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BUILDING A REGIONAL PRESENCE IN ASIA

Leaders of Homenet Southeast Asia, Homenet Thailand, PATAMABA –Homenet Philippines and Homenet Laos participated in the Regional Workshop on “Homebased workers in Asia Building a Regional Presence,”on April 7th and 8th, 2008 at Hotel Ramada Plaza Palm Grove, Juhu Beach, Mumbai (Bombay) 400 049, Maharashtra, India. 

Home based workers, especially women, living in almost every low-income urban locality in the country, as well as in remote rural areas, are amongst the poorest and most exploited and vulnerable segment of workers today. It is estimated that there are over 100 million home-based workers in the world and over 50 million home-based workers in South Asia alone – of whom around 80% are women. HomeNet South Asia (HNSA) is a dynamic and vibrant network of 600 organizations representing over 3,00,000 home based workers from five countries in South Asia - Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka and has evolved as a focal point and the collective voice of the home-based workers of the region.

The key objective of  the Workshop was to advocate for bringing the benefits of growth to the home based workers in order to lift them out of poverty. Specifically, the workshop sought to build solidarity and mutual learning and experience sharing among the participants so that they can create a presence and a voice at Asia level – both for advocating  for a policy at the national level as well as lobby for the ratification of the ILO Convention 177. Being organized by HNSA in partnership with FES, the workshop brought  together organizations working in the field of homework: trade unions, NGOs, representatives of federal authorities and ministries, relevant representatives of international organizations (i.e. ILO, GUFs) in Asia

The following are among the papers  prepared for and /or presented during the highly successful workshop:

1. Building a Subregional Presence of Homebased Workers’ Networks in Southeast Asia: Experiences, Lessons, and Challenges, presented by Rosalinda Pineda Ofreneo, Regional Coordinator
2. The PATAMABA Experience Towards Representation and Advocacy by Lourdes Gula, PATAMABA National Coordinator for Organizing
3. Towards a Magna Carta for Workers in the Informal Economy by Josephine Parilla, Homenet Philippines
4. Regional Research as an Advocacy Tool by Donna L. Doane, Subregional Research Coordinator
5. Advocacy Efforts: Homenet Laos by Khanthone Phamuang, Chairman, CDEA,Homenet Laos
6. Components of the Thai National Policy on Homebased Workers  by Suntaree Saeng-ging, Homenet Thailand.