Home-based workers' meet begins

BY A STAFF REPORTER

Kathmandu, Oct. 19: A three-day congress of home-based workers of the South Asia region hosted by the network HomeNet South Asia Trust (HNSA) began in Kathmandu on Tuesday. 

By definition, home-based workers are a category of informal workers who carry out remunerative work from their own homes or adjacent grounds or premises. Similarly, HNSA is a regional network of home-based worker organisations spread across the eight countries of South Asia. It has 1.2 million members, of them, 95 per cent are women.

Renana Jhabvala, chairperson of HNSA, said that the gathering aimed at expressing solidarity with South Asia’s home-based workers, which is a movement that has been steadily building momentum since the early 1970s. 

This year’s congress, attended by over 200 female home-based workers, professional representatives, civil society organisations, dignitaries from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and UN Women, has been organised under the theme ‘We are a movement, We are a sisterhood, and We are the Future’.

It is estimated that there are over 67 million home-based workers in just four countries, namely Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, of South Asia. According to HomeNet, millions of home-based workers remain in the shadows and go unaccounted in national statistics. 

“The unorganised, informal sector makes up a majority of the workforce in South Asia and home-based workers, particularly women, form a vital part of informal economies in the region,” the network said in a statement provided to The Rising Nepal. 

“Their labour drives economies while also keeping their families out of poverty. However, they are rarely recognised as workers and access to labour entitlements remain out of their reach,” the statement read.