Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Govt must give ASHAs, Anganwadi volunteers rights, benefits due as workers -Neetha N

Govt must give ASHAs, Anganwadi volunteers rights, benefits due as workers -Neetha N

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Jan 12, 2021   modified Modified on Jan 12, 2021

-The Indian Express

Recognition of care work in the public sphere could also help in unsettling the gendered and unequal division of house work and unpaid care burden.

COVID-19 has given visibility to Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) and Anganwadi workers — women “volunteers” attached to a government scheme or employed on a mission mode — who are frontline warriors in the battle against the pandemic. In India, there are about a lakh ASHA workers, 1.3 million Anganwadi workers and another 1.2 million Anganwadi helpers, of them women. As the response to the pandemic required localised approaches, services of community workers became useful, given their robust contacts at the grass roots. During the lockdown, when there was uncertainty and fear of the virus, these women became the connecting link between the community and the state machinery.

However, these community worker-volunteers are a perfect example of how the state devalues women’s work, especially the labour of those involved in care work. The stereotype that persists of women’s ability and their inbuilt consciousness to understand other fellow beings’ feelings, especially other women, makes them perfectly suitable to be recruited as community workers. This explains the presence of a large number of women in community-based programmes across the world. But, in India, there is a refusal to recognise this “all women workforce” as workers providing labour. They are classified as “honorary workers”, denied minimum wages, leave and other conditions that work entails. Sugar-coated in the superior value-domain of women as the embodiment of care service providers, the state prefers to call them “volunteers”. The assumption that women’s care and emotional labour is outside the mundane world of markets is often evoked to pay these overworked workers just an honorarium. But, even in the best paid states, this honorarium is not even close to the government-mandated minimum wages offered to workers doing comparable jobs. Many petitions have been submitted by community workers and their unions demanding recognition as workers. During the pandemic, Anganwadi, ASHA and National Health Mission workers had a two-day nationwide strike demanding safety, insurance, risk allowance and fixed wages. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour also recommended formalising the work of community workers. But the government has not relented.

Please click here to read more.


The Indian Express, 12 January, 2021, https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/india-covid-pandemic-asha-workers-contribution-7142449/


Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close