A Message From Janhavi Dave, HomeNet International Coordinator

Happy International Women’s Day to all my Sisters and Brothers around the world. This #IWD2023, let us pledge to make all the workplaces violence free, including the homes where home-based workers work.

At HomeNet International, we collectively represent over 1.3 million home-based workers, of which approximately 95 percent are women.

The last three years have been a huge struggle for our home-based worker sisters, who lost their family members and comrades, as well as work and their only source of income due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Many of them are still struggling to recover and continue to face hunger and are in debt. They continue to face the unfair burden of care work as well as violence at home, which is also their workplace. Violence for them comes in many forms – physical violence, sexual violence, psychological violence and economic violence. And, it is perpetrated by many different actors, primarily the subcontractors in the supply chains and sometimes by family members that live and work with them. The laws protecting workers don’t recognise home-based workers as workers, and home as a place of work. And, therefore, this International Women’s Day, we demand for the ratification of ILO Convention 177, The Home Work Convention, providing recognition to home-based workers as workers and ILO Convention 190, Violence and Harassment Convention, protecting all the workers from harassment and violence at their workplace, including home as a place of work.
A safe workplace for women home-based workers is a labour right, a human right and a woman’s right. Let’s keep fighting daily to make sure women home-based workers get the recognition and the working rights they deserve!

In solidarity,
Janhavi Dave, HNI International Coordinator

Home-based workers leaders from across the world sent messages of solidarity to celebrate with us! Watch below:

Playlist

6 Videos

CSW67 Parallel Event: “Informal economy workers and their technological challenges during the pandemic”.

HomeNet, along with IDWF, StreetNet and The Int. Alliance of Waste Pickers held a parallel session on “informal economy workers and technological challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic” during the NGO Forum of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Patricia Coñoman, from CONATRADO Chile and HNI International Working Committee member and Pamela Adhiambo Othieno, home-based worker leader from HomeNet Kenya spoke on behalf of HNI and home-based workers.
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