The women’s movement and informal vendors: “Nothing for us without us!”

International Women’s Day is celebrated by different social and labour movements around the world as a day on which we honour the struggle of the women’s movement for equal rights, opportunities and an end to discrimination and all forms of violence. The Covid-19 pandemic has amplified the challenges for women in many ways, but one of the most affected groups are workers in the informal economy, who have always been very vulnerable to economic crises and exposed to poverty, harassment and violence. Now more than ever, we cannot defend women’s rights if we do not include women workers in the informal economy in our collective struggle for equality and liberation.

In 1999, when the League for the Rights of the Congolese Woman (Ligue pour le Droit de la Femme Congolaise, LDFC) was founded by myself and my fellow activists, I already had some experience as a trade unionist in the Democratic Republic of Congo and internationally. This experience had taught me the importance of organising and supporting women workers in the informal economy. That is why they became our main focus. In the DRC, most of our economy is informal and most of the workers are women, many of whom are street and market vendors trying to support themselves and their families. Every day we can see them in the markets and on the streets making a living without decent working conditions. These women are the backbone of our economy and our communities, but they remain invisible, marginalised and often stigmatised.

The situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo is not unique. When we first joined StreetNet International, a global alliance of informal vendors’ organisations, we learned that women in the informal economy face the same problems and concerns everywhere.

We know that violence against women and girls is a hidden pandemic that continues to spread in our countries, but women workers in the informal economy are even more vulnerable to this scourge. Women street and market vendors, in particular, are vulnerable to harassment and abuse by local authorities, criminals and even some customers. Informal cross-border vendors, 70 per cent of whom are women in West and Central Africa, are often pressured and sexually exploited to be able to work and to cross borders.

In my home town of Kinshasa, a recent event demonstrated the negligence with which street and market vendors are treated. On 2 February 2022, an electricity cable collapsed in the Matadi Kibala market, killing 26 people. Most of the victims were women, many of whom were the sole providers for their families. The Matadi Kibala market has never been a safe place to work for many reasons beyond the poorly installed electricity cables, but in the absence of real alternatives, these women had no choice but to work here. We cannot allow such negligence. Nor can we allow our colleagues to continue to be exposed to deadly risks and we cannot continue to see families destroyed because of the lack of decent working conditions.

The repeated neglect and abuse of informally employed women workers should not be seen as normal, but as a violation of human rights. In many countries that have faced conflict, economic crisis and destabilisation, as in the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo and many other African countries, the lack of formal market work is pushing women into the informal economy to survive, and they should not be penalised for it. In fact, we are defending ourselves and claiming our rights.

Today, the right of workers in the informal economy to decent work, free from harassment and violence, is enshrined in Convention 190 of the International Labour Organisation, a ground-breaking international instrument for the rights of women and workers.

Yet the Convention has only been ratified by 11 countries to date [editor’s note: most recently the UK on 7 March 2022]. In those countries where it has been ratified, this has only been possible because of coalitions of trade unions, social movements and women’s organisations working together. We need to encourage such solidarity between different movements so that we can push states to ratify and fully implement ILO Convention 190 to ensure that no woman ever has to face harassment and exploitation to support herself and her family.

In addition, we need to promote women’s leadership, and in particular, encourage women workers in the informal economy, who are often in the majority, to strengthen and lead trade unions, associations and cooperatives at local, national and international levels. At StreetNet, we actively promote women’s leadership and many of our member organisations are led by women, including the LDFC, an organisation I co-founded and currently lead. We know that women can make a huge contribution when they have access to support, resources and capacity building. Women leaders can play a key role in negotiating with authorities and other stakeholders, mobilising workers and contributing to the sustainable development of their communities. We simply need a seat at the table to directly articulate our issues.

On International Women’s Day, we will celebrate the resilience of women workers in the informal economy, especially informal vendors, and continue to work together to ensure decent work for all women, free from harassment and violence, and demanding that our voices be heard. As we say in StreetNet: “Nothing for us without us!” That is why we must promote the empowerment of women and girls to enable their participation at all levels of decision-making and in the fight against climate change, and to reduce the risk of disasters.

This article has been translated from French by Sara Hammerton