The unknown labor of Indian women workers

Syeda

She trims jeans lines, cooks savory foods, peels almonds, and makes tea filters, doorknobs, picture frames, and toy guns. She also sewed school bags and made beads and jewelry. Although she works hard, she is paid a meager salary of just 25 rupees (30 cents; 23 pence) to assemble 1,000 toy guns.

Syeda, the protagonist in journalist Neha Dixit’s new book “The Many Lives of Syeda Delhi. The book, which took more than 10 years and conducted more than 900 interviews, partly highlights the precarious lives of female domestic workers in India.

Ms Dixit’s book a hit Shining a spotlight on the invisible lives of India’s overlooked female domestic workers. was officially recognized as different categories of workers In 2007 alone, India Defined A domestic worker is a person who produces goods or services for an employer in his or her own home or at a chosen location, whether or not the employer provides equipment or materials.

More than 80% of working women in India are employed in the informal economy, with domestic work being the largest sector after agriculture. However, there is no legislation or policy to support these women.

Wiego, an organization that supports women in informal employment, estimates that in 2017-18, women accounted for about 17 million of India’s 41 million domestic workers. These women account for approximately 9% of total employment. Their numbers are growing faster in cities than in rural India. “The focus of people working from home seems to be shifting to urban areas,” said Indrani Mazumdar, a historian who has long worked on the subject.

Lacking social security or any protection, these women constantly struggle with poverty, instability, and willful spouses. They are often the main breadwinners of their families, struggling to earn enough money to educate their children out of poverty. These women also face the impact of climate change, loss of livelihoods and ongoing losses: monsoon flooding in their homes results in the waste of materials they provide.

In India, about 75% of female manufacturing workers work from home, economist Sona Mitra said. “These women are recorded as self-employed and they are essentially invisible,” she added.

Ms Dixit’s harrowing account Portraying Syeda X and other working women as helpless and exploitative. No one knows who sets poor compensation for their work. No one provided instructions, training or tools. These women relied entirely on each other to learn how to do their jobs.

Finding a job also often involves paying attention to the news cycle, Ms. Dixit wrote.

In 1997, when Kalpana Chawla became the first Indian-American woman in space, the women dressed plastic dolls in hand-sewn white spacesuits. During the 1999 Cricket World Cup, they sewed hundreds of cheap footballs. 2001, on “Monkey Man” The attack in Delhi sparked demand for masks resembling the creature to be sold at traffic junctions. During elections, they make flags, key rings and hats for political parties. When school resumed, they packed their crayons, bags and bound books.

Many women also find it difficult to work from home more than 20 days a month. Ms. Dixit writes that only those who don’t negotiate prices or ask too many questions, buy their own tools, deliver on time, never ask for advance payment or help during a crisis and tolerate late payments will find work easily.

Ms Mazumdar said the precarity of female domestic workers had increased due to the changing nature of their work. Until the 1990s, the garment industry outsourced many tasks to home workers. This changed in the 1990s, as factories began to internalize tasks and machines replaced human labor, especially in embroidery. “Working from home has become very unstable,” she said.

In 2019, the International Labor Organization estimated that there were approximately 260 million domestic workers worldwide, accounting for 7.9% of global employment, based on household surveys in 118 countries.

Research in Brazil and South Africa shows that monitoring working conditions in subcontracted or domestic work and protecting workers’ rights is possible when local government and unions work together effectively.

Such examples are rare in India. The 52-year-old Self-Employed Women’s Association (Sewa) is a membership organization that unites poor self-employed women in the informal economy. There are self-help groups for domestic workers and microfinance to support them. “But these programs really don’t help them in terms of employment,” Ms. Majumdar said.

Delhi women shell and clean almonds from their home in 2009 stop working, demanding better wages and overtime pay, etc. (They take 12 to 16 hours to clean a 23-kg bag and are paid 50 rupees.) The strike has paralyzed the almond processing industry during the peak season.

A study In Tamil Nadu, social scientist K Kalpana explains how household and community women workers subcontract production Aparamus (Pancakes) Workers in Chennai successfully defended their rights despite government agencies ignoring the union’s claims.

Syeda X and her friends had no such luck. “If she took time off because she was sick or to care for her children, her job would be taken away by another unknown immigrant who was working to take her place,” Ms. Dixit wrote. Displacement and hardship were a part of her life The only thing that remains constant is from job to job and family to family.

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