Women in unorganised sectors continue to bear the brunt of poverty and gender-based discrimination. A multi-State study throws light on how the maternity benefits -- a privilege of the urban working women -- elude the poor women working in unorganised sectors.
The study conducted in 2011-12 shows that despite the maternity Act in place, the poor and illiterate women working in unorganised sectors fail to avail any benefits of the Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojna (IGMSY-Maternity support scheme) or Janani Suraksha Yojana because of ignorance of both the Maternity Benefit Act (1961) and the schemes.
The study conducted across 45 villages in four states — Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, by NGO National Alliance on Maternal Health and Human Rights explored the increased vulnerability of women during maternity in terms of loss of work, health, income access to food and physical rest.
“The study finds that since all these women are staying away from work during pregnancy, they are risking loss of income. Their labour is arduous, and the dual responsibility of managing work and home which is resumed shortly after delivery worsens the situation,” said Jashodhara Dasgupta, coordinator at Sahayog, NGO.
“These women have poor nutritional intake, weakness and poor health. An ill-equipped health system compounds the problem. A lot of women delivered in hospitals, but reported unaffordable expenses for seeking care —including direct costs, medicines, tests and baby supplies and indirect costs like wage loss, food expenses and informal payments,” said Dasgupta. Poor Public Distribution System (PDS) and irregular Anganwadi services compounded the problem, shows the findings of the study.
“The Maternity Benefit Act 1961 has failed to help this large section of women. The Act regulates the employment of women for certain period before and after child-birth and is aimed at protection of their rights. We have to work towards its effective implementation the women in the disorganised sector can also be covered,” said Krishna Tirath, Women and Child Development Minister, who was speaking at the National Consultation on Maternity Benefit Act 1961 in Delhi on Tuesday.
“Although there are many schemes of the Government such as IGMSY and Janani Suraksha Yojana, but the benefits still have eluded a large section of women in the unorganised sector as most women are not aware of the Act or the schemes,” she said. The Act does not benefit the casual workers as also the ‘contractual’ employees as opposed to ‘contract labour’.