Issues and Challenges Faced by Female Street Vendors in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh
Female street vendors in Aligarh play a vital role in the informal economy while showing remarkable resilience. They support their families and communities, yet their contributions often go unnoticed. To improve their situation, there is a need for combined economic, social, and policy support. Empowering these women is crucial for inclusive development, gender equality, and overall social progress.
Street vending is one of the most common and easy ways for people to earn a living, especially for those who have little to do and whose educational qualifications are low. Street vending provides many unemployed people with a chance to earn some money and live. Street vending also benefits the public because it offers them daily products at low and affordable prices.
In India, a large number of street vendors are a common sight in the daily life of the people. They provide the public with easily accessible basic products. They contribute to the economy in their own way. Despite the importance of the contribution made by the street vendors, the contribution itself is not valued. Instead, they are considered a problem in the public area.
Street vending falls within the unorganised sector, where most businesses are small, not officially registered, and operate with minimal support. Due to the same reason, the street vendors are unable to get proper legal support and recognition. Women street vendors are ignored in the reports and policies, but they are contributing to the economy in the same manner as men.
Female street vendors are a highly vulnerable but significant part of the informal economy. Most of them enter the business by compulsion, not by choice. They have to earn and feed their families. Street vending is a source of livelihood for them because they have no other options.
These women are not just earning members; they also take care of the household and the family. Balancing both roles is not easy, but they manage to do it every day. Their contribution to the economy reflects the fact that women are gradually moving out of the traditional roles and entering the earning spaces to support their families.
However, the journey to becoming a street vendor has been marked by circumstances such as poverty, lack of education, family problems, or sometimes the death of the breadwinner. For them, becoming a street vendor has been a respectable source of earning a living, which has helped them to be independent and take care of their families without depending on others.
We have interacted with many female street vendors in the Aligarh district in Uttar Pradesh. We focused on women from marginalised Muslim communities. We wanted to know their lives, financial situation, and the types of challenges they face in their lives. To know all these things, we used a mixed method of simple structured interviews based on numbers and experiences. This will allow us to have a clear and real picture of their lives. The main types of vendors we focused on were those selling vegetables, garments, spices, and cosmetics. These are mostly found in our local market areas. However, we found that most of these women come from poor backgrounds and have very little scope for education and money. Their daily income is also very low, around ₹200 to ₹250. This is still not sufficient for their survival as they have to maintain many things, such as children’s education and health, etc.
Their challenges are many and are related to many other issues as well. Their income is not fixed and varies according to their daily sales. This is a big challenge for these women. They have many mouths to feed as their family size is high. The pressure to increase income is always there. They have to work hard for long hours in tough weather just to survive. There are no proper facilities for these women either. There are no proper toilets, drinking water facilities, or places to sit and sell their goods. This compels these women to stop their work again and again in a day. This affects their income as well. There are no proper storage facilities either. This may damage their goods due to weather changes.
Legal insecurity is also one of the bigger problems faced by these female street vendors, as the majority of them lack the required licenses. Because of this reason, they are always in danger of being removed from their respective selling areas or being fined by the local authorities. Raids are quite frequent; their goods are seized at times, and in some cases, they are even demanded to pay bribes. In addition to the above-mentioned problems, the fact that these street vendors are women poses yet another problem. They face eve-teasing, harassment, and negative attitudes of the general public while performing their duties at street corners. They are restricted in their movements and progress by the general public and the society in which they live. All these problems not only affect their economic condition but also their mental state. Living with such stress and pressure is affecting them in such a way that they end up feeling frustrated and exhausted.
The health problems are quite common among the female street vendors. This is mainly because they work in tough conditions and have very little access to health facilities. These women usually do not pay much attention to their health problems since they cannot afford to lose even a single day’s earnings. This, in turn, worsens their condition over time. Besides this, their diet, working hours, and exposure to heat, dust, and rain make their condition worse. However, despite all these problems and issues, these women have shown a high level of resilience. They have managed to cope with their problems through self-help groups. These self-help groups have become their only source of financial assistance. These women have managed to cope with their problems through self-help groups. These self-help groups have become their only source of financial assistance. There are various policies and acts that have been implemented to provide assistance to street vendors. These include the National Policy on Urban Street Vendors and the Street Vendors Act. Despite all these policies and acts, the street vendors are not receiving much assistance. This is mainly because these women are not able to obtain their licenses due to complex procedures and a lack of knowledge. There is a big gap between what is being promised and what is being provided.
Therefore, it is very important to assist these street vendors. These women need to be provided with better access to basic facilities, finance, health, and legal assistance. This will allow them to work with a certain level of dignity.
