Home-based workers demand recognition by labour laws

Self-employed home-based workers, who met at a global meet here Monday, sought a formal recognition as "workers" and urged their respective governments to devise labour laws to safeguard their rights.

As many as 110 home-based workers from about 24 countries participated in a four-day Global Conference on Home-based Workers, organised by HomeNet South Asia and Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing, a non-profit organisation.

"In a global declaration... demanded extending and enforcing labour laws for the self-employed home-based workers world over, including India," said HomeNet South Asia director Feroz Mehrotra.

Also featured in the declaration, was the demand for transparent contract orders protected from arbitrary cancellations as well as improved accessibility to basic infrastructure services to upgrade home as work place.

A demand was also raised for an affordable transport service and good quality, low-cost housing schemes for home-based workers.

"Home-based workers constitute an invisible workforce that numbers in the millions globally, but which has very little protection, representation or access to social security available to other workers in the economy," said Roberta Clarke, regional director at UN Women - Asia Pacific.

Clarke claimed an estimate of about 100 million home-based workers across the globe, with about 50 million of these living in South Asia.

"The underlying theme of the meet was to project the importance of moving out of poverty though home-based work, participating in development through home-based work and linking home-based work with global markets and value chains," she added.