International experts interacting with women workers
Photo ©: IDEA

Friday 26 September 2008 – International IDEA organized a field trip for International Expert Group members to a Satryanarayan Brick Factory situated at Imadole, Lalitpur, with the aim to understand the situation of women workers. This field trip sought to show the socio-economic status of Nepali women. For example: do they earn the same as male workers? Do women have access to maternity leave? What are the health facilities? And does the factory support education for their children? Does the factory pay compensation for accidents in the workplace?

The team consisted of Ms Jill Cottrell, Constitutional Expert, Hon. Ana María Ruiz Antelo, member of Constituent Assembly Bolivia, Ms Rumbidzai Kandaswika-Nhundu, Senior Programme Officer, International IDEA. 

During the field trip the International Expert Group members met with the women workers and the management team of the brick factory.

Due to the lack of work in their home villages or towns nearby, many immigrant workers had come from far off villages of Nepal. The women who work as transporters in the brick factory earn wages amounting to no more than US$4 per day of earning. These women work on a piece basis and are not entitled to a fixed salary. Nor is there any provision for leave, including maternity or sick leave.

Women workers at the brick factory
Photo ©: IDEA

Among the women workers, Manju Giri, aged 37, said that she was not able to send her three children to school because she has to move frequently in search of work. Other women workers said that they send their children below 5 years to the child day care centre situated at the factory premises. 

None of the women had voted in the elections for the Constituent Assembly in April earlier this year as they were not able to be present in their constituencies on election day because they were working.

As Ms Cottrell said in her presentation the day after the field trip; “if the new constitution can not do anything for these women, then that constitution is not worth much - I hope the Nepali constitution makers, civil society and international agencies, including International IDEA, will not let these women down”.