Counted but Not Seen: Women Migrant Workers and the Shift from the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979 to the OSH Code, 2020

The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020, enacted but not yet in force, will replace the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979. This paper examines how the change is likely to affect women migrant workers, who are concentrated in construction, domestic work, brick kilns and agriculture and are often under-recorded in official data. Using doctrinal analysis of statutes, the Supreme Court’s migrant-worker proceedings during COVID-19 and secondary literature on gender and migration, it finds that the Code’s wider definition of migrant worker, annual journey fare and portability of benefits are positive, but that its gender-neutral drafting does not address payment through male heads, lack of individual documentation, absence of worksite childcare, unsafe accommodation and limited access to redress. The paper recommends individual registration, direct wage payment, mandatory childcare and safe accommodation, and gender-disaggregated data.