Due to women’s movement several legislations were passed like Equal Remuneration Act, Minimum Wage Act, and Maternity Benefit Act etc. to ensure equal status to women in society & more importantly at work. However illiteracy amongst the major women workforce (87% of women are employed in unorganized sector), fear of losing employment & lack of awareness of the laws enacted to protect them, make it difficult for women to benefit from them.
A few organizations are working to give voice to the women workers for improvement in their working conditions:
- Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA)- SEWA is a trade union. It is an organization of poor, self- employed women workers in the unorganized sector of the country. They are the unprotected labour force as they do not obtain benefits like the workers of organized sector. SEWA’s main goals are to organize women workers for full employment.
- Working Women’s Forum (WWF)- The forum is committed to poverty reduction and strengthening of economic, social and cultural status of poor working women, through micro-credit, training, social mobilization and other interventions to poor .
- Annapurna Mahila Mandal (AMM)- It works for welfare of women and the girl child. It conducts various activities that include educating women on health, nutrition, mother and childcare, family planning, literacy and environmental sanitation. It works for the empowerment of women and enables them to take their own decisions and fight for security and rights. The organization also promotes individual and group leadership.
