The United Nations has pulled out of a partnership with Uber to encourage 1 million women to sign up as Uber drivers because of concerns about the controversial taxi app’s failure to protect female drivers and passengers.

Just two weeks ago Travis Kalanick, Uber’s founder and chief executive, announced that: “UN Women and Uber are launching a partnership to work together around the world toward a shared vision of equality and women’s empowerment.

“We intend to invest in long-term programs in local communities where we live and work, as Uber commits to creating 1,000,000 jobs for women globally on the Uber platform by 2020.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive director of UN Women, pulled out of a collaboration with taxi app Uber on Friday.

Kalanick’s statement was co-signed by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive director of UN Women.

However, following pressure from trade unions and women’s rights organisations, Mlambo-Ngcuka has publicly cancelled the collaboration. “UN women will not accept an offer to collaborate on job creation with Uber, so you can rest assured about that,” she said in a speech at the Commission on the Status of Women conference at the UN headquarters in New York on Friday. A video of her speech has been released by Public Services International, an international federation ofmore than 500 trade unions in over 140 countries.

Uber’s original pledge to work with the UN to hire 1 million women was billed asthe flagship announcement of the conference, which was partially sponsored by Uber, and was announced on the opening day of the two-week conference.

Mlambo-Ngcuka’s about turn came after trade unions attacked UN Women for agreeing to partner with Uber, which has been accused of failing to do enough to protect female passengers from rape and sexual assault by its drivers.

Brigitta Paas, vice-president of the International Transport Workers Federation (ITWF), said: “As unions and NGOs we find it astonishing that UN Women is linking to this organisation, based on a promise of a million jobs that we know are likely to be insecure, ill paid, and potentially unsafe.

“Uber says it operates in 55 countries around the world, but according to our research, almost 40% of national or local governments in those countries have said ‘no’ to Uber one way or another,

“There is not a day that passes without a news story on Uber, but many of those stories are scandalous and disturbing. They include reports of assaults, surge pricing, and breaches of privacy. There have even been cases of Uber ignoring rulings to shut down its service and indicating to drivers that it will pay the fines and cost of any appeals if drivers are penalised for continuing to use its app to pick up passengers.”

The ITWF campaigned publicly at the conference and urged its supporters to use the hashtag #UNWomenDumpUber.

A spokeswoman for UN Women said: “UN Women is grateful for Uber’s generous support to this event, and encourage Uber to continue its efforts to promote gender equality. At this point, we do not plan to expand the collaboration.”

A spokesperson for Uber said: “Uber was proud to sponsor the UN Women event last week, and we share their vision of accelerating economic opportunity for women globally. As part of our commitment to this vision, Uber set an ambitious goal to create 1 million jobs for women as drivers on the Uber platform by 2020. Uber will be seeking advice from UN Women and groups around the world on the best way to achieve the important goal of economic equality and opportunity for women.”