thumb|U.S. Secretary of State [[Hillary Clinton|Hillary Rodham Clinton and SEWA Executive Director Reema Nanavaty listen as women artisans share stories of their involvement with SEWA at the Hansiba Store in Mumbai, India, 18 July 2009.]]
thumb|Ela Bhatt, founder and past president of SEWA, appreciating the fabrics at Qalandia Women's Cooperative
Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA), meaning "service" in several Indian languages, is a trade union based in Ahmedabad, India, that promotes the rights of low-income, independently employed female workers. Nearly 2 million workers are members of SEWA across eight states in India. Self-employed women are defined as those who do not have a fixed employer–employee relationship and do not receive a fixed salary and social protection like that of formally-employed workers and therefore have a more precarious income and life. SEWA organises around the goal of full employment in which a woman secures work, income, food, and social security like health care, child care, insurance, pension and shelter. The principles behind accomplishing these goals are struggle and development, meaning negotiating with stakeholders and providing services, respectively. The organisation grew very quickly, with 30,000 members in 1996, to 318,527 in 2000, to 1,919,676 in 2013., and nearly 2 million in 2023. Even before the 2008 financial crisis, over 90% of India's working population was in the informal sector (Shakuntala 2015), and 94% of working women in 2009 worked in the informal sector (Bhatt 2009).
History
TLA and Gandhian roots
SEWA originated in 1972 as the Association's Women's Wing of Textile Labour Association (TLA), which was established by Gandhi in 1918. SEWA is located in Ahmedabad, India, the city where Gandhi's ashram still exists and once served to facilitate much of the Mahatma's work. Gandhi's ethos of collective mobilization led to the founding of TLA, which is a labour union generally concerned with textile labourers in the formal sector. Around the era of SEWA's establishment, Ahmedabad youths were enthusiastic to interact with the poor because of Gandhi's legacy in the city.
Ela Bhatt
In 1972, SEWA materialized first as a collective of women that worked outside the textile mills and other formalized sources of income—individuals not targeted by TLA. The former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saw Elaben Bhatt as one of her role models. Hillary visited SEWA first in 1995. In one of her speeches, she described Elaben as soft-spoken and a visionary leader.
Recent history
In June 2024 a one-of-its-kind insurance policy has started making payouts to tens of thousands of women across India to help them cope with the impact of extreme heat. This policy covers 50,000 women in 22 districts across the states of Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and Gujarat.
Tools for struggle and development
Organizing model
SEWA goes beyond being a labour union and additionally acts as a meeting point for poor, Indian women who are regularly marginalized across rural landscapes and isolated to urban slums. The model has spread from Ahmedabad to other parts of Gujarat as well as to other Indian states as part of the larger federation SEWA Bharat. SEWA's organizing model brings together women across castes and class who share experiences of labour exploitation. A survey of SEWA members show that its women achieve the goals of full employment and self-reliance through interpersonal recognition that also has been shown to increase productivity within the organization. SEWA serves as a model for successful bottom-up democratic organizations by emphasizing an organizational model.
Economic tools
SEWA established its own bank in 1974 called the Shri Mahila Sewa Sahakari Bank, or SEWA Cooperative Bank, as a way to circumvent corrupt banks, moneylenders, and other middlemen.
A large body of literature exists that critiques the merits of microcredit. Many (Keating, Rasmussen, Rishi 2015) argue that microcredits are indeed effective in bringing women into a liberated economy; however, the capitalist system women are introduced to is deeply violent and institutionally sexist. Mahajan (2005) argues that microcredit does nothing to promote economic growth for a nation as a whole for reasons that Surowiecki (2008) such as microloans stifling innovation and prohibiting job production—in otherwords stagnating business growth at "micro" level instead of "small" business level. Often, microloans simply have a crippling effect on the individual. A study by Jahiruddin (2011) of Bangladeshi microloan benefactors found that the poorest entrepreneurs (i.e. women) tend to be the most susceptible to business failure and increased debt because they have fewer resources as a safety net. The same study also found that entrepreneurs who reported worsening poverty also are the most dependent on microloans. Another study by Bhatt and Bhatt (2016) found that women in the program also find more self-esteem and confidence to conduct business. One reason for these differing experiences could be that SEWA provides both monetary support and financial guidance that other microloan programs do not. In fact, women who work in the informal economy are often subject to police harassment because street vending is illegal, which provokes unnecessary force from law enforcement. SEWA educates street vendors on how to apply for permits and work within the justice system. The method of research is variegated, too, from self-evaluation to surveys. In doing so, SEWA can assess its programming efficacy and determine what issues are most pressing for members. As a grassroots organization, SEWA researchers are members that undergo research training that thus provides another skill and connects women to education.
SEWA has interacted and has been advised by many law firms like HSA.
Employment
SEWA Mahila Housing Trust, founded by Renana Jhabvala among others, created the Karmika School for Construction Workers in 2003 to help train women in the construction trades. Women made up 51 percent of employees in construction trades in India in 2003, but most women in the construction industry had been unskilled labourers. After training at Karmika, according to a 2007 survey of graduates, 40 percent reported working 21–30 days per month as opposed to 26 percent who reported similar work days before training. 30 percent became helpers to masons, and 20 percent became masons themselves. These increases come mostly from small private construction projects, such as housing, but there was very little success placing women in the more profitable public sector infrastructure projects. SEWA's childcare cooperatives in Sangini and Shaishav, have helped more than 400 women get regular work as providers of childcare.
Income
In 1994, members' earnings were Rs 39 million for 32,794 women (about Rs 1200 average). By 1998, members' average earnings had risen to Rs 304.5 million for 49,398 women (about Rs 6164 average). This is from aggregate numbers including urban and rural workers. Most of this increase occurred in urban areas. SEWA has had more difficulty pushing for higher wages in rural areas, due to the excess supply of labour in those regions, which weakens the bargaining position of women. In the construction trades, skilled women workers earn comparable salaries to their male counterparts. Mahila Housing SEWA Trust's Karmika School helps women in the construction trades in India to gain those skills. Since 1992, Vimo SEWA has provided life and hospitalization insurance for its members and their families for as little as Rs 100 per person. Enrollment topped 130,000 people in 2005.
SEWA found that the very poor used this access to health care less than those slightly less poor. Some of the factors include distance to care providers and facilities and the "ex-post reimbursement" nature of health insurance, in which patients must pay upfront and then claim reimbursement. They continue studying the issue of how to bring access to all.
SEWA also has programs to improve water quality by training some of their members to repair pumps for wells and campaigning for underground water tanks for drought-prone areas. Also, SEWA has pushed for women to put their names on titles for property, in order to improve women's property rights.
Assets
The Shri Mahila Sewa Sahakari Bank, or SEWA bank, was created to help self-employed women gain access to financial resources. It began with 4000 women each contributing Rs 10.
Workers' leadership
In a 2007 survey of Karmika School graduates, 68 percent report more confidence in their work and higher status within the family.