WIEGO Blog

Society is still not valuing domestic workers more than a decade after the International Labour Organization adopted a convention extending working rights to them. Only six African countries adopted the convention, leading to widespread discriminatory practices. Empowerment programs aim to assist domestic workers in understanding their rights and negotiating directly with employers, promoting bottom-up change.

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) transfers the responsibility of waste management from municipal authorities to the producers of the waste materials. Despite the important role that informal economy workers who collect and segregate waste could play in such a system, they get no mention in India’s EPR policy.

In a ground-breaking decision for street vendors and other informal workers, the Constitutional Court of Uganda found the country’s vagrancy laws, which are often used to evict or arrest workers who work in public space, to be unconstitutional.

This World Day for Safety and Health at Work, WIEGO stands in solidarity with workers in informal employment across the globe who shoulder the burdens of health and livelihood risks. We give our unwavering support to those who struggle onwards to ensure accountability and to secure their right to health and dignity.

WIEGO’s Tania Espinosa Sánchez and Yuleina Carmona talk about the success of the Lxs Rifadxs campaign in Mexico City, which helped residents to see waste pickers in a new and more positive light.