It is a quiet and breezy evening in Thuthipet in Ambur, a sleepy town off the Bengaluru-Chennai highway. A team of us from Cividep walks into the narrow Indira Nagar lane by the Palar river. We are looking for a lesser-known facet of Ambur: the tireless women workers who painstakingly work from home to stitch together branded shoes for big factories. Their paychecks might be small but their welcomes are generous. Sandhya M (52) and daughter Suganya look up from their stitching of ‘uppers’ and ‘bottoms’ to offer us the ‘thinnai’. A bright mat is spread on the ‘thinnai’, the classic hangout outside traditional South Indian homes. Time seems to have stood still for Sandhya and her family in many other ways. “I have been stitching uppers for 36 years, ever since I got married,” says Sandhya. Now her daughter and daughter-in-law have joined the ‘family’ enterprise. Next door, her sister-in-law Mallika too is busy with shoe work. “Doing it from the age of 8,” she chips in. Slide through these photos, videos, and read observations from the Cividep team, which was in Ambur for a bi-annual team meeting. 

Mallika shares this verandah with her extended family and they all do is leather work – either from home or at factories. She would like to take a break but can’t afford it. Her sons, who didn’t pursue their studies, have become contract workers in the leather industry.

The availability of work encourages people like Suganya (centre) to move to Ambur. She is back in her hometown with her husband. But Suganya doesn’t want the younger generation in this line of work, which has no prospects. Seen here with her mother Sandhya (left) and sister-in-law.

Though it may look like an easy source of income, many women like these elders sustain entire families through painful hours of stitching, all for Rs. 8-15 a pair.

Your earnings depend on your speed. “I am slow. After doing all the housework, I can finish one box (10 shoes) in only 4 days,” smiles Arifa. She earns Rs. 170 while her mother-in-law can quickly ready costlier shoes that get her Rs. 15 per pair.

Fancy pairs like these fetch homeworkers a higher rate. There is a price difference when it comes to uppers and bottoms. It is Rs. 4 per shoe for the top part while it is Rs.12-15 per pair for the bottom part.

An old woman worker carries shoes in a bag while a schoolgirl looks for her mates in this Ambur locality one evening. It is quite possible that the girl might take up stitching work during her free time and even take to it full-time like several other youngsters from these areas.

Two children browse the phone after school. They are surrounded by shoes waiting to be stitched – its omnipresence makes such a vocation hard to avoid. Adolescents who can contribute to a family’s income could be discouraged from higher education and other career options. But it is hard to say what’s right for these youngsters. ‘Many youngsters manage to pay tuition fees or buy stationery with the savings from it,’ says Programme Manager Parvathi Madappa. A high school girl confided to Research Associate Kaveri MT that she used her meagre earnings to buy undergarments for herself.

The seasonal nature of work leads to an inevitable rush to take up as many orders as one can, in the peak season. Project Coordinator Deepak Nikarthil observed how this could lead to many health issues. Women spend hours on end straining their eyes, hands, and backs. The most visible impacts are the cuts sustained on their palms. The only protection from these - self-made leather thimbles fashioned from surplus leather sourced from shoe factories.

After almost a decade of awareness, research, and advocacy work, the local Cividep team in Ambur has been able to bring together many of these women into a worker collective. It has managed to create awareness about their rights, helps them with collective bargaining efforts, and offers mutual support and solidarity. Executive director Deepika Rao was happy to see the workers’ confidence and trust blossoming due to the efforts of the local Cividep team consisting of Elamathi, Soniya, Gokulavasan, and Project Coordinator Kohila Senbagam.

Ambur is one of India’s largest leather manufacturing clusters and caters to international markets. The leather factories have been outsourcing the hand-stitching of shoe parts to homemakers in and around factories for years now. Cividep’s field surveys estimate that more than 10,000 women are home-based workers, and are recruited informally through networks of intermediaries or agents of factories (report here). However, these workers are not recognised by most factories and international brands despite research reports and awareness campaigns. So, the pay is poor, health risks abound and there is no social security. The pressure during the peak season of orders is an additional burden. Cividep has been working at multiple levels to improve awareness levels among these women, and undertake research to bring to light the working conditions of such workers.

Want to assist these women and their families? Support our work here.

 We have done very good work over the last 8-9 years in Ambur. This level of confidence from workers, familiarity, and trust, to build it from scratch – is a humongous task achieved. But we have miles to go still…It is important to acknowledge our achievements, especially that of the project teams that have been here for years. But we must put our heads together for what is next. What is the bigger goal we can set for ourselves that our projects can contribute to?

Deepika Rao

Executive Director

The visit of the team to Ambur is such a wonderful innovation! It’s a remarkable decision to reverse the travel: from the ‘centre’ to the periphery’. I’m sure that this is a conscious decision to get all of us to be more grounded in where vulnerable workers live, struggle and produce for the global markets.

Gopinath Parakuni

Director, Strategy

After, two decades the Cividep team meeting was held at our outreach site in Ambur. It is a remarkable step. I can see the team’s natural enthusiasm in the meeting with marginalized communities and understanding their working conditions.

N Kaliyaperumal

Worker Training & Research Support Officer

Capacitating worker leaders through soft skills training and public speaking will be essential. Their participation in mobilizing workers for training and awareness events is applaudable. 

Gokhularaj R.

Project Coordinator - Electronics Sector