Follow up to the Workshop on
Women Home-based Workers in Turkey
February 2000
Simel Esim
International Center for Research on Women. Washington, D.C.
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1-Organizing
A Working Group on Women Home-based Workers (WG-WHW) has been established in Turkey following the workshop. This working group consists of two coordinators, a few researchers, planning experts, economists and the representatives of women's NGOs. The goal of the working group is to gain visibility for women home-based workers through the media and in national policy. Two e-mail lists, in English and Turkish, have been formed to communicate with the workshop participants regarding the follow-up activities (you can contact Ergul Ergun, e.ergun@ncl.ac.uk to subscribe to the online-discussion).
The WG-WHW is designing a proposal for coordination of organizing activities with women home-based workers who participated in the workshop. Also a series of meetings have taken place with women home-based workers in a few areas of Istanbul (Avcilar, Umraniye, Kaynarca). Neighborhood surveys are being designed to review the extent and nature of home-based work in these areas. The working group members have also initiated contacts with a women's group in Van (in eastern Anatolia) that is planning to conduct a neighborhood survey on home-based work in this city. The WG-WHW will provide technical assistance in the design of the survey. All the survey results will be discussed with the women home-based workers in subsequent neighborhood meetings.
Discussions are also under way with representatives of textile and chemicals unions and the newly established Women's Rights Center of the Istanbul Lawyers Guild to incorporate women home-based workers in their work.
2-Action-Research
Preliminary discussions have taken place on developing a research proposal following the workshop among the members of the working group. It was agreed that the vertical and horizontal shifts that occur in subcontracting chains in a volatile global economy are worth exploring from the perspective of women home-based workers. Recent research conducted in Portugal and Greece provide good examples of research design.
Two of the organizers of the Turkey workshop have been invited to attend a small, two-day research design workshop on Value Chains in the Global Garment Industry after the Multi-Fiber Agreement (MFA). This proposed research design workshop is likely to provide an opportunity to further the thinking on the research proposal on women home-based workers in Turkey. The North-South Institute in Canada is organizing the workshop with financial support from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and in collaboration with Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing, Organizing (WIEGO) network.
3-National Policy
The WG-WHW members undertook a series of activities on home-based work around the 8th five-year economic plan (2001-2005) in Turkey. Through their initiatives language on women home-based workers has been incorporated into the documents of the labor, gender and poverty subcommittees. The working life subcommittee (of the labor market committee) report includes home-based work as an area where there is need for legal arrangements. The working group also provided an attachment to the main document on the principles for a regulation on home-based work in Turkey.
The gender and working life subcommittee report includes language on new approaches to women's work, unpaid work, economic organizing as well as home-based work. Among the proposals developed were those on non-standard work and economic organizing. As a result of the exchanges with the members of the WG-WHW during the gender subcommittee meetings, representatives of State Institute of Statistics are considering to present home-based work as a separate section in their statistical report on the last decade. The members of the WG-WHW also contributed to the report of the poverty subcommittee (of the committee on the improvement of income distribution and poverty) on home-based work and forced migration as a cause for poverty.
A document on gender-sensitive budgets (which argues for incorporation of home-based work in labor statistics and national accounts among other things) was also introduced and discussed in the gender subcommittee by members of the working group (for a copy of the gender budgets paper in English, contact Simel Esim, sesim@icrw.org).
The ILO Convention on Homework and a summary of the guidelines utilizing the ILO Convention on Homework, prepared by the International Network for Home-based workers (HomeNet), have been translated into Turkish. Currently, the guidelines on the ILO Convention are being translated into Turkish. These documents will be used for a national campaign for the application of the ILO Convention in Turkey. The WG-WHW representatives also contributed to the Women's NGO report for the Beijing +5 process.
4-Outreach
The agenda, participant list, press releases, proceedings and photos from the workshop are on the WG-WHW website (http://homepages.msn.com/VolunteerSt/homebasedworkers) and the ICRW website (http://www.icrw.org). The English version of the information bulletin from the Turkey workshop is being disseminated. Over 250 copies were made available in the UN/ECE Regional Preparatory Meeting on the 2000 Review of the Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action in Geneva, Switzerland.
The workshop bulletin was also incorporated into an information kit on Women's Economic Empowerment in Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States towards the Five Year Review of the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action. The information kit is being reprinted due to high demand. The information bulletin is currently being translated into Turkish.
The newsletter of HomeNet, which is disseminated to labor activists, trade unions and women's NGOs around the world provided coverage of the workshop in its December 1999 issue.
The ILO Convention on Homework has been translated into Turkish and published in a women's monthly magazine with a summary of the guidelines utilizing the ILO Convention on Homework. These two documents are included in the upcoming publishing lists of a few other women's magazines. Local media coverage on the workshop and its goals continues as a result of the effective initiatives of the members of WG-WHW.
5-Regional Initiatives
The members of the WG-WHW are currently writing a proposal in order to undertake local workshops in 5-6 cities in Turkey. The initial idea of this came from a Ministry of Labor representative during the workshop. These will be smaller and local versions of the earlier and more international workshop that took place in October of 1999 in Istanbul. ILO headquarters and Turkey offices have agreed to participate in these local workshops and to cover the costs of their own participation and simultaneous translations. There are also efforts to extend the working group to include discussion groups in five cities. These discussion groups would consist of interested and related local government representatives, representatives of ministries in the area, trade unionists and researchers interested in the issue of home-based work.
6-International Networks
A representative of the working group on women home-based workers in Turkey attended a workshop on informal sector and social security organized by the ILO/STEP (Strategies and Tools against Social Exclusion and Poverty Program of the ILO) and WIEGO (Women in Informal Sector Globalizing, Organizing). The members of the WG-WHW are in contact with the organizers of the International Feminist Economics Conference that will take place in Istanbul in August 2000 for a panel on women home-based workers.
The communications and collaborations between the members of the WG-WHW and representatives from ICRW, SEWA, HomeNet, WIEGO, UNIFEM and FES continue regarding future research, exchange programs, and international solidarity activities.
Simel Esim International Center for Research on Women Washington, D.C.
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