"We wanted to send a message to the government: 'you say there are
no women workers in the state's brick kilns. Well, here they are'," she
told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
'Invisible' women brick-kiln workers in India's Punjab demand their rights(Reuters)
Hundreds of women brick-kiln workers from India's Punjab
state have come together in a rare gathering to demand equal pay and
better accommodation, as the country's often invisible women labourers
become increasingly vocal in their fight for rights.
More
than a thousand workers, most belonging to India's so-called lower
castes and tribes, met in the city of Bathinda last week in perhaps the
first such gathering in the country.
"The
women workers in brick kilns are invisible - they are not recognised as
workers, they don't get paid for their work, and they have no rights or
benefits," said Gangambika Sekhar, an advocate with Volunteers for Social Justice, that organised the event.
"We
wanted to send a message to the government: 'you say there are no women
workers in the state's brick kilns. Well, here they are'," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
There
are no official figures for the number of people employed to cut, shape
and bake clay-fired bricks, mostly by hand, in tens of thousands of
brick kilns in India.
According to the Centre for Science and Environment, at least 10 million people work in these kilns.
Exploitation
of workers, many of them poor migrants from other states, is common as
brickmaking is largely unregulated, experts say. Most of the workers are
illiterate, paid a pittance, and held in debt bondage.
The
wealthy state of Punjab is home to more than 600,000 workers in brick
kilns, by some estimates. About half are women, who are not included in
the kiln's records and are not paid a separate wage from their husbands.
Many
of the women workers are sexually abused, and conditions for pregnant
women are particularly bad, as they do not have access to medical
facilities, and are forced to work well into their pregnancy, activists
say.
"Women are enslaved by the patriarchal
system, they are enslaved by the caste system, and they are enslaved by
the minimum wage, which is such a pittance that they are forced to live
in abject conditions," said Manjit Singh, a retired professor of sociology at Panjab University.
A
signature campaign was launched last week in Bathinda to appeal to
President Pranab Mukherjee for better conditions for the state's women
brick-kiln workers. Activists are also trying to organise the women into
unions, similar to efforts in Maharashtra state.
There are signs that women workers elsewhere are heeding the call to unionise and fight for their rights.
Last
week, protests in the southern states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu by
garment workers, mostly women, forced the government to scrap a
controversial proposal to change the rule on pension withdrawals.
"Women workers - from teachers to textile workers and daily-wage workers - are so desperate, they are demanding their rights," said Singh.
"They
are learning the benefits of a collective voice, and of coming out on
the streets and protesting, rather than doing so within the confines of
their workplace. We will see more of this," he said.
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