Challenge Corporate Power
Corporations hold immense economic power. 63% of the world’s 173 largest economic entities are corporations. The revenue of the biggest corporations can be higher than the value of all goods and services produced by a country. (source According to the Association for Women’s Rights in Development)
The power of corporations and financiers has far outstripped the ability of elected governments to moderate or control them. Slavery and forced labour are widespread and many of the victims are women and children. It is up to states to hold corporations accountable. That is why WILPF, with a collective of 15 organisations, advocates for a treaty initiative to have an international treaty on corporations to hold them accountable to human rights laws. #feminists4bindingtreaty is our rallying hashtag.
WILPF focuses on two aspects of corporate power:
- The conflict prevention, by examining how corporations can be at the root cause of war.
- The gender perspective, by pointing out how activities of corporations are not gender-neutral and might cause or even exacerbate gender discrimination because of pre-existing gender roles and structures within the community the business operates in.
…the dangerous peculiarity in the situation is the alliance between business in pursuit of profit, and nationalist policies in pursuit of power…the economic alliance between governments and business, where each hand washes the other.
-Emily Greene Balch