Maputo — The Mozambican trade union movement must fight to increase the number of women involved in making employment and training policies, so that women can gain self- confidence and defend their labour rights, declared Amelia Bibiana, secretary of the Working Women's Committee (COMUTRA) on Monday.

During the Third COMUTRA Conference, which opened on Monday in Maputo, Bibiana told AIM that women's role in decision making has been restricted on the grounds of absences from work because of pregnancy and caring for children.

"Women bear the brunt of infection from HIV", she pointed out.

"This and poor access to training contribute to weaken still further women's representation in the decision-making sphere".

The unions, said Bibiana, should urge employers to understand the importance of involving women in taking decisions. She also wanted to see much more professional training given to women at the workplace, and regretted the trend to recruit new workers who are already trained in modern technologies, rather than invest in training the existing work force.

Such pressures tended to reduce the number of women in waged work, and COMUTRA was trying to reverse this by designing a strategic plan on gender equality, which will be put before the next Congress of Mozambique's largest trade union federation, the OTM.

Despite the difficulties, said Bibiana, COMUTRA has grown in size, said Bibiana, and now represents 18,455 working women, as against 15,436 at the time of its second national conference in 2002.

COMUTRA had planned a national survey on the situation of women in workplaces, but was unable to carry out this plan for lack of funds.