It was in the middle of the second lockdown. Ayeshaben, a home-based garment worker suddenly experienced chest pain. Her son, Asif, a tailor, requested one of his customers to take his mother in his rickshaw to the hospital. Thankfully, Ayeshaben has been taking insurance cover with SEWA’s insurance cooperative, VimoSEWA, for the last 15 years. Her claim of Rs 5,000 was processed online after Asif sent all her documents via WhatsApp.

There are millions of Ayeshabens in this country. More than 90 per cent of working people in our country are engaged in the informal economy. The most vulnerable are women who suffer from multiple disadvantages — as women, as poor, informal workers and as members of the socially disadvantaged castes and communities that predominate the informal sector. They keep the wheels of our economy turning with their labour, and yet they have limited or no social protection to act as a cushion in hard times.

As the suffering of informal, migrant workers plays out across India, we note that along with no livelihood, the vast majority of our citizens, mainly informal workers, cannot seek support from even basic social security.

Social security for all informal workers, including migrants, has been a long-standing demand of unions like the Self-Employed Women’s Association, SEWA, and other national unions. From our SEWA sisters we have learned — over almost five decades — of organising women into unions and cooperatives. We have learned that work security and social security are two sides of the same coin. The proposed economic stimulus and livelihood packages, recently announced, will hopefully translate into some support for informal workers. But, we need to think about their minimum social security — both to tide over the current crisis and for longer-term support.

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