Sheikha Bodour Al Qasimi is encouraging women to speak up against workplace discrimination in Brazil.
The Sharjah royal made a recent appearance during a trip to Rio de Janeiro for the Bienal do Livro book fair where she was inaugurating the second PublisHer event in the South America country.
PublisHer was established by Sheikha Bodour in 2019 to help women tackle gender-based career barriers in the field of publishing.
During the event, Sheikha Bodour sat down for a talk with journalist Talita Facchini where she encouraged women to “speak up”.
“Don’t tolerate any form of discrimination or encourage it by being silent,” she said. “Speak up, stand up, and share your voice. It might be challenging, but that’s part of the process.”
She added: “There’s power in the group dynamic, so work together, support one another, and create strong, supportive networks.”
Last year, during during a networking event in São Paulo in July, Sheikha Bodour announced her ambition to extend PublisHer into more Latin American markets.
She founded PublisHer in 2019, claiming that she would not accept the fact that the majority-female workforce in the publishing sector was overwhelmingly led by men.
“I was amazed by the similarities in stories we heard from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, North America, which confirmed that we were facing a global culture of unfairness,” she said, per Gulf News.
Sheikha Bodour has a long list of achievements including holding the role of President of the International Publishers Association (IPA) from 2021 to 2022 and being the first Emirati woman to co-chair the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa.
