Written by: Gursahej Singh
4 min readChandigarhMay 2, 2023 03:16 PM IST
First published on: May 2, 2023 at 03:12 PM IST
The informal sector employs over 90 per cent of India’s female workforce and most of the jobs in the unorganised sectors deal with housekeeping and at construction sites or as street vendors and daily wage labourers amid unregulated conditions.
Despite being a majority in the informal economy, women face exploitation in the form of gender bias, pay disparity, lack of awareness about their rights, inconsistent and low wages, dangerous working conditions, no social security, low rates of education and high rates of poverty.
To fight against this injustice and make women aware about their rights, Ela Bhatt in 1972 had founded the SEWA foundation (Self-Employed Women’s Association), which now has over two million active members across 15 states. SEWA is a nationwide movement, as well as one of India’s largest and oldest non-profit organisations. Comprising a nationwide network of over 100 autonomous grassroot organisations, SEWA is coordinated by its national office SEWA Bharat.
SEWA Punjab is a part of SEWA Bharat, a national federation of organisations of women workers from the informal economy and is a trade union working for the development of women workers. Its operations in Punjab started in 2016 by training members of Mahila Aarogya Samiti and to empower them to address health and civic issues of their mohallas. SEWA Punjab is at present working with domestic, construction and home-based workers by organising them into groups and building capacity on their rights and entitlement.
SEWA Punjab is present in six districts — Mohali, Patiala, Sangrur, Moga, Ferozpur and Gurdaspur — and has worked towards leadership development for women workers by electing local women leaders (agewans) who play a pivotal role in organising mohalla meetings, understand relevant issues and act as role models by coming forward to lead the change.
Linking the workers to their respective social security schemes, they also help in connecting rural areas with a banking facility by placing a customer service point, with educated women from the community imparting banking facilities to the community.
Harsharan Kaur, state coordinator of SEWA Punjab, said, “There has been an out and out exploitation of women workers. One of our sisters works in 16 houses to earn Rs 500 per month. She prepares food for her home and then works continuously for 12-13 hours. Once she was accused of stealing but with the support from the community we formed, she was given justice. There are laws for labour workers but nothing is implemented on the ground level. The registration process is very slow and the labour inspectors are not aware about the labourers working in the informal sector. So, we need to create awareness among the people.”
Kaur added that we are largely dependent on the informal sector of society and need to realise and value their importance.
Zainaab Naaz, programme coordinator in SEWA Punjab, said, “It has been a continuous process over the years to develop such communities and to win their trust and assure that we are with them.”
During the lockdown, SEWA Punjab distributed smartphones to women workers and trained them to stitch masks, use digital payment apps and use Zoom for conference calls. “The goals of SEWA Punjab are employment and self-reliance as we strive to improve the lives of our sisters in the community,” said Kaur.
Zainaab Naaz, programme coordinator in SEWA Punjab, said, "It has been a continuous process over the years to develop such communities and to win their trust and assure that we are with them."
Share
