“Women Construction Workers Struggle To Access Maternity Schemes”

Migrant female construction workers in Ahmedabad face immense challenges accessing maternity benefits and healthcare due to lack of documentation, poor living conditions, and exploitation by contractors…

Within the compound of the 30-floor building project is a settlement of construction workers who have been employed at the site for the last eight months. They live in small, cramped tin huts without any facilities for water or access to toilets. Many of the children of the workers are malnourished …

… They migrate from the states neighbouring Gujarat for a few months a year, working and staying at construction sites. The work is back-breaking–lifting stones or bamboo, filling cement into baskets and cleaning. They usually work in tandem with their husbands–while their husbands do the cementing work, they fetch the cement bags and sieve sand. Every day after 8-9 hours of physical work, women have to do the rest of the household chores like fetching water, cooking, cleaning and taking care of the children. …

…experts and migrant workers from the sector report little progress and say that women continue to bear the unequal burden of this owing to poor access to maternity health related services…