ILO Convention turns 30: India's home-based workers still denied rights

New Delhi, India – On a sweltering afternoon in a working-class neighborhood of India's capital, Shehnaz Bano, 38, sits on the damp floor of her single-room home, swiftly stitching pieces of a leather jacket. She earns 100 rupees (about $1) per piece for each component — sleeves, front, back, shoulders — work that demands hours of concentration.

“If I were a regular employee doing the same volume of work in a factory, I would be paid more — right? It's just because I work at home that I don't get equal benefits,” Bano said.

She is one of nearly 260 million people globally who are home-based workers (HBWs) — producing goods or services in or near their homes within the informal economy. The work is characterized by low wages, lack of social security, and no paid working hours or holidays. Nearly 57% of home-based workers are women, according to a 2024 estimate by Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO).

Thirty years ago, on 20 June 1996, the International Labour Organization adopted Convention 177 — the Home Work Convention — which for the first time recognized home-based workers as equal to traditional wage earners. The convention calls on member states to implement policies promoting equality for this group and entered into force on 22 April 2000.

Yet after three decades, only 13 countries have ratified Convention 177, none of them from South Asia — the region with the highest concentration of home-based workers, especially in global fashion and manufacturing supply chains.

Renana Jhabvala, 73, an activist with the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA), India's women's trade union, was present in Geneva when the convention was adopted. She remembered the excitement and optimism in the ILO hall: “The discussions went on for nearly 21 days, nobody knew whether the convention would be adopted. In the end, the majority voted in favour.”

But activists and labour experts say that the lack of recognition of HBWs over three decades has deepened structural inequalities, particularly in developing countries like India. Home-based workers, mostly women, remain “invisible” to policymakers, working for meagre wages, in unsafe conditions, and subject to exploitation.

Deepa Bharathi, ILO gender and non-discrimination specialist, explained: “Convention 177 is a tool to recognize that home-based work is ‘real work' and HBWs are workers entitled to rights. In South Asia, home-based work is often embedded in complex subcontracting chains that are difficult to identify and regulate. Lack of data makes labour inspection difficult, and invisibility in policy frameworks hampers progress.” She added: “Women HBWs are often seen as performing an extension of domestic duties, which compounds gender inequality.”

Portrait of home-based workers

Shehnaz Bano lives in Kapashera, a shantytown in southwest New Delhi known for leather and garment production. She started rolling beedi cigarettes in her village, then after marriage moved to the city and began stitching leather jackets. Piece-rate work means each leather jacket sold abroad for $200 earns her only $1 per component. “Only the wretched do this kind of work,” she said.

Sangeeta Devi, 30, lives in an 8x8-foot room where her six-member family sleeps, eats, works, and studies. She finishes clothes, earning $1 per 100 pieces. “I can't go out to work — who will look after my children? All day, there are up to 100 garments in the room; I have to push them aside when I do housework.”

Next-door neighbour Putul Devi, doing similar work, earns just $20 a month. She cooks with firewood because fuel is too expensive, and when it rains, she doesn't know what to keep dry — the wood or the fabric.

Shalini Sinha, a WIEGO specialist, highlighted the “consecutive invisibility” of women HBWs: “The home is still seen as a place of residence, not a workplace. Women's economic work at home is dismissed as simply an extension of family care. We urgently need better statistics and a dedicated policy for HBWs, but there is still nothing.”

Elizabeth Khumallambam of CSCD, which works with women HBWs in Kapashera, noted that India's 2020 Social Security Code does mention HBWs, but “nobody knows how it will be implemented in practice”.

Labour economist Alakh N Sharma of the Institute for Human Development in New Delhi said there is “a bias in the system” that leaves women's work undercounted. “Technology, probing survey questions, and interviewer sensitivity can help fix statistical blind spots. Safety concerns, mobility constraints, social norms, and especially childcare responsibilities keep women out of formal employment.”

In 2022, a welfare bill for HBWs introduced by a Communist Party of India (CPI) MP was not debated in Parliament. In December 2024, India's Ministry of Labour and Employment responded to a question stating that the 2020 Social Security Code already protects informal workers including HBWs, and the government had created a national database for this group.

Reflecting on 30 years since the historic convention, Jhabvala declined to measure success or failure: “It is like a weapon, a tool for change. If we want to fight, the tool is ready.”