ActionAid's Young Urban Women programme in urban India: taking an intersectional approach to decent work, unpaid care, and sexual and reproductive health and rights

Abstract

This article traces the implementation of a programme with young urban women living in poverty in the Indian cities of Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Chennai. This programme aims to increase their economic independence and control over their bodies. It begins from an intersectional analysis of women's access to decent work, their unpaid care work responsibilities, and their sexual and reproductive health and rights. It is part of a multi-country ActionAid intervention, Young Urban Women (YUW). The article looks at some of the strategies used in the programme, identifies successes and challenges, and offers insights for others working with young women in urban areas.

Cet article retrace la mise en œuvre d'un programme mené avec de jeunes femmes urbaines en situation de pauvreté dans les villes indiennes de Mumbai, Hyderabad et Chennai. Ce programme a pour objectif d'accroître leur indépendance économique et le contrôle qu'elles exercent sur leur corps. Il prend comme point de départ une analyse intersectionnelle de l'accès des femmes à des emplois décents, de leurs responsabilités en termes du travail qu'elles effectuent sous forme de soins non rémunérés, et de leur santé et leurs droits sexuels et génésiques. Il fait partie d'une intervention multi-pays d'ActionAid : Young Urban Women (YUW). Cet article traite de certaines des stratégies utilisées dans le cadre du programme, identifie les succès remportés et les difficultés rencontrées, et propose des aperçus à l'attention d'autres entités travaillant avec de jeunes femmes en milieu urbain.

En el presente artículo se examina la implementación del programa Mujeres Jóvenes Urbanas (MJU), impulsado por ActionAid en varios países. El mismo se orienta a mujeres jóvenes que habitan barrios de escasos recursos en las ciudades indias de Mumbai, Hyderabad y Chennai, teniendo como objetivo elevar la independencia económica de las jóvenes y fortalecer el control que ejercen sobre su cuerpo. En este sentido, se parte de un enfoque interdisciplinario para analizar el acceso que tienen las mujeres al trabajo digno, sus responsabilidades vinculadas al trabajo de cuidados no remunerado y sus derechos en torno a la salud sexual y reproductiva. El artículo revisa algunas de las estrategias utilizadas por este programa, identificando sus éxitos y los retos que debe afrontar, a la vez que presenta aquellos hallazgos que podrían resultar útiles para quienes trabajan con mujeres jóvenes en áreas urbanas.

Key words:

• young women
• decent work
• sexual and reproductive health and rights
• unpaid care work
• leadership development
• human rights-based approach

Acknowledgements

I gratefully wish to acknowledge the support of ActionAid India, the three partners, and the young urban women themselves in the writing of this paper by creating spaces for discussions, donating their time, and sharing their ideas about the project and the contextual analysis so very generously.

Notes

1 The YUW programme operates in seven cities across three countries: India, Ghana, and South Africa. Overall, it aims to contribute to one of the five strategic objectives of ActionAid's 2012–2017 strategy: to ‘ensure that women and girls can break the cycle of poverty and violence, build economic alternatives and claim control over their bodies’ (ActionAid 2012, 15). The overall programme goal is that in three years, 5,800 young urban women living in poverty in India, Ghana, and South Africa will benefit. This project is supported by two donors. The Human Dignity Foundation (HDF) supports the programme in India and South Africa while the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) supports the programme in Ghana and the Action Aid International Secretariat in implementation of the programme.

2 Data for this figure and for others in the following paragraph have been calculated manually using the data tables available in the 2011 Census, available at www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/population_enumeration.html (last checked by the author 28 January 2015).

3 Ashana Trust is a women's rights organisation. The Ashana Trust envisions a society where a woman is free from fear and able to achieve her best. To create such an enabling environment, it has been empowering women from different marginalised castes and communities for better access to educational, health, legal, and security resources by creating a platform for collective assertion of their rights. It has also been advocating policy changes to bring about long-term changes in the State's approach to the issues of marginalised women. It works in the city of Mumbai.

4 Thozhamai is a resource agency for human rights especially for those working among children, youth, women, disabled, Dalits, and other vulnerable sections of the population. It was established in 2006 at Chennai. It works on issues related to child protection, youth rights, related advocacy and campaigning, and conducts training for NGOs on the rights-based approach.

5 Shaheen Women's Resource Centre and Welfare Association is a women's rights organisation based in old Hyderabad. Shaheen was set up in the year 2002 to work among communities in the Old City area of Hyderabad. The primary focus of the work was on ground interventions for the women and girls of the marginalised communities of Muslims, Dalits, and Other Backward Castes. For more information on Shaheen, see http://shaheencollective.org/ (last checked by the author 30 December 2014).

6 A validation workshop is a post-research workshop in which the findings are presented back to the partners and communities that were involved in the research.

7 Dalits represent a community of 170 million in India, constituting 17 per cent of the population. In the traditional Indian caste system, Dalits are considered to be part of the lowest caste group.

8 Zari is an even thread traditionally made of fine gold or silver used in traditional Indian garments, especially sarees.

9 For more information on the vulnerabilities faced by home-based workers, see Chen (2014).

10 These factories are almost invisible from the radar of officialdom, and work hard to protect themselves from any labour regulatory mechanisms. For more information on situations and challenges faced by informal-sector workers, see Chen (2012).

11 The ‘youth bulge’ is usually defined as a high proportion of 15–29-year-olds relative to the adult population in a particular country's population. This happens when the country achieves a significant reduction in infant mortality but women still have high fertility rates.

12 The issues of training in skills which are familiar and traditional but which do not offer a high chance of a lucrative livelihood are difficult hence the project partners are also working at introducing newer entrepreneurship opportunities in jewellery and soft toy making, and teaching computer and spoken English courses, and so on.

13 Loosely translated, this means ‘the movement of Indian Muslim Women’.