon Act, and delivered an 11,000 strong petition to Parliament calling on MPs to #BackTheAct along with Generation Zero, WWF and World Vision.
Sent over 250 letters to Minister Peters asking for a boost in resourcing for our neighbours to fight climate breakdown.
Sent over 300 letters to Minister Shaw demanding New Zealand stand with the Pacific at the COP25, the UN climate talks.

Keeping inequality on the political agenda and pushing for multinationals to pay their fair share

We’ve been working hard to get our government to make sure international tax rules are fair for all countries. We mobilised around the government’s Tax Working Group and in international negotiations, to stop multinational corporations shirking their fair share of taxes that help the world’s governments provide for their people. Together, we’ve:

Delivered the demands of nearly 8000 people to tell parliament that we want tax transparency by opening the books of multinational corporations.
Sent over 400 submissions to IRD on international tax rules for a digital economy.

What these achievements do is keep international tax rules on the government’s agenda, and they make sure that people in government have to think about tax issues. This is the first step in changing policy – getting the ideas and information across the desks of the right people, and providing a mandate for change.

We’ve supported the creation of Tax Justice Aotearoa, a new organisation that works to make sure our government has the tax it needs to fund our hospitals and schools, and that everyone is contributing their fair share. Tax Justice Aotearoa ran a campaign in support of a capital gains tax, hosted Tax on Tuesdays, a series of talks about tax, wrote submissions and several policy briefs, and met with MPs and Ministers.

Making our aid work for those who need it most

We’ve been working to get international development policy that focuses on the people who need our help the most, by building connections across the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The government recently released its new policy, and we were pleased to see a strong focus on human rights and inclusion. We also presented to Parliament’s Inquiry into New Zealand’s Aid – you can watch our Advocacy and Campaigns Director, Jo, give Oxfam’s submission to Select Committee here (from 1h 50min).

For World Humanitarian Day, we joined with other NGOs to remind the government that New Zealand must continue to support and protect victims of the Syrian conflict through the #NZisWatching campaign.

There’s lots to do, but together we are powerful

Tackling systems of injustice – both in New Zealand and across the world – can be slow and frustrating. Sometimes simply raising a voice, shedding light on an issue, or just holding the line so things don’t go backwards, is a huge achievement. We do this work alongside and on behalf of people who are focused on getting food on the table for their children and keeping a roof over their heads. They can’t do this work alone.

The only way we can stop injustice is through our collective action – working together, harmonising our voices and holding the powerful to account. We get inspiration and motivation from the things you do to make the world a better place.

We look forward to more of this in 2020. It will be a big year – we have to inspire governments and corporations to do much more to stop climate destruction. We have a unique opportunity to change the international tax rules for the better. And we can make sure the money we give for overseas development assistance is spent on stopping poverty and injustice. All in the midst of an election!

So, it’s a good time for some rest, reflection and connecting with loved ones over the festive season, and then getting back into making change with you in the new year.

Ngā Manaakitanga,
Jo and Alex
Your Advocacy and Campaigns Team at Oxfam New Zealand

Meet the Makers: Every Gift Has a Story

December 18, 2019

Discover the stories behind the gifts, meet the makers, and find out how shopping with Oxfam New Zealand helps artisans to earn a fair living and support their families. This Christmas, give a special handmade gift, while helping to fight poverty across the world.

Allpa

Allpa assists artisan groups across Peru, reaching thousands of families in areas ranging from Cusco and Lake Titicaca in the Andes, to the desert town of Chulucanos and the Amazon rainforest area of Pucalpa. For most of these people handcraft production is their only source of income. Allpa makes the soft and luxurious Alpaca throws in our store.

Corr, The Jute Works

The Jute Works are a non-profit organisation that tackles poverty in Bangladesh by empowering more than 7,000 female artisans to earn a living and thrive. The Jute Works makes the natural jute string bag, which is available in our store now and so useful for carrying your fresh fruit and veggies.

Aspiration International

Aspiration International assist many artisan groups throughout India to ensure the survival of their unique craft traditions. They encourage their artisans to set up their own workshops and employ other makers. The gorgeous Mangowood Tray craved with elephants is made by Aspiration International.

Dhaka Handicrafts

Dhaka Handicrafts work towards creating income opportunities for rural artisan families leading them towards self-reliance. Family welfare, gender equality and women’s leadership are central to Dhaka Handicrafts, with approximately 16,000 people benefiting from their work. Some of their beautiful work includes the Hogla Storage Basket and the Kaisa Bowl.