Since the 1970s there has been a growing movement to fight for homeworkers rights and improve their working and living conditions. 

This movement brought together activists working on international labour rights with feminists who recognised the role that gender plays in the decision of so many women to work from home with the low wages and poor working conditions that they often experience. It was led by organisations in South Asia and Europe, notably the Self-Employed Women's Union (SEWA) in India who made connections with activists and organisers in Europe and North America.

In 1996 this movement secured an Important victory when the International Labour Organisation adopted Convention 177 on Homework, recognising that homeworkers are workers who should have the same protection and rights as other workers.

Founded by Jane Tate, Homeworkers Worldwide was established to support this movement and help it grow.

2001 - 2008

Between 2001 - 2008, HWW co-ordinated an international programme​ to map homeworking in eight locations within Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. Peer researchers with experience of homeworking were trained as peer researchers, to document the situation of homeworkers in their locality and then to use the initial findings as an opportunity to bring homeworkers together to start the organising process.

The second stage of this programme was vertical mapping of production, marketing and distribution chains Involving homeworkers, and to seek ways to use this information to improve leverage to achieve change for the homeworkers. Preliminary outreach work collating basic information about homeworking also took place in several other countries, including China.

Through this programme HWW gathered evidence of the extensive involvement of homeworkers in the leather footwear manufacturing. We worked with local partners to document examples of homeworkers stitching leather uppers in many countries including Bulgaria, Chile, Bolivia and Tamil Nadu in South India. An earlier EC funded study had also Interviewed homeworkers making shoes in Spain, Portugal and Italy.

2008 - 2010

Between 2008-10 we organised our own campaign to raise awareness of these Issues, Who Fits the Bill?, and from 2012 we joined a broader advocacy and campaigning project, Change your Shoes, seeking to raise awareness of labour rights abuses within the leather footwear sector.

Alongside these campaigns, HWW sought ways to improve homeworkers’ situation in global supply chains, highlighting the lead role played by more powerful retailers within global production processes. Through our advocacy work with UK retailers, often working closely with our sister organisation, the UK’s National Group on Homeworking we were able to convince the newly established Ethical Trading Initiative to set up a Working Group on Homeworking, and subsequently to introduce additional guidelines applying the ETI base code to homeworking.

2011 – 2013

Between 2011-13 we worked with SAVE, documenting homeworkers’ involvement in the extensive textile and garment manufacturing sector in western Tamil Nadu.

We learnt that many of the homeworkers’ daughters were being drawn into the same industry, often through the practice of sumangali, a scheme which has since been widely discredited as a form of modern slavery. A second activity strand within the same project was able to focus in more detail on this very precarious group of very young (sometimes below 14 years) group of women workers, documenting evidence of forced and bonded labour, as well as excessive overtime, serious occupational health risks and endemic harassment and abuse.

Under the sumangali schemes, young rural women were recruited by agents and convinced to migrate to Tirupur and other towns in western Tamil Nadu, to work in the spinning mills in the region. They were contracted to work for a particular mill for several years, during which time they lived in hostels run by the mill owners, and received free board and lodgings, but no wages. At the end of a three-year contract, they (or their families) received a lump sum payment which provided a dowry, enabling them to marry. Conditions under these schemes were often very bad, with young women workers unable to leave the hostels, and compelled to work many hours of overtime, to complete large orders or meet tight deadlines. If they left before the end of their contract, they often received little or nothing of the promised payments.

During this period, HWW published a series of briefing papers, which confirmed the findings of larger studies within the same sector published by other civil society organisations, including the Tirupur People’s Forum, SOMO in the Netherlands and Anti-Slavery International in the UK. This growing campaign pushed some retailers sourcing from the region to respond, and HWW was able to raise our concerns about the serious issues uncovered through our work through the UK’s Ethical Trading Initiative. A working group was subsequently created within the ETI, out of which their Tamil Nadu MSI programme eventually emerged.

2015

Parallel to this work on the textile and garment industry in the west of Tamil Nadu, HWW continued to investigate the leather footwear industry in south India, where many women homeworkers are paid piece rates to hand-stitch the leather uppers of particular styles of shoes. In 2015, we produced an in-depth report, Stitching Our Shoes, which details the issues faced by homeworkers in South India, the responsibility companies have to take action and what homeworkers themselves are doing to bring about change.

​In 2016, we were commissioned by a footwear retailer, Pentland Brands, to track homeworkers within their supply chains in South India, and to work collaboratively with all stakeholders, to introduce changes to improve their situation. To date, this work has resulted in a significant increase in the homeworkers’ piece rates, alongside the introduction of more transparent recording systems for their work.

2019 - Present

In April 2019, HWW started work on a significantly larger project in partnership with Traidcraft Exchange and funded by the European Community, the four year Hidden Homeworkers project, to support homeworker organising in India, Pakistan and Nepal alongside advocacy and project work with global companies sourcing goods made by homeworkers. This project not only provides an opportunity to make a difference to the lives of thousands of homeworkers in South Asia, but also to consolidate our own organisation and plan for the future, hence this grant application. Working with our partners in India, Pakistan and Nepal, we will scale up our successful work with homeworkers stitching leather uppers in South India to the many other global supply chains that exist within these countries, including for example, embroidery on fashion clothing in North India and finishing work for the large textile manufacturers in Tamil Nadu.

We are always keen to hear from new potential partners who are currently working with homeworkers or keen to develop such work.