The SAARC nations when they meet next month should give high priority to the concerns of home-based workers, majority of whom are women, PM said.
NEW DELHI: The SAARC nations when they meet here next month should give high priority to the concerns of home-based workers, majority of whom are women, to ensure that they benefit from regional and international trade, Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh said on Thursday.
"I would like the SAARC Summit in New Delhi to consider the Kathmandu Declaration and address the problems of home-based workers," Singh said in his inaugural address at a three-day South Asian Policy Conference on home-based workers.
The Kathmandu Declaration adopted by the UNIFEM Conference on the rights of South Asian home-based workers identifies areas of deprivation faced by them, including recognition, social protection, skill-building, technology development,
credit availability and political participation.
Singh said the SAARC member governments must identify the products of the home-based workers and ensure that such workers directly benefit from regional and international trade.
"I do believe that women's empowerment should be a major objective of our social, political and economic policy in our region as a whole," Singh said.
Addressing a gathering that comprised experts and other representatives from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Philippines and the UK, the Prime Minister noted with concern that most home-based workers receive very low levels of income due to a chain of middle-men.
He said the main challenge was that of increasing the skills, productivity and earnings of these workers.
Estimates suggest that there are around 50 million home-based workers in South Asia, most of whom are women. In India, 57 per cent of all women workers are home-based.
The Prime Minister noted that the large number of home-based workers also reflects the fact that small units are still the norm in the region, with 86 per cent of the workers in the manufacturing sector still working in small or household enterprises.
He said latest estimates showed there were over 28 million home-based workers in India. "We would like to continue this collection of appropriate statistics and in fact expand it to find more about their work, earnings and skill levels," Singh said.
He also highlighted child labour as a major area of concern for home-based work.
"The concern arises when work becomes the child's main occupation and when she or he becomes an important source of earning for the family. A child's major occupation should be education not work," Singh said.
On the issue of micro-finance for such workers, he said the government was working on a Bill for Micro-finance to help create a friendly policy environment.
The conference, which is also being attended by over 250 home-based workers from all over India, has been jointly organised by United Nations Development Fund for Women and Ahmedabad-based Self Employed Women's Association.
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