In North Bengal, women work long hours in tea gardens, striving to feed entire families on meagre wages. Yet, their labour often comes at the cost of enduring unsafe and exploitative working conditions. In the coastal stretches of Tamil Nadu, fisherfolk journey far into the sea, braving risks for a day’s catch, even as they grapple with reduced access to traditional fishing grounds and limited participation in resource management decisions.

In Madhya Pradesh, women roll thousands of beedis (leaf-rolled cigarettes) at home, earning low wages, working in hazardous conditions, and often lacking access to basic protections.

Across regions and sectors, women workers share a common reality: being part of India’s vast informal economy. However, their roles come with gendered challenges, compounded by unsafe working conditions, lack of job security, exploitative wages, and systemic neglect. Women in these sectors are often disproportionately affected, enduring not just economic hardship but a lack of safety and dignity in their workplaces.

India’s employment in 2017-2018 is estimated to be 461.52 million (according to the 2017-18 Periodic Labour Force Survey). The informal economy encompasses jobs, enterprises, and workers that exist outside state regulation or protection. These roles rarely offer fixed wages, job security, or benefits. Workers here navigate a world without contracts, safety nets, or social protections.

While informal work doesn’t always equate to poverty, it often comes perilously close. And once a family slips below the poverty line, climbing back is an uphill battle.

Grassroots organisations are stepping in to bridge this gap, offering informal workers much-needed protection, voice, and measures to enable greater economic resilience, collective agency, and access to opportunities that can help them build more secure futures.

This article explores how three select grassroots organisations are addressing the unique challenges faced by informal workers across India and how they are driving transformative change from the ground up.

Jute mill and tea garden workers of West Bengal: securing safe and equitable workplaces

In West Bengal’s tea gardens and jute mills, sexual harassment remains a deeply underreported and poorly understood issue. With the jute mills employing approximately 25,000 women (a number on the rise) and tea plantations historically providing livelihood for about 2,00,000 women workers, these sectors are critical to the state’s economy.

However, both industries lack comprehensive information on the safety of women workers, especially concerning sexual harassment. For many women, these acts are not even identified as violations. They have become part of the everyday.

To address this critical gap and advocate for safer workplaces, ‘Sanhita’, a Kolkata-based gender resource centre, undertook situation analysis studies in both the jute and tea sectors during 2019 and 2022, respectively. These studies aimed to delve into the safety of women workers, specifically focusing on sexual harassment at work.

They examined the prevalence and perceptions of sexual harassment, the accountability of key stakeholders in ensuring safe workplaces, and the implementation status of the........

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