About Hidden Homeworkers

Hidden Homeworkers is a four-year partnership between Traidcraft Exchange, Homeworkers Worldwide and HomeNet South Asia, a consortium of NGOs supporting homeworkers and other women in precarious employment, with co-funding from the European Union under their programme: Increasing Knowledge, Awareness, Transparency and Traceability for Responsible Value Chains in the Cotton and Garment sectors.

The project aims to extend transparency and monitoring systems beyond first tier suppliers within garment value chains, to improve the working conditions of homeworkers in Nepal, Pakistan and India, who work in global value chains in the cotton, apparel, homewares, leather and footwear sectors.

We have found women homeworkers across South Asia embroidering, sewing, finishing clothes and homewares, and stitching leather shoes for international retailers. Typically employed informally by subcontractors or intermediaries, and drawn from the poorest communities, women homeworkers are the worst paid and most insecure workers in most company’s supply chains. Their very low rates of pay create a risk of child labour; their employment is irregular, precarious and sometimes hazardous, but they have no access to social protection or benefits. Despite this, for many women, particularly those with young children, homeworking offers a vital source of family income.

The project seeks to collaborate with brands who are sourcing apparel and footwear in India, Pakistan and Nepal, and support suppliers to improve transparency and help brands reduce risks within their supply chain engaging homeworkers, in order to improve their working conditions.

At the level of the worker, the project strives to link homeworkers with local home and/or informal-worker organisations, support them in accessing social security entitlements, provide training and capacity building support to workers on their rights, financial and digital literacy, COVID-19, alternative livelihood generation, record-keeping etc.

To implement the project activities at the grassroots level and to engage directly with homeworkers in different homeworking clusters, the Hidden Homeworkers programme has several local NGO partners. They are SEWA Bharat in New Delhi, India; SAVE in Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu, India; Cividep India in Ambur, Tamil Nadu, India; SABAH Nepal and CLASS Nepal in Nepal and HomeNet Pakistan in Karachi, Pakistan. You can learn more about their individual roles here.

To find out more about the project, please watch these three webinars, which include presentations from our project partners.

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