The Kathmandu Declaration in 2000 established October 20 as Home-based Workers’ Day. To commemorate the day, every year, Network members across the world organize a series of events and demonstrations aimed at drawing attention to the situation of home-based workers and to present a series of demands, including:
In 2019, women home-based workers from around the world shared messages online: https://walls.io/g5sxr
Adopted at the International Labour Conference in 1996, C177 mandates that all homeworkers have basic labour rights and asserts the applicability of core labour standards and other standards to all homeworkers.
But more than two decades later, only 10 countries have ratified C177 and too few workers have realized their rights. Now, home-based workers and their organizations and allies have created a global campaign of action.
Home-Based Workers Networks across the world join informal economy workers’ organizations across the global economy call on governments at all levels to partner with us on relief, recovery and resilience efforts that are emerging from the grassroots during this time of unprecedented crisis.
The COVID-19 crisis has drawn the world’s attention to longstanding inequalities in the way governments and industry deal with the world’s massive informal workforce. The International Domestic Workers Federation, StreetNet International, HomeNet South Asia, HomeNet Southeast Asia, HomeNet Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and the Global Alliance of Waste Pickers — as members of the WIEGO Network — urge policymakers to implement the following principles in all their emergency relief and recovery actions, and in their strategies to manage public health and economic activity:
The HomeNet International Network will join efforts with the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) and allies to continue to call for ratification of the ILO Convention 190 and Recommendation 206 with a dedicated focus on women workers in informal economy whose lives and livelihoods have been acutely impacted by COVID-19 and the unprecedented economic crisis that has followed