CAPÍTULO III: IDENTIFICACIÓN DE FACTORES QUE AFECTAN LA
3.4 ENTREVISTAS
important are the women homeworkers who
have come forward, to give a lead to others”
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profile Jane Tate, continued from p. 67
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livelihood and build an organisation. There have been many inspiring women who have been part of this movement, including professional and aca- demic women. But most important are the women homeworkers who have come forward, to give a lead to others, deal with the practical day-to-day issues as well as travel beyond their own town or village. Some are illiterate and uneducated but they have a wisdom born of a life of struggle. It is they who will be the backbone of the growing interna- tional movement.
The international network was set up as a result of the growing number of contacts be- tween organisations in Asia, Europe, North America and South Africa. The aim was to support those trying to organise homeworkers. In 1995-96, we focused on winning recog- nition for homeworkers at the ILO, through the adoption of a Convention on Home Work. Although since the adoption of this Convention in 1996 we have campaigned for its ratifi- cation at national government level, we have changed our focus back to organising home- workers, particularly in countries where little had been done before.
From 2000 to 2004, HWW implemented a programme of action-research as a way of encouraging the development of new organisations, focusing on specific areas of South Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America as well as more limited work in China and Africa. Following this programme, new regional centres are being established to strengthen the networks and grassroots organisations.
The aim everywhere is to help set up organisations through which homeworkers can work together to improve their working and living conditions. In many ways, these organisations are like trade unions, although the legal form they take varies from country to country. But they are also a new kind of organisation since the workers involved are almost entirely women, many of them facing multiple discrimination not only as women, but as members of indigenous, minority or tribal communities, on grounds of caste as well as class. The solidarity established through the international movement has inspired much of the work. Although the immediate issues are always local, there are many global connections,
from chains of production and marketing, patterns of migration or common patterns in the lives of women. We aim to give support to this movement, to enable women homeworkers from cities and vil- lages in different countries to learn from each other, organise together and become leaders in bringing about change in the lives of their families and com- munities.
I have been privileged to visit many home-based workers and learn about their struggles to earn a
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n behalf of HomeWorkers Worldwide (HWW), I am responsible for establish- ing local and regional informal and formal networks of homeworkers and their organisations. As coordinator of FELICITAS, I am responsible for building the capacities of the organisation so it can deal with the problems of home-based and informal workers as well as the unemployed.In Serbia, I am also involved in activities connected with the work of the CCC. Presently, I am preparing an exhibition on labour rights and working conditions in the garment indus- try in Serbia.
The 1990s were very hard in Serbia. As a mother of three sons, I had to find a way to feed my family, which is how I started home-based work. I have firsthand experience of all the problems that homeworkers are facing. As a member of the Association of Business Women of Belgrade, a women’s NGO, I participated in 2001 in a workshop organised by the CCC in Istanbul, where we talked among other things about home-based work. The repre- sentative of HomeWorkers Worldwide made a presentation in which I basically recognised
myself. That’s how I discovered that I was a home- based worker and got the idea of starting to work on the issue of homeworking and informal work. Since then I have made contact with hundreds of women in Serbia, talking about their problems (work, personal and family), their wishes, dreams and ideas. Those are the things that inspire me and push me to work, especially the expectations of those women. In the office we have so many letters hanging on the wall, from women thanking us for giving them new hope and “letting the light into the tunnel”. Once you raise someone’s hopes, you have to do your best not to disappoint them. The place of women in our society has changed a lot during the last two decades. The 1980s seem like a period of liberation and freedom, but that was on the surface. The changes started slowly, with the re-patriarchalisation of society. During the wars and dictatorship of the 1990s especially, women were pushed back into the home and kept there. Women workers were the first to lose their jobs, but were “not allowed” to be depressed about that. It was OK for men to be depressed and to have all kinds of excuses not to do anything to feed their families, but women had to do something to save the family. Men were ashamed to take jobs that were beneath them, or jobs that were not paid well. Women ac- cepted whatever they could find, which is how they found themselves in the majority in the informal sector, working for “nothing” in very poor condi- tions. When you see all of that, when you are a part of all that, you have to get involved!
I would like to accomplish a lot, but I am also trying to be realistic (Utopia after all is just a book!). Most of all I would like to help women to value them- selves, to become aware of their rights. I would like to strengthen them to fight for their rights, to show
them that there is no way forward except to organ- ise and take their future into their own hands. What I do is raise awareness about human rights and within those, workers’ rights. It’s not easy. There are lots of brave and active women around. I cannot single one out as my inspiration. It is all these women’s energy, courage and strength that inspire me in my work and push me to my limits.