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White Black Legal – International Law Journal · ISSN 2581-8503
GENDER DISCRIMINATION AND SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN INDIA’S UNORGANISED SECTOR
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Abstract
GENDER DISCRIMINATION AND SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN INDIA’S
UNORGANISED SECTOR
AUTHORED BY
- G.DHRITIKA
1.
ABSTRACT
This paper aims to
examine and analyze the issue of gender discrimination and sexual harassment
endured by women in the unorganized sector in India. A large majority of
the country’s workforce are employed in the informal
sectors. This paper aims to understand how structural dynamics and the power
dynamic adversely affects female workers. It aims to analyze the various ways
through which gender discrimination and sexual harassment can be manifested.
The paper also aims to analyze if and how the labour legislations are
implemented. The paper also focuses on the need to empower the women of the
informal sector to attain growth in India
Keywords: unorganized sector, gender discrimination, sexual harassment, middlemen, wage gap, informal female worker, POSH Act 2013.
2. INTRODUCTION
In India, around 90% of
the working women[1] population are actively
engaged in the unorganized sector. The common misconception is that majority
population of the women are employed in office jobs or the
organized sector, but in reality, they are not. Women are employed in a wide
range of unorganized sector jobs like domestic help, carrying bricks on
construction sites, working
on agricultural fields,
making handicrafts that are sold on piece
rate or selling vegetables in the streets
to name a few. Though
our economic policy
boasts about the rise
in the female labour force and women’s
empowerment, the sad reality is these women are
often employees in low paying and highly strenuous and insecure jobs out of
necessity and financial survival. Being employed in the unorganized sector has
a lot of disadvantages, there is no employment contracts, no offer letters, no
fixed hours, no paid leave or maternity leave, no social security and basically
no job security at all. So, the women employed here are faced with a heavy
burden of economic exploitation and vulnerability.
Gender discrimination is deep rooted in the economy, women have always been paid less than men
for the exact
same position and work done.
They are often
pushed into low tier jobs which
have no growth possibility while men are made to learn skilled
jobs. In the unorganized sector, if a woman gets pregnant, she had no maternity leave and ends up losing her source of income.
The unorganized sector
is highly unstructured and unguarded. Sexual harassment is also a common risk
and threat for women workers. These women must endure crude comments, unwanted touching
and also extortion
where the contractor or employer often demands sexual favors in exchange of giving work
of paying wages. There are no
safeguards or protection for these migrant women workers who travel far for
employment.
Very often,
caste class and poverty are also a reason for discrimination in the workplace. A big portion of the informal
sector is made up of women from marginalized communities who lead a hand to mouth
existence. Employers and contractors often
exploit their inability to protest or speak up against the injustices done
to them. Even if they speak up they are at a risk of being fired or blacklisted in the local area. Harassment has become a normal occurrence and has just become another cost of doing
business.
Though there are laws
like POSH Prevention Of women from Sexual Harassment Act and criminal
provisions under the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, these laws mostly protect only the
women employees in organized sectors, but they are supposed to protect all the
women of the country. Most of the women
employed in the informal sector
are not even aware that there are such committees to help them and even
if they know of such committees the process is too slow and complicated which
is not affordable by daily wage workers.
Essentially the women
employed in the informal and unorganized sectors of the nation are subject to
high amounts of financial and economic insecurity and instability and sexual vulnerability.
3. THE
STRUCTURAL DYNAMICS OF THE UNORGANISED SECTOR
The formal
and corporate sector,
the workplace is clearly defined
and is it exactly restricted to the office building or a factory. But in the case of
unorganized sectors, the workplace is not clearly defined. The workplace is
very vague and can overlap between public and private spaces. For a woman who is a domestic
worker, her workplace
is someone else’s home, and it
is essentially hidden from the public and hence it is shielded from any kind of
formal intervention, which would make it very easy for the employer to exploit
the female worker. Even in the cases of construction sites or agricultural
lands, the workplace is the physical location and doesn’t provide its workers
with from basic infrastructure like boundary walls, secure rooms, proper toilets
or changing rooms. It is the similar
situation for street vendors too, as
their workplace is the street,
and they are exposed to constant traffic
and passersby’s. Since the boundaries of work are so poorly and vaguely defined,
it becomes very difficult and almost
impossible to use regulations and surveillance methods used in the formal
sectors to maintain accountability and safety.
This kind of a lose
structure allows employers and contracts to exploit their powers to the workers
disadvantage. In the informal sectors, there are no written contracts or
employment letters or any kind of documents which show the proof of work. The
wages are irregular and unpredictable, and employers and middlemen often
withhold a portion
of the wages that are to
be paid fairly to the workers. Since
informal workers have no kind of social
security protections like insurance, sick leaves or provident funds
they can’t miss even a single day of work.
If they miss even a single
day of work or get a sudden medical issue, they will be forced to take a
handloan from a local moneylender with no regulations on the rates of interest.
This lack of structure
in the workplace forces laborers to become heavily dependent on their
subcontractors, landowners, agents or middlemen, as they control their daily
work conditions like daily wage rates and work to be done. In such a case, when
a woman refuses to do extra work or questions the exploitation of power by the subcontractor or demands for her withheld wages or protests against
unwanted sexual advances and abuse from the contractor, the contractor doesn’t
just criticize or scold her, he would
just stop assessing her work. This would
directly affect the worker as without the subcontractor to assess her work and
pay her daily wages, she has no other way to earn for her work. And because of the heavy dependence on
these subcontractors, any black mark given to the worker by a subcontractor
would result in the immediate loss of livelihood for the worker and
blocklisting from employment in nearby local labour.
4. GENDER DISCRIMINATION IN THE UNORGANISED SECTORS
The gender
discrimination in the unorganized sector is not just an isolated event. It
forms the core of the foundation that drives the labour market. The formal
sector often aims to adopt a view of board level equality and equal pay
policies whereas the informal sector operates on a strict and rigid gender based hierarchy,
where a worker’s gender directly influences and dictates
what work she is allowed to do, how much she is paid for the work she
does and how easily she can be removed from work if she can’t
meet the requirements of strenuous manual
labour. This deeprooted gender discrimination gives rise to three evil
and damaging results like wage disparities, occupational segregation and
maternity penalties.
4.1.
WAGE AND PAY GAP
The gender
based pay gap is very widespread and completely normalized in india. Even though
there are multiple statutory measures like the Code on Wages,2019 which make it mandatory for workers to get paid
equally for similar work[2],
these laws are not implemented in ground level in places like construction
sites, farms or brick kilns etc. In the case of daily wage agricultural labour,
the daily rates of wages are purposefully divided on the basis of gender[3].
The male laborers receive higher daily wages because of the incorrect
assumption that male manual labour is more intensive and valuable. Even in the
case of construction sites, the men aka mazdoors earn much higher than the
daily rate earned by a female worker for doing the exact same manual carrying
work in the exact same site. This gender based
discriminations in pay
becomes even more pronounced when the wages are given on piece rate. The middlemen set extremely low piece
rates for homebased workers. Since these women work from their home, the
middlemen further isolates them from other workers and makes it unable for the
suppressed workers to negotiate collectively. Employers and contractors justify this wage gap and
claim that the income earned by women is just a supplement to the household
earnings by the man of the
house. But in reality a large number of women in the informal sector are the
primary providers or the co breadwinner on whose incomes the family depends on.
And because there are no pay slips or wage registers, any kind of systematic
wage cuts go unchallenged.
4.2.
OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION
The unorganized sector
depends heavily on the occupational segregation for keeping women workers
confined and restricted to specific low value roles and reserving high paying
and supervisory positions to the male workers.
-
Horizontal segregation
Women in the unorganized sectors are assigned
tasks which are usually labelled
as female work like physically exhausting and
labour intensive tasks. In agriculture, the male workers are usually assigned
to drive tractors, manage the irrigation and handle sales
in the markets whereas the women
workers are restricted to jobs like hand weeding,
transplanting paddy seedlings and harvesting. Jobs like these require the women to bend down
and work in wet fields for long hours for very minimal pay. Even in construction, male workers are assigned skilled
work like masonry, carpentry,
plumbing and electrical work while the women are given physically demanding tasks like carrying
pans of mortar, gravel and bricks up and down the construction site.
-
Vertical segregation
The opportunity for
women in the informal sector to rise in ranks upwards is basically impossible
and non existent. For instance, a
female worker working in construction for a significant amount of time carrying
load across the site is almost never promoted to a job that requires skill or a job that gives her supervisory powers.
The supervisory roles which are given
a higher pay and have authority over how the work is distributed is almost only
given to male workers. This lack of opportunity for women to move upwards
creates an unfair
power dynamic and restricts
women to stay in the bottom of the ladder and forces them to just take order
and accept arbitrary wage rates set by male contractors and supervisors.
4.3.
MATERNITY
PENALTIES
The most hurtful and unfair form of gender
discrimination in the informal sector
is the penalty that is imposed on women. In the formal sector, women
employees are protected under the Maternity Benefit Act[4] which mandates paid leave,
job security and health support given by the employer and the organization during pregnancy and childbirth. However, in the unorganized sectors, pregnancy is not treated
like a natural life event that needs support. But it
is instead seen as a financial burden and an excuse and reason for termination.
Since there are no kinds of written contracts or leave policies, a pregnant
worker from the informal sector receives no paid leave when she requires it for
anu kind of prenatal care of recovery from pregnancy. From when she stops
attending her work which consists mainly of heavy manual labour, her income
stops completely. In jobs like construction and agriculture, women are always
forced to perform manual labour like heavy lifting and bending and working for
long hours during the sensitive times of pregnancy like the third trimester just to ensure
livelihood. The woman worker
continues to face challenges even after she gives. She cant bring
her infant child to the
workplace which is usually unsafe and as there are no facilities to take care
of the child like creches, nursing breaks or other facilities. Hence she is
forced to leave her child at home unattended. Even after they return, the contractors treat them as though they are new and
untrained workers and reset their previous work conditions and demote them to beginner
level jobs which forces them to accept lower wages or less frequent
work.
5. SEXUAL HARASSMENT
In the unorganized
sector, sexual harassment has become an everyday mechanism to control labour. Due to the absence of Human resource
departments or written
contracts or any kind of formal complaining processes, sexual
harassment takes place in multiple forms and exploits the extreme economic and
financial situation of women workers.
In the corporate
sphere, quid pro quo harassment would involve compensations or bonus. But in
the informal economy, there is no such concept. Contractors and middlemen use
sexual favors to extort women[5] who get hired for daily labour to get her wages paid or retained
for the next season.
A daily wage worker may be told that she will get paid her wages or get work for
the next week only if she submits to sexual favors. Most workers are forced to
submit as their living depends on the daily wage, and the contractor determines
her wages. In the informal sector, the environment is very hostile. Women are
often bombarded with provocative jokes and lewd comments and are exposed to a
very dangerous environments. There are no toilet facilities which force women
stay dehydrated to avoid using the restroom. If we were to look at a sector specific
analysis of sexual harassment in the informal
sector, we understand that harassment takes
on different forms. In the case of domestic workers, the place of work is a
private house hold which is not open for the public view.
Domestic workers face risks of verbal,
physical and sexual abuse by male employers or other family members. And
because they operate alone, the chance of proving abuse
is not possible and reporting such abuse often
leads to firing or blacklisting. In the case of construction workers, in
the construction sites, women are under the control of the subcontractors.
There is a total absence of toilets which force women to use secluded spots to
relieve themselves which exposes them to assault. Migrant workers are more
disadvantaged as they live onsite and the women are left vulnerable even after working
hours. In the agricultural sector,
sexual harassment in propagated in the form of
feudal power of the landowners and caste dominance. Upper caste landowners
regularly sexually harass lower caste female farm workers as they don’t speak
out. In the case of street vendors, on one side they face bribe extortion from
state actors like police officers and municipal inspector who threaten to
confiscate their goods or evict them from their vending spot. On the other
hand, they have to put up with the constant harassment from market middlemen and male buyers.
Women workers face a lot of psychological and financial turmoil because of these kinds of harassment. Most women experience chronic anxiety, depression and PTSD and have no access to mental health support. To avoid an abusive contractor if women
may choose to skip work or take unexpected leaves, they lose income. This also
normalizes abuse which is completely unacceptable.
6. LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORK
The legal framework for
protecting women workers in India are designed to ensure equality and dignity
of women. Article 14[6]
guarantees equal treatment before the law, Article
15[7]
prohibits gender discrimination, and Article 19(1)(g)[8] protects
the right to earn a living which is a right that often gets stripped
away whenever unsafe work conditions or pay bias force women out of their jobs. Article 21[9]
guarantees the right to life with dignity, which the Supreme Court made clear
in Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan[10]
includes working in a safe environment free from sexual harassment. However, it
has been nearly impossible to bring these guidelines to be properly implicated
in the unorganised sectors.
To address workplace
abuse across all sectors, the Protection of Women from Sexual Harassment (POSH) Act of 2013 expanded the traditional
definition of a workplace under Section 2(o)[11] to include private
homes, farms, construction grounds, and street
sites. Because informal
setups don't have corporate HR departments, Section 6[12]
of the Act mandates district-level Local
Committees to handle
complaints from workplaces with under ten workers or cases where the direct
employer is the accused.
When informal women
workers face severe assault or harassment, criminal law under the Bharatiya
Nyaya Sanhita provides primary legal remedies. Section 74 of the BNS penalizes
physical force used to outrage a woman's modesty, Section 75 directly criminalizes
sexual harassment like unwanted touching or demands for sexual favors, and
Section 78 targets stalking. While the procedural rules under the Bharatiya
Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita allow women to file a Zero-FIR at any police station
regardless of location, informal female workers still face heavy obstacles on
the ground. Lacking written contracts, pay slips, or social standing, they often run into hostile
or indifferent police
officers who push them to stay
silent or compromise with powerful contractors.
Though there are
multiple legislations and recent consolidations of previous labour laws, there
still exists a gap between what is mandated to happen and what actually
happens. The Code on Wages (2019) mandates equal pay regardless of gender, but
offers no real way to stop illegal wage cuts in cash-based daily work. The
Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code of 2020 leaves out
small, unregistered setups by only inspecting workplaces that meet specific
worker thresholds. Though the Social Security Code of 2020 lets informal
workers register on platforms like e-Shram, it doesn't force casual contractors or employers to pay into social security funds. This leaves
informal female workers completely exposed to sudden wage loss or firing
whenever they try to speak up against abuse.
7. CONCLUSION
The gender
discrimination and sexual harassment that takes place in the informal sector in
India has become disturbingly normalized and has become
deeply rooted in how the
informal sector controls and operates their labour force. Many women who
enter the unorganized sector to sustain their families end up getting trapped
in vicious cycles that exploit them physically
when they are left financially and socially insecure.
And due to a lack of written contracts and registration, the
workers lose their ability to demand for equal pay or a safe environment.
Though India has a very
strong legal framework designed to address these issues, these legislations
often fail to protect the women workers who need it the most. These codes are
more well suited to the formal framework
which makes it almost impossible for a daily wage
woman worker to seek legal remedies. The district level local committees are
still very inaccessible and are very insensitive to disputes. If a woman worker
was to go and complain to the police, she would be putting herself in a lot of
social and financial risk and there is no proper documentation of proof of work
which would leave the woman worker with no basic proof and documents to
substantiate her claims. Women will not be truly empowered unless all women,
including women in the informal sectors are protected and secured from social
and financial dangers. Protecting the physical safety, economic rights and
safety of informal female workers is not just for labour reform. It is
absolutely required to achieving a state of absolute gender justice and
equality and ensuring inclusive growth in India.
[1] Periodic Labour
Force Survey (PLFS),
Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Govt. of India, Annual Report 2022–23 (2023).
[2] Code on Wages, No. 29 of 2019, India Code (2019);
Randhir Singh v. Union of India, A.I.R.
1982 S.C. 879 (India).
[3] International Labour
Organization [ILO], Global
Wage Report 2020–21
(2020).
[4] The Maternity
Benefit Act, No. 53 of 1961, India Code (1961);
Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, No. 6 of
2017, India Code (2017); Municipal Corporation of Delhi v. Female Workers
(Muster Roll), A.I.R. 2000 S.C. 1274
(India).
[5] The Protection of Women from Sexual Harassment at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, No. 14 of 2013, § 2(o), India Code (2013).
[6] The Constitution of India,
art. 14
[7] The Constitution of India,
art. 15
[8] The Constitution of India,
art. 19, cl.
1(g)
[9] The Constitution of India,
art. 21
[10] Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan, (1997)
6 S.C.C. 241 (India).
[11] The Protection of Women from Sexual Harassment at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, No. 14 of 2013, § 2(o),
India Code (2013)
[12] The Protection of Women from Sexual Harassment at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, No. 14 of 2013, § 6, India Code (2013)
How to Cite This Article
G.DHRITIKA, GENDER DISCRIMINATION AND SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN INDIA’S UNORGANISED SECTOR., White Black Legal – International Law Journal, ISSN: 2581-8503, Vol. Volume 4, Issue VOLUME 4 ISSUE 2, October 2026, pp. 186-197. Available at: https://www.whiteblacklegal.co.in/details/gender-discrimination-and-sexual-harassment-in-indias-unorganised-sector
Author & Publication Record
Authors: G.DHRITIKA
Registration ID: 107133 | Published Paper ID: WBL7133
Year: Oct- 2026 | Volume: 4 | Issue: 2
Approved ISSN: 2581-8503 | Country: Delhi, India
Page No.: 186-197
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