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WEEKLY
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| SEWA represents 50m workers in S Asia |
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Sunday, November 08, 2009
Our correspondent
Islamabad
Visiting Pakistan in connection with the launching of her book, ‘We Are Poor but Many’ in Urdu, Ella Bhatt spoke of how she had launched the Self Employed Women’s Association, SEWA, the union that represents about 50 million workers in the South Asian region.
As a young lawyer, Ella joined the textile workers union to safeguard the rights of those working in the textile sector of India, especially women who are marginalised in South Asian societies. SEWA first registered itself in 1972 and it is a member-based organisation, which arranges for workers to enter the mainstream of the economy through the strategy of struggle and development while incorporating three movements: cooperative, women and labour.
The birth of SEWA came about as a result of jealousy and conflict within the ‘mother’ union, the leaders of which did not like the independent approach adopted by Ella to safeguard the rights of women workers. This struggle finally led to riots and street fighting and intervention by the chief minister of Gujarat but this did not help and eventually led to the ousting of her organization from the main union’s body.
“I cried when that happened,” said Ella. “I wondered how they could throw me out but my husband said maybe it was for the better and he was right.” Rather quiet during lunch which was hosted for her by the volunteers of one of the oldest NGO’s working in Pakistan, Behbud, she became quite animated when she spoke of her ‘baby’ and said SEWA’s two main goals are to organise women workers to obtain full employment and self-reliance.
Security of work, income, food and social services are important aspects in this regard and to achieve these goals, SEWA has adopted an integrated approach of promoting collective strength and bargaining power for capital formation at the household level. Access to financial services to build capacity has been made possible so that members can compete in the market place and have access to market infrastructure, technology, information, education, and relevant skills, asset building, health and child care.
Co-operative banking is already a part of the SEWA project, while co-operative insurance is next on the agenda and will be initiated soon.
Founder president, Behbud, Akhtar Riazuddin, was also present on the occasion and said that although many NGOs were working for women’s rights she hoped a similar co-operative movement would soon come about in Pakistan, where women did a lot of work to support the family but it went un-recognized and unappreciated.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
