NCW may issue notice to state welfare depts for checking status on ensuring safety of women migrants

The NCW on Thursday said it may issue notice to all states' welfare departments, especially in unorganized sectors, for checking status of rules and legislations laid out for ensuring security of women migrant workers.

At a regional consultation on "law review related to inter-state women migrant workers", it was highlighted that there is a need for upskilling of women migrant workers in order for them to prosper during challenging times like coronavirus pandemic situation.

The NCW said it may look into issuing notices to all states' welfare departments, especially in unorganized sectors, for checking status of rules and legislations laid out for ensuring security of women migrant workers, and there should be a provision of stringent penalty for violation of their social security.

"The implementation of POSH (Prevention of Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace) Act and Domestic Violence needs to be bought in the law for avoiding violence against women migrant workers at workplace," the NCW said in a statement.

It was further deliberated in the consultation that women should be counted as individual earners and not along their male/spouse counterparts.

"In view of this, the proposed census 2021 needs to be leverage to get segregated statistics/data of women workers. Migrant women working as domestic workers need to be included as workforce and employability sector," the NCW said.

The NCW said sources and destinations of women migrant workers is a specific focus that inter-states coordinators/department must attend to, for measuring accountability, and must also involve stakeholders, including grassroots organization, volunteers and at panchayat level, to create a state-friendly model to ensure implementation of laws and redressal mechanism during disaster management and challenging times.

The consultation comes in the backdrop of a huge migration of workers back to their homes due to loss of employment during coronavirus-induced lockdown.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's recent announcement on initiatives focused on migrant workers, street vendors, small traders, self-employed people and small farmers were some of the similar concerns and areas of intervention that were touched upon during the consultation.