Protecting the Rights of Women Workers in the Unorganised Sector: A Call for Legal Reform

India’s workforce is enormous – and yet, the majority of it remains hidden in plain sight. Nearly 92% of India’s working population operates in the unorganised sector: no formal contracts, no guaranteed wages, no social security nets. Within this group, women occupy the most precarious positions. They cook, clean, weave, and sell – often earning the least, protected the least, and heard the least. Understanding the legal gaps that leave women workers in the unorganised sector exposed is not just an academic exercise. It is a matter of constitutional urgency.

Who are unorganised women workers? 🔗

The Code on Social Security, 2020 defines an unorganised worker as a home-based worker, a self-employed worker, or a wage worker in the unorganised sector. In practice, this covers an enormous and diverse group of women: domestic helpers, construction labourers, agricultural workers, street vendors, home-based piece-rate workers, and sex workers. In India, 94% of the total women workers are employed in the informal sector, and only about 20% work in urban centres. Most of them hail from economically marginalised communities, many are sole breadwinners of their families, and the vast majority are unaware of their legal rights.

What makes their situation uniquely difficult is the intersection of class, gender, and informality. They are excluded from social security benefits like provident fund, gratuity, and paid maternity leave – protections that are largely accessible only to women in the organised sector. They have no fixed working hours, no formal employer-employee relationship, and no trade union representation. As a result, they endure low wages, long hours, job insecurity, and hazardous working conditions without any formal recourse.

The specific challenges these women face 🔗

Domestic workers: invisible in private homes 🔗

Domestic work is one of the most feminised forms of labour in India, yet it remains among the least regulated. Women who work as household helpers – cooking, cleaning, caring for children and the elderly – do so largely without written contracts, defined wages, or enforceable rights. Domestic work has remained unorganised, unrecognised and unrewarding, excluded from minimum wage guarantees in most states and denied standard working hours or safe conditions. The challenge is structural: private homes are not legally classified as workplaces in the traditional sense, making labour inspections and enforcement practically impossible. Employers tend to view legal regulation as intrusive, and the highly personal nature of domestic work arrangements makes state-led enforcement even harder.

Although some states have added domestic work to their minimum wage schedules under Section 27 of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, this is patchy and inconsistent. There is still no dedicated central legislation for domestic workers in India. The Supreme Court has recently flagged this gap – in January 2024, four ministries were directed to form a joint committee to consider a legal framework for domestic workers. That process is ongoing.

Home-based workers: piece-rate exploitation 🔗

Home-based workers – women who roll beedis, stitch garments, make agarbattis, or perform similar piecework from their own homes – represent another invisible segment of the female workforce. Their work is often treated as an extension of domestic activity rather than as labour, meaning it goes undocumented and undervalued. They have no employer who can be held accountable, no fixed wage, and no path to social security. The line between their household expenses and production costs is blurred, making it nearly impossible to calculate fair compensation. Their nature of work is temporary, casual, and scattered, leaving them structurally outside the reach of most labour legislation.

Sex workers: legal limbo and systemic exclusion 🔗

Sex workers occupy perhaps the most contested legal space of all. The primary legislation governing this area – the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 (ITPA) – does not criminalise consensual sex work per se, but it criminalises many of the activities surrounding it: operating brothels, soliciting in public, and living off the earnings of sex work. This creates a paradox where sex workers can technically practise their profession but cannot do so safely, collectively, or openly.

The ITPA conflates sex work with trafficking, creating legal uncertainty and exposing sex workers to arbitrary police action. According to data from the National Human Rights Commission, approximately 14,000 women sex workers are arrested annually under the ITPA despite sex work being recognised as a profession by the courts. They cannot access minimum wage protections, workplace safety regulations, or social security schemes. Fear of criminalisation prevents them from reporting abuse or seeking legal redress, leaving them deeply vulnerable to exploitation and violence.

The courts have, to their credit, stepped in. In Budhadev Karmaskar v. State of West Bengal (2011), the Supreme Court affirmed that sex workers have the right to live with dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution, and directed the government to create conditions for their rehabilitation. In 2022, the Supreme Court issued further guidelines stating that sex workers should not be arrested or penalised solely on account of their profession, and that any rehabilitation efforts must be voluntary. Yet, the gap between legal recognition and ground reality remains significant – harassment from law enforcement continues, and access to justice when crimes are committed against sex workers remains severely limited.

What the law currently offers – and where it falls short 🔗

Several laws exist on paper that could benefit women in the unorganised sector, but their reach is inconsistent and their enforcement weak. The Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act, 2008 was the first legislation to formally recognise unorganised workers, mandating government-funded welfare schemes for life insurance, health benefits, maternity support, and old-age protection. However, awareness has remained low, and implementation has been described as “abysmally poor” by legal commentators.

The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH Act) does extend protection to informal sector workers, including domestic workers. Local Complaints Committees (LCCs) at the district level are mandated to receive complaints from unorganised sector workers. But practical barriers – lack of awareness, fear of job loss, and the social stigma attached to making a complaint – mean these mechanisms are rarely used by the most vulnerable workers.

The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, offers 26 weeks of paid maternity leave – but again, largely to women in the organised sector. The Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) provides a partial cash transfer of ₹5,000 to informal workers not covered by the Maternity Benefit Act, but its reach is limited by low awareness and administrative barriers.

The judiciary has tried to fill these gaps. In Bandhua Mukti Morcha v. Union of India, the Supreme Court held that the right to life includes the right to just and humane conditions of work and maternity relief. In State of Madhya Pradesh v. Pramod Bhartiya, the Court established that the right to equal pay flows from Article 14, regardless of designation or technical classification. These judgments set important constitutional baselines – but without legislative backing and enforcement mechanisms, they remain aspirational for most unorganised women workers.

The Code on Social Security, 2020: a step forward 🔗

The most significant recent development is the Code on Social Security, 2020, which consolidates nine existing labour laws and, for the first time, formally extends social security coverage to unorganised, gig, and platform workers. It mandates registration of all unorganised workers on a national portal – the e-Shram portal – and links them to schemes covering life and disability insurance, maternity benefits, health coverage under Ayushman Bharat, and the PM Shram Yogi Maandhan pension scheme.

As of August 2025, over 30.98 crore unorganised workers had registered on the e-Shram portal, with women forming a substantial share of registrants. This is a meaningful step. However, critics note that the Code does not specify the overall quantum of social security each worker will receive, and its implementation remains incomplete pending full notification of rules across states. For many workers, the e-Shram card provides largely symbolic value rather than immediate, tangible protection in their daily employment circumstances.

The case for a robust legal framework 🔗

The existing legal architecture – spread across multiple statutes, schemes, and judicial pronouncements – is fragmented and inconsistent. What women workers in the unorganised sector need is not more piecemeal provisions but a cohesive, enforceable legal framework that addresses their specific realities.

Several reforms are critical. First, India needs dedicated central legislation for domestic workers – covering minimum wages, defined working hours, written employment contracts, social security entitlements, and a formal grievance redressal mechanism. India’s continued non-ratification of ILO Convention No. 189 on Decent Work for Domestic Workers remains a significant policy gap. Second, home-based and piece-rate workers need to be explicitly brought into minimum wage frameworks, with enforcement mechanisms that account for the distributed nature of their work. Third, the ITPA requires comprehensive reform to decouple consensual adult sex work from trafficking, enabling sex workers to access labour rights and social security without fear of criminalisation.

Across all these categories, legal awareness is as important as legal reform. Many women workers remain unaware of their rights, making them more susceptible to exploitation. Strengthening enforcement institutions, building legal aid infrastructure at the district level, and integrating rights-awareness into grassroots programmes run by SHGs and NGOs are equally essential components of a serious reform agenda.

The Constitution guarantees equal pay for equal work under Article 39(d), the right to just and humane conditions of work under Article 42, and the right to life with dignity under Article 21. These are not aspirational goals – they are enforceable constitutional commitments. The question is whether the legislative and administrative machinery will be built to make them real for the millions of women who keep the country running, largely unseen.

What do you think? When the judiciary repeatedly affirms the rights of unorganised women workers but legislation and enforcement continue to lag, where should the pressure for reform come from – Parliament, civil society, or the courts? And given that domestic work and home-based labour happen behind closed doors, how can any legal framework realistically ensure compliance without becoming intrusive?

References

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