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I must say I am really enjoying Nikki P’s 30 day blog challenge. It is day 10 today and if you missed yesterday’s post here it is . I did struggle with that one and today’s challenge is still about SEO. I have to come up with a title heading using words that folk would use to find me use it as a basis for today’s post.

I have to declare right now that I have cheated with this heading. Why and How? There is a neat plugin that shows you what word/s or questions folk typed into their search engine in order to arrive at your blog and someone found me by typing this question in their search engine so I thought I would try and answer it.

What can a business do to support women’s rights in other countries?

An interesting and really important question to ask. I partly covered this question on day 4 of this challenge in post entitled   how can I help empower women in africa

In answering this question I will work on the assumption that this is a business that is based in the West and has overseas operations and that being the case what can you do

1. Have a strong Corporate Social  Responsibility Policy (CSR) and if you don’t know what this is I wrote about it here. A well written and thought through CSR policy will influence, your recruitment,  sourcing,  supply chain and perhaps enable you to come up with  a whole new product range
2. Ensure that you are leading by example
3. Look at how your business might impact on the very same rights that you want to support
4. Does the country in which you work have a programme for supporting women’s rights? If so find out how you can support that programme. But avoid being drawn into the politics of the country at all costs after all you are there to do business and are not an activist. The programmes might include education for girls , or business skills for women
5. Do you view women as consumers of products and services? If so can you create a service or product that enables women to be gainfully employed or is for the benefit of women?
6. last but not least consider volunteering your time to share/teach business skills with women so that they can start their own enterprises and become financially independent. Financial independence enables women to access health care, education for themselves and their children, the legal and political system (to fight for their rights)

I do believe that business presents an usual opportunity to support women’s rights in other countries through the policies that they adapt in regard to recruitment, supply/sourcing chains, the products/services that they provide as well as CSR.  An Online Platform called Business Fights Poverty is a good resource so please do check  it out for further reading

I would be interested in how your answers to the same question, don’t shy leave me a note