The Charter of Women Workers: An Agenda for Change for Women in the Informal Economy

Abstract

“Women hold up half the sky”, the Chinese saying goes. But we need to recognize that it is not an equal world for women, globally and in India. Women’s inequality is perpetuated by a number of obstacles, and the most insidious and universal of these is their economic disenfranchisement. Across the world the overwhelming majority of women own minimal property, receive unequal wages, face unequal conditions at work, and the labour they do is unrecognised and rendered invisible. Economic vulnerabilities of women are often the basis for other forms of discrimination and oppression, including violence.