A national webinar was held on 8th March 2022 through a virtual platform to mark international women’s day. Keeping the focus on the women migrant workers, the programme was marked by an intensive discussion on crucial issues of women migrants, creating safe corridors and possible strategies that can be initiated. On international women’s day, Caritas India hoped that the discussion would usher a new and positive thought process through the experiences of resource persons in various fields under the domain of migration and the labour market. 

“As the two wings of a bird, women and men are of equal value. For without the two in perfect balance, humanity cannot progress,” said by Fr. (Dr.) Jolly Puthenpura, Assistant Executive Director of Caritas India while opened the event with his thoughts. He explained how the lives of women migrants relate to the theme and shared that the contribution of women and girls around the world in various spheres should be recognised.

Fr. (Dr.) Paul Moonjely, Executive Director of Caritas India saluted and congratulated all the women on this platform of international women’s day. He quoted Pope Francis, “Women make the world beautiful; they protect it and keep it alive if we take to heart the importance of future, we need to give space for women.” He informed that Caritas India upholds and is committed to the freedom and dignity of women. He further expressed to hear the esteemed guest speakers on this beautiful day. 

Neha Wadhawan representing the International Labour reflected on action points of the emerging issues of women migrants under the context of Covid 19 which was an unprecedented hardship. She concluded by introspecting three points, the first is the issue of recognition of women’s work such as home-based work, domestic work, unpaid care work. Secondly, she mentioned the worker’s agency and linked issues of recruitment in which often women workers are victims of trafficking and assumptions are made on the fact that they are best protected at home because of unsafe migration pathways. Thirdly, she discussed the collective actions and strategizing efforts. 

Ms Savita Mishra, additional labour commissioner, Raipur commissioner Chief Guest highlighted the situation of women workers in Chhattisgarh during the COVID 19 lockdown when the workers start returning their source from the destination states. Few solutions she proposed included online registration of women workers at source and destination states, establishing labour resource centres, maternity benefit through BOCW, education of migrant children in their language, awareness of POSH act, providing skill development training.

Mr Prabhat Kumar, Deputy Director, Save the Children shared the experiences of women migrant workers. He shared that inequality is a major concern today and that leads to the theme of Equality today for the sustainable tomorrow. He has suggested recommendations like a database of migrant workers, state migrant labour commissions, resource centres, helpline of migrants with grievances and redressal responsive mechanisms, accessible to the public distribution system, portability of social security schemes at a place where they are residing, the inclusion of migrants in urban planning.

Ms Sutapa Sanyal, Ex-director General, General Police Uttar Pradesh amplified her thoughts on the issue of women workers from the gender lens. She stated that the challenges came unprecedented hardships in the context of Covid 19. She shared a couple of recommendations like formal recognitions of work, labour laws must be given attention, databases so that their identity is maintained, the welfare of the labour component must be part of the SMART cities designed, stakeholders synergy, child care support in the worksites.

Mr Vikram Srivastava, Advocate and Founder of Independent Thought spoke on the various dimensions of women migrants. He shared that this is a very relevant issue ignored in most of the places and added that migrants are in difficult situations and gave thrust on why legal information should be part of the session, economic empowerment is not enough but when it comes to harassment issues and when it comes to claiming it, they often face hurdles.

Mr Subhash Bhatnagar on behalf of the National Platform of Domestic Workers spoke on the issues of the domestic workers that included no guidance is available for domestic workers during migration, no one considers domestic work as dignified work and most of the time the women hide their work from their family members and come to the do the work. He suggested recommendations are regulation of work of domestic workers, healthy route of migration to ensure safe migration and working in collaboration, state-level policies to protect the domestic workers at source and destination, developing a board for domestic workers who can work in collaboration Govt to address the issues.

Ms Valeria shared her cause for migrating to Delhi pointing out the fact there was no income from the village and parents usually cannot take care of the education and she had come here to support the education of her siblings. But she had no idea about the city environment, and she expected to work in a family that would provide her with good relations but they usually do not happen. 

Caritas Goa with the help of Salgaoncar Law College, Miramar, celebrated this day with the women migrant workers at the Gandhi Circle at Mapusa. These daily wage workers were presented with a token of appreciation for the work they do and were provided with greeting cards that had the Women’s helpline number on it, since the majority of them face issues that they do not get help for. The students of the legal cell of Mapusa created awareness on the various issues related to women and assured them of help in times of need. 

Manav Vikas Samiti also observed international women’s day in DHANAS, Chandigarh where awareness on women’s safety and hygiene was conducted by the team. Some games were organised followed by prize distribution.

Nirmana organised International Women’s Day with Migrants Women Workers who are working as Domestic Workers and Construction workers. 

Around 105 women workers had participated. All women workers were very happy to celebrate this occasion as International Women’s day and we’re feeling proud of being Women. They said now the time has changed and they feel happy being women and feel good where a girl child is born. 

The latest data of migrant women’s ratio consists of nearly 30 to 45% of total migrant workers involved in the informal sector in India. We draw the connection that there is a vital link between gender, social equity hence without gender equality today a sustainable future, an equal future remains out of reach. Therefore, let’s strive together towards the inclusion of women in making a world gender-neutral wherein bias of gender disparities are broken and equal weightage is provided for both men and women in the society.