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Waste pickers have won several legal actions in Latin America over the past two decades. This edition looks at the lessons learned.
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About Wiego

Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) is a global network focused on empowering the working poor, especially women, in the informal economy to secure their livelihoods. We believe that all workers should have equal economic opportunities, rights, protection and voice. WIEGO promotes change by improving statistics and expanding knowledge on the informal economy, building networks and capacity among informal worker organizations and, jointly with the networks and organizations, influencing local, national and international policies.

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About the Informal economy

The informal economy includes workers who do not have employment-based social protection and enterprises which are not incorporated or registered.

Global estimates on the size of informal employment (ILO 2018) show 61% of all workers worldwide are informally employed. 

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Blog
Labour law only “sees” employees. It resists the idea that self-employed workers in the informal economy, such as street vendors and waste pickers, should also be the subjects of labour law. WIEGO's panel at the Labour Law Research Network aimed to...
Blog
The Association of Waste Pickers Bokk Diom demands that Senegal’s government keeps its promises of inclusion as the closure of West Africa's largest dump, Mbeubeuss, gathers pace. WIEGO’s local specialist, Maguette Diop, explains that the survival of...
Blog
Street vendors across the Global South are exposed to repeated cycles of evictions. In the African cities of Accra, Dakar and Durban, vendors have faced a crisis on top of a crisis, as evictions have extended far beyond the period of COVID-related...