Sixty CSO activists, trade unionists and representatives of migrant rights, women’s rights, worker rights and Dalit and Adivasi rights groups across India met over three days in August 2019 to think collectively about how a cross-sectoral movement could address the systemic issues faced by women migrant workers in the country.

The meeting, co-organised by GAATW, SEWA^[i] and MAKAAM^[ii], looked holistically at the rights of women migrant workers by analysing the structural drivers of outmigration from the states of Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. These are states of origin for internal women migrant workers going into some of the sectors with the lowest pay and poorest working conditions, including domestic work, brick kiln work, garment work, construction work and sex work.

Our discussions drew a challenging overall picture for our movements in India today: a growing asymmetry of power between employers and workers, persistent patriarchal norms and attitudes, a political economy tilted in favour of the interests of big corporations over the rights of small-scale landowners and workers. 

• States and corporate interests act hand in hand to facilitate the dislocation of people from land and into migrant work
• The current government is overseeing a dilution of protection standards, notably through ongoing labour reforms, threatening to row back decades of sector-specific legal protections and long-held normative standards. Social impact assessment provisions are being weakened, States are dismantling progressive legislation, and failing to adequately or fairly implement others, including the (FRA),^[iii] and MGNREGA,^[iv] the PESA (Provisions of the Panchayats - Extension to Scheduled Areas Act),^[v] weakening people’s hold over common resources.
• We heard stories of physical and social dislocation from land, resources and public spaces. There is a dislocation from public spaces due to the stigma and values prescribed to different kinds of work, and discriminatory stereotypes about women’s capacity to organise and agitate for their rights.
• These dynamics are underpinned by a set of narratives around women’s work, and social norms that seek to lock then in unpaid care and domestic work, low wage and socially stigmatised work, a denial of women’s contribution to society and economy, and a denial of women’s identities –as farmers, as migrants, or as workers.

Resistance and Resilience

Besides discussing our common problems, we thought about collective action. It was clear that the resistance to these troubling trends comes from marginalised women workers themselves. Organising through trade unions, in women farmers groups, and through use of progressive legislation were some of the key strategies identified.

“Landless Dalit women labourers have changed the whole discourse of land acquisition.”

It was emphasised that we need to look for local solutions, and to find ways to utilise our collective and distinctive identities to build our inter-sectoral, inter-movement advocacy. It was emphasised that we need not only to look at the fact that people are migrating, but the underlying reasons why they are migrating, particularly at policies that are robbing people of their livelihoods.

These efforts must include:

• The implementation of rights protective laws in a gender-transformative way to see existing legal frameworks and policies working as they should – as powerful tools for marginalised groups and communities.
• The meaningful participation and consultation of women on the use of common resources.
• Challenging ongoing labour reforms, which have been drafted to ensure “ease of doing business” at the expense of workers’ rights, living and working conditions.
• Ensuring migration is a meaningful choice: as people are being pushed into precarious urban jobs, we need to focus on rural areas, and to push for creating employment and livelihood opportunities at home.
• We need to push for improved data and data systems: we have to make efforts to ensure that data systems capture feminist perspectives of women’s work.

This meeting brought together old friends, and also forged new connections between regions and movements that we hope to continue to develop through three State-level convenings in Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand in the coming months.

[i] The Self Employed Women’s Association www.sewa.org.

[ii] Mahila Kisan Adhikaar Manch (Forum for Women Farmers' Rights), www.makaam.in.

[iii] The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 is a law which recognises the forest rights and occupation in forest land and forest dwelling of Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers who have been residing there for generations but whose rights could not be recorded.

[iv] The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is a labour law that aims to guarantee the right to work by providing 100 days of guaranteed public employment.

[v] The PESA is a law aimed to ensure self-governance through traditional Gram Sabhas for people living in the Scheduled Areas of India (in nine states).