Working Conditions, Vulnerability, and Legal Protection of Women building Construction Workers in Gondar City

Abstract

The construction sector is booming and providing a significant number of job opportunities for women workers. However, it is common to see women construction workers overwhelmed in Gondar city construction sites. This paper described the experiences of working conditions and labor rights protection of women building construction workers working in the Meraki Sub-City administration of Gondar City. The research's design was founded on the idea that reality is created by an individual and comes from their inner world. Therefore, a qualitative phenomenological design was used to gather in-depth knowledge from women construction workers. Purposive sampling was used to select the sample population, in-depth interviews, and observation was used to collect the data, and thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. The major findings of the study revealed that the majority of workers are facing, exploitative recruitment practices, absence of employment contract, unsafe working conditions, gender discrimination, absence of worker representation, and lack of access to remedies. The findings of this study require the government's commitment to controlling construction workplace deregulation because, in a market characterized by vast labor supply-demand imbalances and a lack of effective state enforcement of labor standards, collective strategies are required to raise the floor on wages and working conditions of these workers.