| | | The Gujarat high court has ruled that anganwadi workers and helpers perform a vital task and can’t be treated as ‘volunteers’. To find out how this could impact 2.4 million women, read on… The big story Workers not volunteers says Gujarat high court about anganwadi workers  HT photo In a ruling that will have an impact across the country, the Gujarat high court has said anganwadi workers and helpers in the state are entitled to be absorbed as permanent employees with all the benefits of government employees. Justice Nikhil S Kareil has asked the Gujarat government to prepare plans to induct these women as permanent government employees. An estimated 2.4 million all-women anganwadi workers and helpers in India, 100,000 in Gujarat, are officially classified as ‘volunteers’ who get an ‘honorarium’ and none of the benefits of maternity leave, pension and other benefits of government employees.  Vital work/Wikimedia They perform a vital function in meeting and maintaining India’s nutritional and health status for pregnant and lactating women as well as children under six. For this, the court observed: “They are paid a meagre amount per month under the guise of honorarium.” He has asked the state government to treat them as permanent civil employees. An integral part of the Integrated Child Development Scheme, anganwadi workers and helpers provide nutritional support, health education and early childhood education at anganwadi (literally, courtyard) centers. Their remuneration varies from state to state, but on average, an anganwadi worker earns about Rs 10,000 and a helper around Rs 5,500. Full workload “Nobody really aspires to be an anganwadi worker because the work is so much and the pay so little,” says Poonam who uses just one name and began working in an anganwadi in Delhi in 2013. “We do it because of unemployment and a lack of jobs. There are no opportunities so we take what we can.” In Delhi, an anganwadi worker makes Rs 12,720 a month, which is less than the minimum wage mandated for unskilled workers in the capital city. Poonam’s helper who has a master’s degree, washes utensils and sweeps the floor for Rs 6,810. Over time, with new laws such as the Right to Education in 2009 and the Food Security in 2013, workload has expanded and anganwadi workers must provide supplementary nutrition to children by cooking and serving them healthy meals and also to pregnant and lactating mothers. They ensure their immunisation is up-to-date. They must maintain records and growth and height charts. Are the women aware of various government schemes? In states like Gujarat they conduct pre-primary activities for children under six. |  PTI “We have to organise godh bharai ceremonies (baby showers) for which we gift the mother-to-be bangles, bindis and the like. We have to go to the market to buy them,” Poonam tells me while trying to explain the real workload. It is her job, she says, to educate women under her charge about immunisation and disease. During Covid, they were tasked with distributing dry rations from house to house. In 2022, Poonam joined the Delhi State Anganwadi and Helper union who called for a strike unless their demand for better wages and recognition was met. The government invoked the Essential Services and Maintenance Act (ESMA) and Poonam was only of the 884 women whose services were terminated. The women went to court and that case is still pending.  HT photo The demand for regularisation and better wages cuts across India. In Guwahati, anganwadi workers held demonstrations in November. In Tamil Nadu, workers and helpers asked for increased salaries and also criticised the central government’s budget cuts to anganwadi allocations. In Punjab, the women held protests in October. And in Maharashtra, 20,000 women organised a prolonged sit-in at Azad Maidan in December 2023. Miles to go The anganwadi workers have had other court wins. In May 2022 in Gujarat itself, five Adivasi workers who had retired after 21 to 31 years of service went to court demanding gratuity. They won. The government then went into appeal. Then the women won in the Supreme Court. The two-judge bench said all anganwadi workers and helpers are entitled to gratuity. Justices Ajay Rastogi and Abhay S Oka said the women perform “all pervasive duties” for which they are paid “very meagre renumeration and paltry benefits”. The government says if the women are regularised and become full-time employees, it will end up with a huge wage bill. Left unsaid is the assumption that women’s work is worth very little, even for the government. Many anganwadi workers come from marginalised backgrounds and they do this work because every small amount makes a difference to the household budget. The Gujarat high court decision is welcome, Priyambada Sharma, a Delhi-based activist associated with the anganwadi workers’ fight for recognition, told me. But, she warned, there’s a long road ahead before the government grants the women the status of government employee. “This is a long pending demand and the court decision is a good one, but we fear the government will not implement it.” | | In numbers 78.7% of gay and bisexual men have faced some sort of physical, verbal or sexual violence; 44% of these men in Delhi have faced sexual violence. Source:BMC public health survey of 300 gay and bisexual men in six cities reported in The Hindu here. | | Can’t make this s*** up Forcing a newly-wed wife to sleep on the floor, making her wake up in the middle of the night to fetch water, eating only as much, and when, her husband permits, not allowing her to go out alone, not even to the temple or to throw out the trash, no TV, no talking to neighbours, and her eventual death by suicide does not amount to cruelty according to Justice Abhay Waghwase of the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court. The judge overturned a trial court conviction of a man, his parents and brother on the grounds that the allegations against them were not “so severe”. The good judge did not explain what constitutes severe, but his judgement took into account the prevailing social conditions in the village where it is not unusual for a young bride to listen to taunts and face restrictions on her movements. As for fetching water in the middle of the night, well, that’s when the water supply comes and fetching water is after all a woman’s job. Normalising the inhuman treatment of young wives because everybody-does-it hardly fits the definition of justice. LiveLaw has more (including the judgement) here. | | Seen and heard “What’s patriarchy, ya?” Replying to a student’s question of systemic roadblocks faced by women all over the world, India’s highest ranking woman minister, Nirmala Sitharaman said patriarchy was a “concept invented by the left” and “cannot stop women, certainly not in a country like India.” Sadly, the data contradicts our finance ministry. Whether it’s crimes against women or female labour participation rate, whether it’s the representation of women in Parliament or the amount of time spent on housework, the “leftist concept” is all around us. To choose to unsee it is astounding. | | News you might have missed The resurgence of violence in Manipur is disturbing and worrying and women from both sides seem to bearing the brunt of it. On November 7, a Kuki-Zo tribal woman was burned alive in Jiribam district allegedly by a Meitei group. A day later, a Meitei woman Ongbi Sofia Devi was shot allegedly by Kuki armed groups. And on Friday the unidentified bodies of a woman and two children were brought to a morgue in Assam’s Silchar just days after three Meitei women and three children were taken hostage by suspected Kuki militants on Monday. A small win by the Odisha government that issued notification of its menstrual health policy which allows women government employees a day’s menstrual leave. With the notification, women employees are entitled to 12 days of additional casual leave a year.  Sakib Ali/HT file photo And the good news…. India is set to get its first all-women CISF (Central Industrial Security Force) battalion which will be led by a woman commandant and posted to guard vital installations, including airports, the Parliament complex and the Delhi Metro. Women comprise just 7% of the CISF workforce. The all-women unit will be raised from amongst the existing personnel. | | Field notes  The Female Lead Half of the mothers who return to work after having a baby say they are not satisfied with the support at work. A third said they are at breaking point and believe their work set-up is unsustainable. A new survey by The Female Lead of 8,000 women in 100 countries has found that post pandemic, workplaces continue to be unrealistic for new moms with nearly half, or 47% saying they are planning to quit within a year. The survey looked at the gaps between what new mothers wanted and what they got from their workplaces. These ranged from wanting more flexible hours (75% wanted it, only 42% were offered it) to space for breast-pumping (28% wanted it but only 9% were offered it). Three in four returning mothers, or 73%, said they had feelings of guilt when they got back to work. A quarter said they were overlooked for promotions and development opportunities. The good news? Among the mums who felt supported, 70% said they felt more loyal to the company as a result. Read From Labour Ward to Labour Force: It’s not working here. | | Know more Marriage with girls as young as nine is part of Iraq’s amendments to its marriage laws that would also impact women’s right to divorce, custody and inheritance. Ahead of a Donald Trump presidency, women are stocking up on abortion pills in the US. Even those not currently pregnant are leaving nothing to chance. Washington Post has more here. In an unrelated development, two of Trump’s cabinet choices, Pete Hegseth for defense secretary and Matt Getz as attorney general could be in jeopardy over sexual assault allegations. More here (though this is as good a time as any to remind you that similar allegations didn’t make a dent to Trump’s victory.) Russian lawmakers have voted to ban the advocacy of child-free lifestyles as part of a broader effort to reverse a falling birth-rate, reports NYTimes. Any form of “propaganda” that promotes the “refusal to have children” could be fined about $4,000 for individuals and $50,000 for legal entities. | | | | Were you forwarded this email? Did you stumble upon it online? Sign up here. | | | | | | Get the Hindustan Times app and read premium stories | | | | | | View in Browser | Privacy Policy | Contact us You received this email because you signed up for HT Newsletters or because it is included in your subscription. Copyright © HT Digital Streams. All Rights Reserved | | | | |
