United Nations Women announced plans last week to partner with Uber to hire over 1 million female drivers across the world in the next five years. Not only would the endeavor help these women become independent, but it would provide them opportunities to develop an economic base.
However, recent criticisms caused UN Women to pull its partnership with the ride-sharing service, with UN Women executive director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka announcing on Friday that the UN entity "will not accept an offer to collaborate on job creation with Uber, so you can rest assured about that."
Many have expressed skepticism about UN Women's endeavor, with ThinkProgress reporting that Uber "does not have a particularly good track record when it comes to women and concerns about safety." Not only are there multiple cases of female drivers being harassed by riders, but Uber drivers have been reported to abduct and rape women in the past. Uber's CEO also stated that the company is not to blame for any sexual assault that its drivers enact upon women.
"We fail to see how a million precarious, informal jobs could contribute to women's economic empowerment," global union Public Service International wrote in response to the UN's new endeavor.
One journalist brought up that Uber was a recent sponsor of a UN Women event in the past.
"Beyond this event, we have not discussed opportunities to engage with Uber, including in the context of their commitment to create 1 million jobs for women in the next five years," spokeswoman Oisika Chakrabarti told the press. "At this point, we do not plan to expand the collaboration."
Despite UN Women's decision, Uber said on Friday that it plans to continue pursuing the goal of hiring over a million women in the next five years.
