Vegetable vendor Salma fights for the rights of the city's street vendors and has been jailed many times. Now the 26-year-old is going to an international conference in Brazil to speak about Indian domestic workers, labourers and hawkers

Salma, whose full name is Anis Fatima Shaikh, started selling vegetables from the age of seven even as she continued to study till Class 12 as a private student, and one day she took up the cause of the street vendors after she was harassed by government officials

"I then started to gather legal information about the rights of hawkers (street vendors) and labourers. I then helped other hawkers fight for their rights," said Salma, a leader of the Azad Hawkers Union, a part of the National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI)

"I have been imprisoned on a few occasions and when I read the names of the freedom fighters on the walls of the jail, I got inspired to fight for my cause," she said

Salma will be attending the May 21-24 Global Network Conference in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro

"Sixty participants from 20 countries will be at the conference. It will bring together people from trade unions, labour and human rights activists from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Arab countries and Europe," Salma told IANS in fluent English

The Global Network is an alliance of labour organisations, established in 2001 by Solidar, a European network of NGOs working for social justice, and the International Federation of Workers' Education Associations from South Africa

"NASVI is associated with Global Network and suggested my name for the conference," she said

She will be the lone Indian representative in the conference on 'The Role of Labour Movement in Shaping the International Cooperation Agenda after 2015'

She is however not new to international conferences, having flown to Nairobi in Kenya to speak on child street vendors at the World Social Forum six years ago

The second of three sisters and two brothers, Salma had to drop out of school at the age of seven to help her parents sell vegetables

"But I never gave up studies. I kept studying through notes and books of other children. Two years back, I appeared for my Class 10 exams privately and last month I passed my Class 12 exams," she said

"I'm glad my parents take pride in my achievements," she said

(Mauli Buch can be contacted at mauli.b@ians.in

--Indo-Asian News Servic

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