2019 HWW Annual Report

In 2019 HWW celebrated our 20th anniversary. This gave us an excellent opportunity to take stock, reflect on our achievements as an organisation, identify current and future challenges and renew our commitment to fighting injustice through supporting women workers. Our 20th anniversary event in September also enabled us to meet together with friends of HWW, and remember the enormous contribution of our founder and former International Coordinator Jane Tate. We are grateful to all those who attended and supported this event.

Our Director, Lucy Brill has been working closely with Trustees throughout the year to promote the rights of homeworkers and other precarious women workers, and as ever we are hugely proud that despite our small size HWW is able to achieve so much. Thank you Lucy!

We continue to collaborate with our partners Cividep and two major shoe brands in Southern India on improving pay and conditions for homeworkers in the leather footwear industry. We have also published a public report on garment manufacture in the UK, highlighting worker exploitation.

Our major activity this year has been the commencement of the four-year Hidden Homeworkers Project together with our partners Traidcraft and HomeNet South Asia. HWW’s role in the project is to engage and support companies and multi-stakeholder initiatives in the task of improving conditions for homeworkers in clothing and footwear supply chains in India, Pakistan and Nepal.