Uber might be one of the fastest-growing transportation companies currently on the market, but it doesn’t seem they are so popular when it comes to women’s right ambassadors. After gladly announcing they have sealed a deal with UN Women with the goal “of accelerating economic opportunity for women” a couple of weeks ago, the international organization has just officially backed away from it.
Uber is still facing some serious problems in several countries worldwide. Police forces in both South Korea and France checked on the company’s offices in their respective countries recently. Then a Frankfurt court re-banned the company from operating within German territory over permit issues.
These are just some of the recent conflicts, not counting the rape accusations over an Uber driver in India and other controversies.
Meanwhile it appears the San Francisco –based company is doing whatever it can to improve their public image.
Last month we were telling you guys about Uber’s plans to improve its service’s safety with a Google Street View-like feature. Using a map-based mobile safety app that tags safety score to locations, the transportation giant is working on a way to collect data of extensive city areas during the night using camera phones mounted on the exterior of the vehicles.
Furthermore, Uber’s plans of partnering up with UN Women would have been another big step in turning them into a reliable service. After all, producing one million jobs in 5 years only for women is quite a big deal to start with. However, a YouTube video posted this week shows Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and executive director of UN Women clearly pointing out there is no such deal between the organization and Uber.
“I want to assure you that not only are we listening, we are aligned. And I also want to assure you that UN Women will not accept an offer to job collaboration on job creation with Uber – so you can rest assured about that,” she said.
As to the company’s earlier announcement, well it was slightly different than what Uber said. According to USA Today, a spokeswoman for UN Woman said that their only partnership with Uber involves a company sponsorship of a 20th anniversary event commemorating a blueprint on advancing women’s rights globally.
Google News