NEWS DESK:

 “Social Protection for Homebased Workers in South Asia
A policy Dialogue ”

HomeNet South Asia organised a three-day conference on Social Protection-A policy Dialogue from 22nd-24th February 2006 at New Delhi. The purpose was to share the findings of studies in all five networks of HomeNet South Asia which are in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The study is jointly conducted with the Institute of Social Studies Trust (ISST). research consultant to HomeNet South Asia for this action research study.

Participants were from all the five networks besides Ministry of Labour officials and Insurance Company representatives. The Ministry of Labour from Pakistan and Insurance Company could not attend the conference.

The study comprised the following three categories:

a) Common- i.e. Weaving & Garments (in all five network countries)
b) Poor of Poorest-Pottery & pearl workers in Bangladesh, Incense stick rollers in India, Handmade paper makers in Nepal, Pottery workers in Pakistan and pottery workers in Sri Lanka
c) Social security for these workers in respective countries/ Government interventions made for workers by their governments.
The study entailed conducting Focus Group Discussions, Quantitative Survey and Case Studies.

The network made their country presentation where certain questions were raised by the participants.

The questions were raised on social security schemes, pension schemes, health facility, and day care centre, kind of beneficiary system and existence of cooperatives.

The second day was followed by the presentation from governments and insurance companies.

The commonly emerged issues out of the study emphasised on

• Definition of social protection
• Work security
• Social security
• Housing
• Health and occupational hazards
• Pension, old age benefit
• Coping strategies for disasters
  
  

An observation was made by Ms. Donna Doane, research consultant to HomeNet South East Asia. She mentioned that initially in Philippines, women talked about the necessity of children’s education and mental health care but, later when a survey was conducted, women correlated the education with livelihood. If they cannot have good earnings how can they provide education to their children? So, she said, social protection and economic needs are inter-related.

Discussion from the presentation gave some points to ponder over and brainstorm among the think tankers, organisations and government.

Mr. Subramaniya, Social Security Association of India, said “the term social protection is broader in scope than to social security. Currently, the term social protection is used both individually and collectively. Therefore, there is a need to find out the role of government and voluntary organisations either of which could work. There has also been emphasis on public private partnership in this regard which takes different forms”.

Ms. Vinita Singh of ETI, said above the positive roles of corporate sector in some countries contributes in the improvement of homebased workers. Further, she added, there is a need of another set of players of social protection programme i.e. retailers and manufacturers who also create and deliver social protection programmes for homebased workers.

Ms. Donna Doane of HNSEA endorsed the point and added that the same is happening in Thailand where corporate have taken up the issue of social protection for homebased workers but, there is a need to be looked closely as it seems to be large cosmetic changes.

Ms. Ratna Sudershan, of,ISST said definition on social protection and its meaning (s) has emerged very well from the country presentation. When we talk about social protection there is need for macro level policies influencing economic situation. So, the question arises, “Do we regard social protection as extending to the economic policy or not and how can we bring economic policies into the discussion?”

Second day of the conference

Mr. Wijayaweera of Employment Provident Fund-Sri Lanka said, “There is a need to combine initiatives of government, NGOs and the private community to talk on behalf of homebased workers to present a ‘peoples’ charter’ of demands, need and suggestion to reform planning and policy formulation for homebased workers.

Mr. Kabir Choudary, Deputy Director Ministry of Labour and Employement-Bangladesh, said there is a need for UN representatives to convince government to work out social protection policies for homebased workers. This could pressure the government to work on polices.

With the discussion, observations and the issues that evolved over three days of the conference summed up the need for further actions for developing the programme on social protection and carrying the study further.