In 1971, the wives of textile workers in Ahmedabad, western India, became the main earners in their families overnight, after several large textile mills closed down. They were part of the 94 percent of India’s female labor force working in the informal sector—recycling waste, embroidering fabric, and selling vegetables—and thus they remained largely invisible to the government and to formal labor unions. In response, Ela Bhatt, a young lawyer, met with 100 of the women in a public park to establish the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), which would later register as a trade union and swell to the two million members it boasts today.

The Wilson Center is partnering with Apolitical, a global network of government professionals, to share stories—like this one by Miranda Hall—about caregiving and women’s economic prosperity. Past stories in the series highlighted women in New Zealand fighting to secure equal pay, the value of unpaid care work, and new technology that may be changing the field of caregiving.

In 1971, the wives of textile workers in Ahmedabad, western India, became the main earners in their families overnight, after several large textile mills closed down.

They were part of the 94 percent of India’s female labor force working in the informal sector—recycling waste, embroidering fabric, and selling vegetables. As a result, they remained largely invisible to the government and to formal labor unions.

In response, Ela Bhatt, a young lawyer, held a meeting with 100 of the women in a public park. They established the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), which would later register as a trade union and swell to the two million members it boasts today.

The union’s main goals involved organizing workers once deemed “impossible to organize” and fighting for better working conditions. But one of the main achievements of SEWA over the past 40 years has been the creation of a network of creches providing childcare for its members.

This grassroots initiative is affordable and flexible, community-led, and controlled by members. It also offers skills training and other opportunities, and insists on decent wages and protections for full-time employees.

The informal economy is still far smaller in places like Europe (25 percent) than in India (81 percent). However, where workers face precarious conditions, governments will need to put affordable, flexible childcare at the forefront of their plans for social security. Laura Alfers, who heads the childcare campaign at Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), said that the SEWA model, with its cooperative structure, can “teach governments a lot about inclusion and the importance of community participation in childcare.”

A Childcare Solution For Informal Workers

One of the main barriers to gender equality in the labor market is the lack of childcare services—UN Women notes that across 31 countries in the global South, less than 1 percent of women living in poverty have access to childcare services.

Research from WIEGO highlights how without access to maternity entitlements and quality childcare, women in the informal economy take up more insecure work. Since the 1990s, organizations like UNICEF, the International Labor Organization (ILO), and the World Bank have identified childcare as a crucial priority for policymakers thinking about gender and the future of work.

However, by listening to the concerns of its members, SEWA identified this barrier long before. The union established the Sangini Child Care Cooperative in Ahmedabad in 1986. It has since grown and is now responsible for 13 centers, each caring for 130-400 children.

The cooperative has emphasized a community- and parent-led approach. Members of the local community who are underemployed and keen to gain new skills are offered free training courses to become a Bal Sevika (childcare worker). Decent working conditions for these Bal Sevikas are a priority and all the centers offer a living wage and access to social protection.

Affordability and flexibility have been crucial to the success of the centers. The creches are run according to the timings of mothers’ working hours. For example, in places where mothers are vegetable vendors, the creches open early to help increase working hours and enhance household income.

Women interact differently with the centers depending on their profession. Street vendors will usually need to leave their children in the centre the whole day, while agricultural workers who may work nearer to the center will come in during the day to breastfeed.

As a result, 64 percent of working mothers have been able to increase their number of working days due to support from the childcare center. They have reported an increase in their incomes ranging from Rs 500 to 1,000 ($8 to $17) per month.

Laileshbai Kishora moved to Ahmedabad to earn money as a domestic worker. However, taking on paid care responsibilities for elderly employers—from helping them bathe to serving food—made it hard to find the time or energy to care for her own children.

Laileshbai therefore joined SEWA so that she could enroll her youngest son in the local childcare center and complete her work knowing that he was being cared for while being prepared for school. This also meant that her older children could go to school rather than staying at home to look after their siblings.

The mothers of the children who attend the centers and the facilitators who run them are also shareholders and manage the cooperative. According to an assessment by the ILO, a democratic and transparent governance system is a key component to ensuring the quality of the childcare provided.

Alfers explained that “when parents have a say in the management of the centers, they trust that their children will be well cared for and promote the cooperative within their community.” Every three months, meetings are also held with fathers, encouraging them to engage more in their wellbeing of their children and the running of the cooperative.

S. Anandalakshmy, a childcare development specialist and author based in Chennai, has also observed that support from other bodies under the SEWA umbrella, such as its health cooperative—which provides access to affordable medicine and medical facilities—is crucial to its survival.

Continue reading the full article on Apolitical.

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