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HOME-BASED WORKER’S WELFARE BODY LAUNCHED

Sarid and agencies, January 20, 2007

A new apex federation that aims to strengthen home-based workers' organizations and networks in South Asia was launched in New Delhi, India on Saturday.

HomeNet South Asia (HNSA) was launched by Cabinet Secretary B.K. Chaturvedi on the concluding day of a three-day 'Policy Conference on Home-Based Workers of South Asia' organised by the Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (Unifem).

Chaturvedi said efforts were on to extend further facilities like micro-finance and social security to home-based workers (HBWs) across the country.

A home-based worker is a person who works from his or her home or premises near a home, which is not under the control of an employer and results in a product or service for sale or remuneration.

There are two types of HBWs - piece-rate workers and own-account workers. Piece rate workers receive work from sub-contractors or intermediaries, a trader or a firm and are paid a piece rate, according to the items produced. Own-account workers are those who are generally in direct contact with the market and buy their own raw material.

Of the estimated 50 million HBWs in South Asia - most of them are women - around 30 million are in India.

The main problem these workers face is their low level of income, due to the chain of middlemen through whom they work. According to the Economic Times (India), incense sticks sold at Rs 100 in the market, generates a meager Rs 2.30 for the HBW who makes them.

The average daily wage of a HBW is just Rs 27 as compared to the Rs 58 earned by a non-home based daily wage worker. Most Indian labor laws are designed for the protection of workers in the organized sector. There has been no such policy for home workers to date.

Chaturvedi said that a bill for the welfare of workers in the unorganised sector has been discussed by a group of secretaries and would go to the cabinet for approval.

He warned that action would be taken against officials not properly implementing the minimum wages policy for workers. Chaturvedi said a new national policy for HBWs would have features such as social security and insurance cover.

Speaking on the occasion, SEWA's Renana Jhabvala said: 'One of the major cornerstones of the progress made by HomeNet has been to map organisations of home-based workers and bring them together.'

Said Chandni Joshi, director of Unifem's South Asian Regional Programme: 'An action based research conducted by HNSA shows that HBWs across the South Asian region share certain sources of vulnerability but the heterogeneity within the sector is a strong argument in favor of locale-specific approaches.'

Participants at the conference also endorsed a regional action plan for HBWs of South Asia. The key features of the plan are - including the rights and concerns of HBWs in the upcoming SAARC summit in India in April, formulation of national policies for HBWs and support the development of the South Asia Gender Database to include data on HBWs.

The conference, which began Thursday, was inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

It was attended by eminent experts from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Geneva and Britain, besides senior officials from the ministries of women's development, trade and labor from the South Asian countries. Over 250 HBWs from across India were also present.