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Female workers need protection, says WIEGO
The majority of workers in developing countries, such as Indonesia, work in the informal sector, mostly women who have yet to receive their proper rights, says an international female rights activist
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T
he majority of workers in developing countries, such as Indonesia, work in the informal sector, mostly women who have yet to receive their proper rights, says an international female rights activist.
'More women workers than men work in the informal economy. They have the lowest earnings and live poorly,' Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) international coordinator Martha Chen told The Jakarta Post in Yogyakarta on Thursday.
WIEGO hosted the Global Assembly of Women Leaders in the Informal Economy in Yogyakarta from Tuesday to Thursday. The meeting is organized once every four years; this year's is the sixth. Some 140 participants from countries, including Thailand, India, Ghana, Colombia and Brazil participated in the assembly.
'Informal workers are subject to occupational hazards, no legal or social protection, and the accumulated impact is that they are not able to get out of poverty,' said Chen, who teaches public policy at Harvard Kennedy School in the US.
Meanwhile, Cecilia Susiloretno, coordinator of Homenet Indonesia, an organization dealing with domestic workers, said that the Indonesian government had yet to pay attention to domestic workers and did not even have data on their numbers across the country.
'The Indonesian government has not recognized domestic workers because it has yet to ratify International Labor Organization Convention No. 177 on domestic workers,' said Cecilia. She added the majority of the domestic workers in Indonesia were women with very low earnings of around one fifth to one third of the regional minimum wage in general.
Nora Kartika Setyoningrum, from the Manpower Ministry's directorate general of Workers Training and Placement, said the Indonesian government, under the leadership of President Joko Widodo, was formulating a regulation to protect workers in the informal sector.
'We are still seeking an instrument to address the issue,' said Nora in a public dialog titled 'Formalizing the Informal Economy: Perspectives of Informal Workers'.
