Not long after teenager Reyna Quispe started working in construction in Bolivia, she found herself hiding in the bathroom to escape her male colleagues’ sexist abuse.

“Women in construction are viewed badly,” says Quispe. “Men say we harm them and distract them. It’s incredible that these attitudes still exist. There is a lot of discrimination, and on top of that women earn a lot less than men.”

Eleven years on, although sexism, abuse and unequal pay are still rampant in the construction industry, Quispe, 27, no longer hides. She helps lead the Association of Women in Construction (Asomuc), a group of about 60 builders fighting for equal opportunities and advocating for new legislation.

On 8 March this year, International Women’s Day, Asomuc joined forces with Betty Yañiquez, the chair of the committee on human rights and equal opportunities in the chamber of deputies, to present a draft law aimed at achieving greater equity and equal pay for women in the construction sector in Bolivia, which is under review.

An estimated 21,000 women work in construction in Bolivia, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO), amounting to about 4.5% of the 471,000-strong workforce.

Almost two thirds are unpaid, says the ILO; some women accompany their husbands. Many are single mothers, and most are Indigenous. They have little or no information about their rights and often face domestic violence, harassment at work and sexual abuse. According to the ILO, the wage gap between men and women is 38%.

Quispe knows only too well the challenges women face in the sector. There are few opportunities to progress and women tend to work as assistants for their entire careers. Men assume women know nothing about building work; and there are often no separate bathrooms, which puts women at risk of abuse.

“Many female co-workers are obliged to sleep with the foreman, because if they don’t, they won’t get paid,” says Quispe. “Or [the bosses] say to [women], ‘Let’s go get a drink’, they get them drunk and that’s how it works. It’s terrible and it happens a lot.”

To advocate for the rights of the female workforce, a group of women, who met during training sessions run by Red Hábitat, a non-governmental organisation working on urban resilience, set up Asomuc in December 2014. It achieved legal status in September 2017 and has organised additional training from various organisations in construction work as well as business.

Quispe is at a workshop on the outskirts of La Paz on how to fit rainwater tanks, with other women who work in construction. Ericka Vedia Jaldin, 58, explains how she got into the field. “I studied to be an electrical technician in my 30s as an act of rebellion,” she says. “When I left school, I wanted to study civil engineering but unfortunately my father didn’t let me. His dream was that I be a secretary. I studied to be a secretary, gave him my certificate and left it there.”

Vedia married a few years later and took night classes with the support of her husband, an industrial engineer, before starting construction work. “At first it was difficult, like for many female co-workers,” she says. “Men always try to humiliate us. But once I had a bit of experience I learned to speak up for myself.”

Both she and Quispe say that while men are physically stronger and more able to carry a 50kg bag of cement, there are areas in which women excel such as painting, tiling and laying floors.

“We have many more skills than men,” says Vedia. “If we dedicate ourselves to painting, we are more detailed, and we work with more creativity. We are more responsible and punctual. We also leave a place clean after a job.”

Quispe, who is studying civil engineering at university, says women can feel more comfortable with a female builder in their home.

Members of Asomuc are keen for the association to grow. “We’ve always had three aims,” Quispe says. “We want to have our own headquarters and a tool bank, and to start a company so we can win big contracts. We want to be truly independent with the power to do our own work and take on more projects.”

She, along with Vedia and another member of Asomuc, Rocio Condori, head upstairs to apply what they’ve learned in the training session. Laundry hangs from a line drying in the afternoon sun, with La Paz and surrounding mountains in the background. They peer inside the tank, manoeuvre it on to a ledge and begin to fit parts with glue.

Condori, 28, a builder and single mother of two, says: “I face sexism, but it was worse before. I never used to see women working in construction growing up. Things are changing. I want people to stop discriminating against us. When I see a female builder, I think they are brave.”