Existing on the Edge: Women in the Informal Sector

The informal sector is a very important sector for many African households. It is the source of income to millions of men and women across the continent. The informal sector is also responsible for day to day upkeep of families, enabling household survive and provide for basic necessities such as food, clothing , shelter and  education for children and other dependants. According to the UN, in South Asia, over 80% of women in non-agricultural jobs are in the informal sector, in Sub-Saharan Africa, 74% of women are in in the informal sector whereas in Latin America ,  the population is 54%[1]. In Ghana for example, 80 percent of the Ghanaian workforce is employed in the informal sector. The sector is characterised by bad working conditions, uncertain work relationship, informal workers can be self-employed such traders, agro-processes, fisheries and are found in both rural and urban areas[2].In rural areas, labour within the informal sector is derived from family, casual /permanent and sometimes from child labour.[3]

The unemployment rate is increasing on daily basis evidenced by rural to urban migration and  people entering the job market from learning institutions overwhelm the ability of governments to provide jobs in the formals  sector. There is an imbalance between the available jobs and the population seeking jobs, making the informal sector the available option. In 2019, for example roughly 768 thousand new jobs were created in the informal sector in Kenya. While the creation of new jobs in the informal category had a steady development during the period, the formal sector dealt with some decreases. Kenya has one of the biggest informal labor markets in Africa. This can be attributed to an inability of the formal sector to absorb the huge number of job seekers[4].

The informal sector across Africa is characterised by  weak structures to support it in terms of legislations , lack of protection mechanisms, temporary and survival for the fittest at its best as well as a sector that is highly criminalised. In the informal sector , when a worker gets injured , many a times there is no compensation because they  are more likely not to have a contract. The best  the employee is given is pain killers , a bandage and a day off. It does not matter whether this temporary employee does not have  money to take them to hospital , the burden of the injury is eventually  transferred to the family  to cater for. The scuffles existing between hawkers and city or municipal council inspectorates has a lot to do with the  right to belong  in the city and informal sector being considered illegal.

Informal  sector is temporary in nature. Many a times  people working in this sector , engage in the sector as  they look towards what to do next. Everyone in the informal sector is always looking for their big break. In the informal sector  for example  one day you have opportunities the next day they are dwindled. For instance, if you work in the construction sector locally known as mjengo in Kenya , on Monday you may get a job digging a foundation , but the next day you can easily be rendered redundant , another example is the transient nature of the  informal sector. Today you could find a hawker on Moi Avenue selling wares by the roadside , tomorrow the hawker may not be found on the same street, either they have been arrested by City Council askaris[5] or have shifted to another street.

The working conditions within the informal sector depends mostly on the agreement between the employer and employee. Many a times there are no contracts or the contracts are oral and there lacks mechanisms of workman's compensation in case of injury. The sector is also characterised by long working hours  and low pay. The pay is either weekly or daily and depending on where one is employed. When in the informal sector, worker’s rights do not apply, this is especially because of lack of contracts and sometimes the agreements are verbal. There are also instances when employees  get punished for wrongs or accidents that take place while at work. For example, breaking a glass  while employed in a roadside eatery ,  the cost of the glass is  deducted from what the employee would be given at the end of the day. Sometimes work involves standing for long hours  for example those who work as loaders , the employee is forced to continue working because when you refuse of complain, there are millions looking for the same job you are complaining about.

In the agricultural sector , informal workers have to contend with a lot of challenges. For example, apart from long working hours, they also get exposed to pesticides when working in plantations. These exposures may lead to  chest  infections or body rashes which require medical attention. Cases of sexual abuse in return for promotion also affect mostly women and when they complain they get fired or demoted, leading to many women suffering in silence within the workplace. Additionally, single women may be more vulnerable to sexual abuse than married women within the workplace setting.

The highest population of those engaged in the informal sector are women. They are  found in sectors such as building and construction, mining, hospitality, food production  among others. Women  being the higher population in the informal sector , suffer from a variety of challenges. For example, women engaged in roadside vending  or hawking  are  often in constant  struggle with the city council of municipality officials  as they get arrested for vending in non-designated areas. During arrests, hawkers lose their wares as many a times the wares get confiscated by the City Council officials and in the process get lost. This means that there is no stock of the next day and the hawker has to either not  go back to the streets to sell their wares or get some sort of soft loan  to continue the next day or get money from their savings if they are lucky enough to have some form of savings. In some instances, during arrests hawkers suffer from violence and there have been incidences of loss of life , loss of teeth[6] and injury to other parts of the body.

As domestic workers , women suffer from overwork characterised by long working hours and at times they are victims of sexual violence in the workplace. Sometimes women who wash clothes for a living get denied their pay after working for an entire day, mark you this is someone who has children at home who depend on  the mother’s daily wages for survival. Other times domestic workers get accused  falsely  for example if things are misplaced in the house , it is the domestic help who becomes the first suspect. Other times they get denied food or have to eat left overs. This  is something that is  reported many a times on the media especially for those women who seek jobs as domestic workers in houses in the Middle East , in extreme cases there has been death  in unclear circumstances of domestic workers.[7]

Women who hawk go hawking with their children. Sometimes the children get exposed to cold as the sales within urban centres are often at peak during evenings when people come from work. Furthermore, these children undergo trauma and anxiety especially when mothers have to run away with young children to escape arrests by city inspectorate officers. Sometimes, these children have to do their homework on the streets as they keep their mothers company.

Illness of a breadwinner in the informal sector means deepening into poverty. When someone gets sick family members and friends make contributions for hospital, woe unto the family if the illness takes long to heal or leads to any form of incapacitation. This may mean disrupted sources of livelihoods.

There is a lot of anxiety when you work in the informal sector. These ranges from anxiety over your job, whether you will get customers, whether you will get arrested while hawking or your goods will get confiscated. Furthermore, weather elements such as rain and sunshine affect people in the informal sector especially roadside vendors. When it rains, hawkers cannot sell their products as consumers are rushing home to protect themselves from being rained on. Sometimes women traders come to the market only to find the market demolished without a warning and a private developed putting up a building in the space. In such scenarios, do we ever imagine the stresses these women traders go through when they watch their stock go to waste? what of the hundreds of mouths that depend on these informal traders for food and upkeep.

More needs to be done to make the informal  sector more habitable. This is because without the sector, millions of people will not have sources of livelihood especially in Africa. The harassment and demeaning treatment of persons in the informal sector should stop because this sector though informal is very key.

References 

Cover Photo Credit @https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52214740

[1] https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/csw61/women-in-informal-economy

[2] https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/ghana/10496.pdf

[3] ibid

[4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1134125/formal-and-informal-new-jobs...

[5] Askari is a Kiswahili word meaning guard or city council inspectorate officers

[6] https://businesstoday.co.ke/nairobis-stubborn-hawker-unfazed-loss-three-...

[7] https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/national/article/2001411614/the-curse-of...