Background: With the rapid increase in construction sector, the number of female construction workers is increased. The problems of women worker is still not addressed adequately by health sector. Aims and objective: The present study is aimed to explore problems of female workers at construction sites in working environment and to document issues like gender bias, living conditions, vulnerability and slackness of health among female working in construction field. Methodology: This was a Cross sectional study conducted in May 2011in which all females working at the randomly selected construction site were enrolled. The pre-designed semi-structured questionnaire was prepared to study the participant’s response. In-depth interview technique was also used to strengthen the findings. Results: Total of 118 female construction workers participated in the study with mean age found to be 22 years with SD of 6 years. Mean daily wages of female was 120 Rs while for male it was 245 Rs which is double than what female getting. Major health complaints were fatigue/weakness (61 %), backache (30 %), cough (17.5 %), fever (17 %), skin itching (10.5 %) and diarrhoea (7 %). They were not even using the government medical facility due to lack of awareness and knowledge about this. No safety measures provided to female as compare to male except at 2 sites where female were provided ‘gloves’. Some (6%) of the working females has abuse of chewing tobacco daily or smoking ‘bidi’. The living condition was merely enough to provide any privacy for female. Conclusion: As migratory and floating population, female working in construction field needs attention. Lack of social security and family support make them a vulnerable group for addiction and violence. Alternate way for providing healthcare for these women should be sort out early

Bansal, R K

Chawada, B L

Gharat, V V

Kantharia, S L

English

Indian Journal of Community Health

Indian Journal of Community Health, Vol. 24, No. 1, Jan. 2012 - March 2012                                                                                                                                                ( 19)            Plight of female construction workers of Surat cityBL Chawada1, VV Gharat2, RK Bansal3, SL Kantharia41Resident, 4Professor and Head, Department of Community Medicine, Government Medical College, Surat, 2Resident,  3Professor and Head, Department ofCommunity Medicine, Surat Municipal Institute of Medical Education and Research, Surat.AbstractBackground: With the rapid increase in construction sector, the number of female construction workers is increased. The problems of women worker isstill not addressed adequately by health sector.Aims and objective: The present study is aimed to explore problems of female workers at construction sites in working environment and to documentissues like gender bias, living conditions, vulnerability and slackness of health among female working in construction field.Methodology: This was a Cross sectional study conducted in May 2011in which all females working at the randomly selected construction site wereenrolled. The pre-designed semi-structured questionnaire was prepared to study the participant’s response. In-depth interview technique was also used tostrengthen the findings.Results: Total of 118 female construction workers participated in the study with mean age found to be 22 years with SD of 6 years. Mean daily wages offemale was 120 Rs while for male it was 245 Rs which is double than what female getting. Major health complaints were fatigue/weakness (61 %),backache (30 %), cough (17.5 %), fever (17 %), skin itching (10.5 %) and diarrhoea (7 %). They were not even using the government medical facility dueto lack of awareness and knowledge about this. No safety measures provided to female as compare to male except at 2 sites where female were provided‘gloves’. Some (6%) of the working females has abuse of chewing tobacco daily or smoking ‘bidi’. The living condition was merely enough to provide anyprivacy for female.Conclusion: As migratory and floating population, female working in construction field needs attention. Lack of social security and family support makethem a vulnerable group for addiction and violence. Alternate way for providing healthcare for these women should be sort out early.Keywords: Construction workers, Female health, Gender bias 	IntroductionConstruction sector is next to Agriculture in terms of em-ployment and income contribution to the Indian Economy.Modernization and industrialization has paved a good wayto the construction industry. There are more than 20 mil-lion of construction workers in India at present1. The con-struction sector is one of the largest employers of womennext to agriculture in India2.Construction work is often described as dirty, difficult anddangerous job. It is one of the most hazardous and accidentprone activities as reported by International Labour Orga-nization (ILO). Construction sectors involves work that arehighly unsafe like working in an excess height, welding,cutting, centering, carry staff to high place without use ofany kind of technology. Globally, 17% of all work-relatedfatalities are in the construction sector (ILO)3.So far as women construction workers are concerned theirconditions is even worse. Women construction workers maycarry single loads of up to 51 KG, far more than the weightlimit recommended by occupation safety and health stan-dards for women. They also tend to carry heavier loads whenthey have to climb up a job site and in repetition of thistakes a toll on the women, and their bodies3.Of these, female workers represent a small, unknown num-ber, but now they are increasingly working in urban projects.The problems of women worker is still not addressed ad-equately both by law makers and the employer4.Address for Correspondence:Dr. Bansari Chawada, Department of Community Medicine, Government Medical College, Surat, Gujarat.Email ID: bansarichawada@yahoo.comIndian Journal of Community Health, Vol. 24, No. 1, Jan. 2012 - March 2012                                                                                                                                                ( 20)            Surat city is observing boom in construction industry whichhas resulted in huge migratory floating population. Thepresent study is aimed to document gender bias among fe-male construction workers and problems faced by themwhile on work.Aims and objective1) To explore problems of female  workers at con-struction sites  in working environment2) To document issues like gender bias, livingconditions,vulnerability and slackness of healthamong female working in construction field.Material & methodsThis was a Cross sectional study conducted in May 2011.Construction site were selected by Random samplingmethod using lottery technique. Total of 8 sites were ob-served and visited. All female working at that site duringthe study period were included in the study. Before con-ducting the study, verbal consent of the participants wastaken after explaining them about the study purpose andobjective. Permission from the contractor was also taken toget the maximum co-operation and support from the work-ers. Some in-formal interviews of female workers were con-ducted to create rapport with them as well to know their lifestyle and living condition before actual data collection. Anin depth interview guide was prepared covering all issuesof interest which were needed to be explore. A semi struc-tured questionnaire was prepared to study the participant’sresponse based on the findings of indepth interviews.An ice-breaking time of around 10 minutes prior to the ac-tual start of the in-depth interview was given to allow forfilling out necessary paperwork, to make participants com-fortable and settling for privacy. In-depth interviews wereconducted until saturation of responses was acquired. Totalof 14 indepth interview were carried out at participants’house, which was a closed space taking care of the privacy,until the response saturated. Time for interview was chosenas per the participant’s choice so as to minimize any timerelated constraint.Transcribe was made immediately after the interview wascompleted. Data entry and analysis was done by using Epiinfo software.BL Chawada et al: Plight of female construction workers of Surat cityResultsGeneral profile of the study participants:Total of 118 female construction workers were contactedin the study. The study population belonged to various statesof the country. The distribution is given below in table 1.Mean age of the female construction workers was found tobe 22 years with SD of 6 years. According to respondents,mean age of entering in this profession was 16 years. Around70% of female were married, 29 % were unmarried while1% was widow. Literacy rate was found to be merely 22 %while 78 % of female were illiterate as shown in figure 1.One interesting fact which came out of this study was thataround 1 % of the participants were working only duringtheir vacation period from school as they were continuingtheir high school studies. On further exploring this issue ofworking during vacations, they said that they were workingto collect money to procure books for high school study.Resulting emerging themes found from the analysis are asfollows:Liking about the work:Approximately 84% females dislike their current work.When ask for reasons for the dislike, 30% of the femaleTable 1: Distr ibution of the population according  to the hometown vil lage (n=118)  State Population Gujarat 39 % Maharashtra  26 % Madhya Pradesh 22 % Uttar Pradesh 12 % Jharkhand  1 % Figure 1: Literacy rate among female  construction workers  				Indian Journal of Community Health, Vol. 24, No. 1, Jan. 2012 - March 2012                                                                                                                                                ( 21)            reveal that they are not comfortable to work out side home-town village. Among them 60% of the female were feelingunsecured to work in cities. “I don’t like it here, I miss theopen fields and lazing around in my village, I am scared ofthe roads and vehicles in the cities and it is not safe to goalone anywhere here.” was the answer of 26 year old fe-male from Kotkham, Maharashtra. While asking for work-ing comfort it was found that majority of female (40%) werehaving fear while work at height. “I scared of work whileon height but what to do? Most of time as building con-struction grows; we have to work on height” (22 years,Talavadi, MP).Gender bias and working pattern:Mean daily wages of female was 120 Rs while for male itwas 245 Rs which is double than what female getting. So adefinite disparity was seen in wages of male and femaleworkers. All females were involved in unskilled labour workwhile male counters have involved in some skilled and un-skilled works according to female respondents. Main workallotted to female was to carry materials like sand, bricks,cement etc. Mean working hours in a day was around 9 hrswith a range of 8 to 12 hrs a day excluding 1 hr lunch break.They were not getting any holiday in their work and noextra money for overtime. No safety measures provided tofemale as compare to male except at 2 sites where femalewere provided ‘gloves’. It was observed and also said bysome respondents that female doesn’t wore shoes or‘chappal’ at working site while male use the same. “We don’tuse shoes at work as its makes cumbersome to walk onuneven surface,” was the explanation given by one of theworker from Talavdi, Rajasthan.Health status of the female worker:Around 11% female had experienced physical injury withbleeding in last one year including 2% of major injury. Ma-jority of the injuries were observed to be on lower limb.Figure 2: Health problems among the  female health workers     	Around 61% of females were feeling fatigue or weaknessafter work and 30% complained for lower backache. Thesewere among the major health complaints as depicted in fig-ure 2. Majority were not getting leave for health relatedevents and medical treatment. There was no provision forleave with wages to any workers. As a result, workers pre-fer medical store (OTC) to procure drug rather any govern-ment health facility, which they found time consuming forany treatment.Experience of Violence:Approximately 30% of female workers agreed that they areforced to work and 70% among them said that they areforced by the family members to work at the constructionsite. Around 35 % of working females experience violencewhile out of home due to work. Majority of response forviolence was language abuse (75%) followed by batter alongwith language abuse and 2% also agreed to experiencesexual abuse by male colleague. “Sometimes I am scaredwhile being at work, my husband used to hit me after tak-ing alcohol. My mother-in-law supports me at home buthere I am alone” was the reply of 26 years female workerfrom Dahod, Gujarat.Vulnerability to addiction:Some (6%) of the working females has abuse of chewingtobacco daily: “I used to have ‘VIMAL’ (Gutkha, type oftobacco preparation) daily. All women here used to haveit” (19 years, Dahod, Gujarat). Some of the female addictedto smoking abuse: ‘I smoke BIDI 3-4 times a day’ (38 year,Bharuch, Gujarat). Exploring reasons behind the addiction,some of the female replied that the company of male coun-terpart who used to have a habit of chewing tobacco orsmoking, they also have this same habit. “The male col-league used to take it and they ask us to have VIMAL. Sincethen we are enjoying to have VIMAL daily” said by one ofthe worker.Living condition:While observing sites all workers were residing in self madetent like temporary structure covered with plastic sheet nearor inside the construction site. 7 out of 8 sites doesn’t pro-vide any facilities for bathing or washing while only singlesite provided separate ‘katcha’ bathrooms but that was alsoin poor sanitation. Workers used to go for open defecationaround the site. There was a common finding at all at theconstruction sites that at every site a common water tank isprovided by contractors for all purposes which was seldomBL Chawada et al: Plight of female construction workers of Surat cityIndian Journal of Community Health, Vol. 24, No. 1, Jan. 2012 - March 2012                                                                                                                                                ( 22)            cleaned. The workers lived in a very poor hygienic condi-tion resulting various health problems related to water.Lack of privacy:The living condition was merely enough to provide anyprivacy for female. A few of the females were feeling com-plexity due to lack of privacy while during menstruation.“I always have to wait till dark for changing of menstrualclothes as there is no separate room available for bath-ing.” (16 years, Zalod, Gujarat). All female used to takeadvanced money from contractor for food and livelihood.This money would suppose to be compensated from theirwages which sometime provided monthly or sometimeweekly. So after compensation for debt, female get smallamount of money as compare to male.DiscussionLiteracy rate in our study was only 22% and comparing itwith present literacy rate which is around 65%5, it is seenthat much have to be done to improve literacy of the femaleworkers. Mean daily wages of males for almost double thanthat of their female counterpart, the similar observation wasfound in a study by SEWA6. Mean hours of working was9hrs with no holidays, or any extra remuneration was alsoobserved by Ex. Prof. Dileep kumar1.Living condition of these workers was terrible without thebasic sanitation facilities. No privacy was there for females,even for bathing and washing clothes. Similar observationswere seen by Legal sutra in their study7.Adequate intervention from the government authorities re-quired ensuring the health, safety and welfare of the con-struction labourers. Ensuring decent working conditions andproper contract systems and providing basic health care forconstruction labourers would help in minimizing their prob-lems.ConclusionAs migratory and floating population, female working inconstruction field needs attention. Lack of social securityand family support make them a vulnerable group for ad-diction and violence. Alternate way for providing healthcarefor these women should be sort out early. Living conditionshould be appropriate and hygienic to these women.References1. Problem of construction labours: A qualitative research.Available at: http://www.indianmba.com/Faculty_Column/FC340/fc340.html. Accessed on September 10, 2011.2.  Annette Barnabas, Joseph Anbarasu  D., Clifford Paul S.Prospects of Women Construction Workers in Tamil Nadu,South India. Indian Journal of Gender Studies. 2011;18(2):217-2353. National workshop on safety, health, and welfare measuresfor construction workers. Available at: www.mgliahd.org/.../nationalworkshophealthsafetyofconstworkers.pdf, accessedon September 12, 2011.4. Kulkarni GS. Construction industry: More needs to be done.Indian journal of occupational and environmental medicine.2007; 11(1).5. Census provisional Report. Available at: http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/indiaatglance.htmlaccessed on September 12, 2011.6. Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA). LabouringBrick by Brick: A Study of Construction Workers, June2000.7. Interstate Migrant Construction Workers – Legalsutra. Avail-able at: legalsutra.org/1152/interstate-migrant-construction-workers/ accessed on September 12, 2011BL Chawada et al: Plight of female construction workers of Surat city

PLIGHT OF FEMALE CONSTRUCTION WORKERS OF SURAT CITY

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Indian Journal of Community Health