Francie Lund
WIEGO: Social Protection Programme and
University of KwaZulu-Natal:
School of Built Environment and Development Studies
At the Conference
Women and Poverty: A Human Rights Approach
Kigali, Rwanda, 29 th April 2014
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To address the poverty of women, there is a need to address women’s employment
The majority of working women are employed informally.
Informal work is without legal or social protection.
Thus (with a few exceptions), labour law does not reach women in the informal economy.
It is unlikely that many informal workers will rapidly be formalized (as being debated in the ILC of the ILO in 2014 and 2105).
Women who work informally fall through cracks between different regulatory regimes – especially between national and municipal level.
What other interventions can protect the security of poorer women workers?
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Informal employment as a share of non-agricultural employment
Source: Heintz for ILO and WIEGO 2012
REGION
South Asia
East and SE
Asia
Sub-Saharan
Africa
Middle East and
N. Africa
Latin America
East Europe &
Central Asia
%
82
65
LOWEST
Sri Lanka
Thailand
63 South Africa
45 Turkey
51 Uruguay
11 Serbia
%
62 India
HIGHEST
42 Indonesia
33 Mali
32 Egypt
Gaza & West Bank
40 Bolivia
6 Moldova
%
84
73
82
51
57
75
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More women than men in informal work
Men earn more in both formal and informal work
Men are more likely to employ others
Women experience a more defined and lower glass ceiling (a cap on upward mobility)
When entering the urban informal sector, men have more work experience than women
Where women have worked before, it is likely to have been in domestic work

Source: Marty Chen, WIEGO Working Paper No. 1
Poverty Risk Average Earnings
Low High
Employers
Workers: “Regular”
Informal Wage
Own Account Operators
Inf ormal Wage Workers: Casual
Industrial Outworkers/Homeworkers
High Low Unpaid Family Workers
Segmentation by Sex
Predominantly Men
Men and Women
Predominantly
Women

International Classification of Status in
Employment
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Self-Employed in Informal Enterprises (i.e. unregistered and/or small)
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 employers (who employ others) own account operators (who do not employ others) unpaid contributing family workers
 members of informal producer cooperatives
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Wage Workers in Informal Jobs (i.e. jobs without employment-linked social protection)
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 informal employees of informal enterprises informal employees of formal firms
 domestic workers hired by households
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Is premised on the employer-employee relationship
The majority of informal workers are self-employed, and may employ others
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Self-employed workers: by definition, outside the scope of labour regulation
Employees: outside the scope of labour regulation
Labour regulation is limited to formal physical places of work
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Shops, offices, factories, mines
NOT sidewalks, informal markets, private homes, backyards, refuse dumps
By definition, informal workers are outside the scope of work-related/ employment-based social protection
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 homeworkers/ industrial outworkers
 own private dwelling domestic workers
 someone else’s private dwelling street and market vendors
 public space controlled by local authority, or privately owned markets waste pickers
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 public or private waste dumps residential areas
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Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of
Street Vending) Act 7 of 2014
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There must be a Town and Zonal Vending Committee in every city
2.5% of city population must be eligible for a vending certificate
This overrides municipal laws
Provides concrete actions that expand on the right to vend, and to have representation
Key role of NASVI (National Alliance of Street Vendors of India),
SEWA (Self-Employed Womens Association, India) and many civil society organisations over many years
WIEGO’s Law and Informality project monitors implementation of the Act
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At least half a million homeworkers, the majority of whom are women
Many work for an industrial enterprise
Homeworkers Protection Act B.E. 2553, 2011
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Fair wages, with equal pay for men and women
Hirer must provide a contract and ensure occupational health and safety
Hirer must establish a committee that gives access to courts in labour disputes
Active involvement and advocacy for a decade by
Homenet Thailand
Source: WIEGO: Winning Legal Rights for Thailand’s Homeworkers
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Source: WIEGO Evictions Database June 2012 through March 2013, mainstream English- and Spanish language news items (thus incomplete)
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Livelihood impacts included:
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Loss or confiscation of merchandise
Demolition of stalls or kiosks
Arrests and/ or imprisonment
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Violence – including beatings, teargas and rubber bullets
Fines
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“I had over 200 men’s suits … they have all gone.
They have destroyed my life.”
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Litigation in Bogota, Colombia and in Durban,
South Africa – informal workers against the municipality
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Bogota municipality gave contracts to private firms to collect waste, and excluded traditional collectives of waste recyclers from tender process.
Association of Waste recyclers of Bogota (ARB) won the right to compete in waste recycling markets.
ARB won the right to collect along street routes they have traditionally collected from.
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Durban municipality allowed private developer to design a mall which would destroy the traditional fruit and veg market
Legal Resources Centre (NGO) won the case on administrative law: the municipal tender process was judged to have been irregular
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South African Constitution Section 25:
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‘No law may permit arbitrary deprivation of property …’
Under consideration for litigation by an NGO which supports informal workers in Durban, when vendors’ goods are confiscated by municipality
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Informal workers may receive social protection benefits as citizens
Rare examples of successful, sustainable social protection provision
Likely exclusion from global social protection floor
Link between child care and women’s incomes and thereby to women’s economic empowerment
Importance of informal women workers’ participation in policy forums/ policy reform
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But SEWA, NASVI, Homenet Thailand, and others
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Homeworkers/ industrial outworkers
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Improve the conditions under which they are incorporated into value chains
Ethical Trading Initiative and codes of conduct
Thailand’s social security fund
Waste pickers
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Co-ops negotiating with local government and MNCs
Extended Product Responsibility
Street and market vendors
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Health and safety improvements through local government
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Urban design and equipment design
Infrastructure provision
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Recognition in law as workers
Registration at city level as workers
Recognition as workers in different occupations
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Vendors, construction workers, domestic workers, etc
Recognition of economic contribution to GDP, and to the local economy
Representation as interested parties
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The importance of infrastructural provision (by local cities and towns) as a form of social and economic security, to secure better incomes.
Women and poverty: The importance of child care in social protection – because of the link with women’s incomes. Child care is not at present an ILO core component of social security.
Social policy and social protection cannot redress the effects of macro-economic and trade policies that reinforce inequality and insecurity and exclusion.
It may be that commercial rights and property rights and access to public space are more pertinent than labour law to women’s security.

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