Female trade unionists from around the world arrived in Senegal to organise the fight to improve women's jobs and conditions.

The second International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) women's organising assembly kicked off in Dakar with over 300 delegates from 100 countries.

The three-day conference "marks a strategic moment in the critical fight to reclaim our democracies, our communities, the dignity of work and our rights as women and as workers," said ITUC general secretary Sharan Burrow.

"We want to build workers' power. Women are part of this fight. The world has to count us in."

Ms Burrow issued a rallying cry for the trade union movement to make sure women take more top positions.

"Women hold up half the sky but we only have 12 per cent of union leadership," she said.

Norway's Peggy Folsvik insisted women "should not be intimidated from taking leading positions in unions."

The ITUC "Count Us In" campaign aims to boost the number of women in leadership positions and organise more unionised women.

And Senegalese union federation CNTS delegate Fatou Bintu Yaffa added: "Our goal is to increase the number of militants fighting for gender equality in our unions."

Senegal's Prime Minister Aminata Toure welcomed the activists to her country.

She told the assembly: "It is through the unionisation of women that we will gain dignity at work and achieve equal rights."

And she pledged to accelerate "the process of ratification of conventions C183 and C189 of the International Labour Organisation on maternity protection and domestic workers."

"Gender equality is a priority for Senegal," she said.

ITUC women's committee chairwoman and Unite assistant general secretary Diana Holland said: "It is not working women, low-paid workers, pregnant women, mothers and carers who caused the global economic crisis and yet women are disproportionately paying the highest price."