In the world where we always repeat that woman is the ideal example of beauty, perfection and admiration, being witness with something totally contrary of this makes you feel pity!
Initial days of my journalistic career in India , I didn't draw that much attention to the places of construction over the streets and people working there as they mostly were with covered face and in long conventional clothes. Today , to my great astonishment, every single day I come across a building under construction
with women laborers lugging cement or other raw materials over their head.In every area you can be evidence of these “miserable scenes”: woman climbing the scaffoldings with the bricks, carrying soil,sand on their heads,
lifting heavy cement bags bricks ...other heavy loads, digging earth, mixing cement, breaking stones. Unable to speak a word! What to say? The thing that making me get shocked that much is a common daily view for Indians. This image of the woman smeared with dust is mark of that , if the woman is accepted to work in construction- it is the failure of society! As I dig more about the reasons of this, i found that lacks of women doing this tough male-dominated work.Tenuity and hardship, illiteracy and poverty , low level of skills are the principal reasons to the flow of all women’s to the construction industry. As per the latest Routers research, women accounts for half (51%) of the total construction labor force. They are almost exclusively unskilled, casual, uneducated, manual laborers. Another outraged side- inequality in wages,in attitude! These women earn a maximum 6 dollars only daily half of what men are paid, despite working rigorously like men.Together with, they often prone to safety hazards and sexual harassment at work. The situation is much more worse for those women’s came from villages- migrants- their living conditions so sorrowful: no water supplies and toilets, nowhere to leave children when they work. Even there are some private organizations like SEWA ( Self Employed Women’s Association) trying to do their bit in improving their working conditions! Grievous ! According to our perceptions, woman being a creature assimilated with kindness, care, grace and elegance, , beauty and sophistication that everyone look with respect and honour. That woman who compared with Goddess is doing black harsh man labour! It is rather unconventional and weird to see woman in construction site in my country, even though such families suffering from poverty and necessity , they do something else, solve his problem by another way, but the man who respect himself never allow his woman to carry stone or another loads. I can understand, thereis a human interest to one or another profession, for instance, some woman wants to be construction builder, mason master etc, but not all members of this gender! My great surprise to this desecration and humiliation of women’s of this community , push me to go and talk face to face with several women’s to ask their reasons to choose this rigorous life . Here are some of the opinions of people and their answers :
SOWMYA: (50 years old- working in Secunderabad private house building )
---- I live in Hyderabad. I have 4 children: 2 of them already married, 2 is with me. My husband died, God bless him. One of my son is working -he is driver. I am working in construction already several years, usually per day I get 500-600 rp for whole day working. My son doesn't mind my working here, we need food, my children are waiting at home; what we can do? I get pension- 1000 rp per month, What it will be? Not enough for living. This work very tough, physically hard work- but the payment is higher than other works. Other works like cleaner, etc- very less salary. We have to work.!
P.S. the article will be updated frequently with the fresh interviews with women's in construction work!
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