Self-Employed Women's Association, India

The Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) is an association founded in 1971, and based in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. It was officially registered as a trade union in 1972. SEWAs founder was Ela Ramesh Bhatt. SEWA was specifically created to protect self-employed poor women, who represent that sector of the labor force that does not enjoy the same welfare benefits of other workers. In India, poor women in the unorganized sector who earn their living handling small business are estimated to be a relevant portion of the actual labor force, but they have no voice, and their dignity as well as their rights are usually not recognized. SEWA was created with the specific purpose of helping and supporting these women through several initiatives. SEWAs main purpose is to organize women workers for full employment by allowing them to buy their own means of production. SEWA is not simply a trade union, as its history clearly shows. In fact, SEWA declared itself to be a sangam, or combination of three movements: the labor movement, the cooperative movement, and the women's movement.

SEWA originated from the women's wings of the Textile Labour Association (TLA), which was organized in 1920 by Anasuya Sarabhai, a Gujarati woman close to Mahatma Gandhi. SEWA is still very much ideologically linked to Gandhi's spirituality, and the principles followed by its members are clearly inspired by concepts like nonviolence and nondiscrimination. The guidelines of SEWA are truth, nonviolence, integration of all faiths and all people, propagation of local employment, and self-reliance.

Despite being part of the TLA, SEWA started, since the beginning, a number of independent initiatives to favor the emancipation of poor women workers. It promoted several activities in the field of money-lending specifically designed for poor women. One of the main problems that SEWA had to face was the urgent necessity of giving credit to poor women engaged in small businesses. In the 1970s, following an agreement with the Indira Gandhi government, the Bank of India provided poor workers with credit. In spite of the government's good intentions, the agreement did not work that well in practice, as SEWA soon realized, and poor women were often cut off from the credit because of their illiteracy and incapacity of dealing with the banking system. To overcome the difficulties related to the credit system, SEWA founded its own bank in 1974. The main goal was to give financial assistance to poor, illiterate women and establish a net of microcredit to sustain their activities. The new bank responded to the practical needs of dozens of women who were in need of money to continue their own independent work. The successful experience of SEWA in Gujarat prompted its promoters and leaders to expand the activities to other Indian states.

In 1981 SEWA and the TLA split, and the former became totally independent. The deterioration of relations between the two had begun some years before, when it had become clear that SEWAs interests and goals were often in conflict with those of the TLA, which represented workers in the organized sector. Since the 1980s, the number of SEWA initiatives grew remarkably; new cooperatives were created and new services were provided. In addition, SEWA started campaigns outside Gujarat and rooted itself in many other parts of India. Nowadays, SEWA is active not only on the Indian subcontinent but also internationally, having established a number of collaborative projects with nongovernmental organizations in Asia and Europe.

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