Bonding between politicians, civil society can address labour concerns

New Delhi : Former union minister and BJP leader Sanjay Paswan Wednesday called for the strong bonding of political leaders and civil society organisations to frame strong policies to address the concerns of the working class in the country.

“There is a need for the political leaders of all hues to forge strong bond with civil society organisations and come to an agreement to frame the best policies to solve the concerns of the working class labour in the country,” Paswan said speaking at a discussion on “Women’s Social Security and Protection in India” here.


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The session was organised by the Programme on Women’s Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (PWESCR), an international advocacy and educational initiative to promote women’s human rights on the occasion of the 120th birth anniversary of V.V. Giri, the fourth president of India.

“The women fraternity in the working class labourers are deprived of social welfare and therefore it is very important for the government to improve their condition and bring dignity to them,” Paswan said.

Paswan also formally launched a portal of a recently formed National Forum of Action on Convergence, a forum to address the lack or limited access to public services and schemes for the most needy.

Mohini Giri, veteran women’s rights activist and former president V.V. Giri’s daughter-in-law said: “No changes in labour laws should take place without a tripartite consultation between government, employer and employee.”

She also said the government needs to ratify all the international conventions passed by all member countries of the ILO. “Despite signing many of the conventions by the International Labour Organisation(ILO), India has not ratified the conventions and therefore the condition of the labour is deteriorating day by day,” she said.

Priti Darooka, Director of PWESCR said: “Achieving gender equality without social security is not possible. The government needs to do everything to fulfil the essential needs of all socially marginalised communities by recognising the universality of social security.”

She, however, cautioned that it need not be necessarily uniform as communities live in diverse context and realities, and stressed that gender analysis must be integrated into the formulation of all social security policies.

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