Women’s Experiences: Mobilisation and Resistance from SEWA to Domestic Workers

Have you ever really thought about the person who sells vegetables on your street corner, the woman stitching clothes in her own home, or the domestic worker who helps keep a household running? These jobs, often performed by women, are partlime of the vast ‘informal economy.’ This means they typically lack formal contracts, social security, fixed working hours, or a collective voice. When you’re working alone, often in isolation, it’s incredibly difficult to fight for fair wages or better conditions. But history shows us a powerful truth: when women organize, they can move mountains. This isn’t just a saying; it’s a proven strategy for change. From the self-employed artisans of Gujarat to the domestic workers in Brazil, the story of women’s mobilization is a story of resilience, innovation, and the power of solidarity. Let’s explore some of these remarkable journeys.

SEWA: A quiet revolution from Gujarat 🔗

One of the most powerful and globally recognized examples of women’s mobilization comes from India. It’s called SEWA, and it’s far more than just an organization; it’s a movement. Founded in 1972 by Ela Bhatt, a lawyer and Gandhian, SEWA began with a simple but radical idea: to organize women who were self-employed. These were the vendors, the home-based workers, and the manual laborers who were completely invisible to the formal economic system.

What makes SEWA a transformative movement? 🔗

At its heart, SEWA, or the Self-Employed Women’s Association, is a trade union. This is a crucial distinction. It’s not a charity given from the top down; it’s a democratic, member-based organization where poor, self-employed women are the leaders and the decision-makers. It operates on the principle that these women are not just “beneficiaries” but productive workers who contribute immensely to the economy and deserve the rights and recognition that come with it. It’s a movement built on the twin pillars of struggle and development.

The “struggle” part is the classic work of a union: collective bargaining, policy advocacy, and fighting for a seat at the tables where decisions are made. The “development” part is where SEWA’s genius truly shines. They recognized that to be truly empowered, women needed more than just a voice; they needed economic independence and social support.

How does SEWA empower women? 🔗

SEWA’s approach is holistic, addressing the many barriers women face. They understood that you can’t fight for your rights if you’re worried about your next meal, your child’s health, or where to get a loan.

• Financial Independence: In 1974, SEWA established the Shri Mahila SEWA Sahakari Bank. This was revolutionary. It was a bank *for* and *run by* poor, illiterate women who were considered “unbankable” by the formal system. It gave them access to credit, savings, and financial security, freeing them from predatory moneylenders.
• Social Services: SEWA provides a safety net. This includes access to healthcare cooperatives, childcare services so women can work without worry, and insurance schemes that cover life, health, and even assets (like a pushcart).
• Capacity Building: They offer training in everything from financial literacy and leadership to upgrading existing skills (like stitching or food processing) or learning new ones (like plumbing or driving).

By integrating advocacy with tangible services, SEWA created a model that has empowered millions of women. It gave them not just an income, but an identity as workers and leaders in their own right.

Beyond a single organisation: India’s diverse women’s movement 🔗

While SEWA is a massive and inspiring example, the story of women’s mobilization in India is not monolithic. In recent decades, the movement has become increasingly dispersed, rural, and diverse. It’s less about a single, centralized command and more about a vibrant ecosystem of grassroots organizations, each tackling the specific issues of its own community.

A shift from urban to rural and local 🔗

If the “second-wave” feminist movement of the 1970s was often perceived as urban and academic, the “third-wave” and contemporary movements are deeply rooted in rural and semi-urban India. This form of grassroots collective action is incredibly powerful because it’s led by the women directly affected by the issues. They are not waiting for someone from the outside to “save” them; they are creating their own solutions.

Tackling region-specific issues with creative tactics 🔗

The issues these grassroots groups tackle are as varied as India itself. In one village, women might organize to protest domestic violence exacerbated by alcoholism, as seen in the famous anti-arrack movement. In another, they might be fighting for their community’s right to forest resources or resisting the environmental degradation caused by a new factory. Other groups focus on:

• Political Negotiation: Training women to run for Panchayat (local village council) elections, ensuring their voices are heard in local governance.
• Publishing: Creating local-language newsletters and media (like the all-female newspaper Khabar Lahariya) to report on issues that mainstream media ignores, all from a feminist perspective.
• Land Rights: Organizing to demand joint land titles for women, giving them economic security and social status.

This decentralized nature is a strength. It means the movement is flexible, resilient, and deeply connected to the lived realities of women across the country.

A battle for dignity: organising domestic workers in Brazil 🔗

The struggle for recognition is a global one. Let’s look at Brazil, a country where the fight for domestic workers’ rights is deeply intertwined with a long history of slavery, racial inequality, and class divides. For centuries, domestic work-overwhelmingly performed by poor, black women-wasn’t seen as “real” work. It was considered a continuation of the servitude that was abolished in 1888, with women living in their employers’ homes, working endless hours for little pay, and having no rights.

A century-long struggle for recognition 🔗

The fight to change this began as early as the 1920s, but it gained significant momentum in the latter half of the 20th century. Domestic workers began forming associations and unions, a brave act in a field where workers are isolated in private homes and easily fired. They faced a monumental task: to change not just the law, but a deeply ingrained cultural mindset that saw them as “part of the family” (in a subservient way) rather than as professional workers.

Forging powerful alliances 🔗

A key strategy for the domestic workers’ unions was building alliances. They couldn’t win this fight alone. They strategically connected their cause to two other powerful social movements:

1. The Feminist Movement: They argued that “women’s work” (housework and care) is valuable, and that the exploitation of domestic workers was a fundamental feminist issue.
2. The Black Consciousness Movement: They highlighted the racial dimension, linking their fight for rights to the broader struggle for racial justice and the dismantling of colonial-era power structures.

The victory: from ‘servants’ to ‘workers’ 🔗

This long, persistent struggle culminated in a historic victory. In 2013, Brazil’s congress passed a constitutional amendment, famously known as the “PEC das Domésticas.” This law extended the full range of rights enjoyed by all other formal workers to domestic workers. For the first time, they were legally entitled to a standard 8-hour workday (44-hour week), paid overtime, a minimum wage, social security contributions, and unemployment benefits. It was a monumental legal and social victory that formally recognized their dignity and their profession.

Organising a ‘hidden’ workforce: domestic workers in Bangalore 🔗

The challenges faced by domestic workers in Brazil are mirrored in cities across India. Let’s zoom in on Bangalore (Bengaluru), a city with a massive, and growing, population of domestic workers. Like in Brazil, this workforce is ‘hidden’-working behind the closed doors of private homes. But the challenges to organizing here are unique.

The unique challenges in a metropolis 🔗

The domestic workforce in Bangalore is incredibly heterogeneous. This makes unified action very difficult.

• Linguistic and Migrant Status: Workers are often migrants from different states, speaking various languages (Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Odiya).
• Social Divisions: Caste and religious differences can sometimes be exploited to prevent solidarity.
• Isolation: Unlike factory workers, they don’t have a common “shop floor.” They are scattered across thousands of homes, making it hard to even meet, let alone organize.

How the KDWU built solidarity and power 🔗

Despite these hurdles, organizations like the Karnataka Domestic Workers’ Union (KDWU) have made remarkable strides. Their strategies are practical, smart, and designed to build power from the ground up. The effort to organize domestic workers in Karnataka shows how to tackle these specific challenges.

Step 1: Unionization and Identity. The first step is simply bringing women together and giving them a collective identity as “workers.” The KDWU provides identity cards to its members. This seemingly simple piece of plastic is a powerful tool. It gives them visibility and a formal professional identity, helping to command respect from employers and even police, who might otherwise harass them.

Step 2: A Placement Cell. This is one of the most innovative strategies. Many workers find jobs through informal “agents” who charge high fees and offer no protection. The KDWU runs its own placement cell. This achieves several goals:

• It cuts out the exploitative middleman.
• It allows the union to negotiate fair terms before the job starts, including a written agreement on wages, working hours, and paid leave.
• It creates a database of workers and “good” and “bad” employers, allowing them to boycott abusive households.

Step 3: Grievance Redressal. When a worker faces abuse, wage theft, or unfair dismissal, she is no longer alone. She can go to the union. The KDWU steps in to mediate the dispute, and if necessary, will organize a small protest outside the employer’s home or building. This collective pressure is often far more effective than an isolated individual’s complaint.

Through these strategies, the KDWU and similar groups are slowly but surely transforming a hidden, exploited workforce into an organized, recognized, and respected profession.

What do you think? These stories from SEWA, Brazil, and Bangalore show that change doesn’t always come from the top. What other “invisible” sectors of work do you think need the power of collective action? Have you seen examples of grassroots mobilization in your own community?

References

1. https://www.sewa.org/about-us/
2. https://www.wiego.org/informal-economy/organizing-collective-action/informal-workers-and-movement-building
3. https://www.epw.in/journal/2016/16/notes/organising-domestic-workers-karnataka.html