The theme of World Mental Health Day 2023 is "Mental health is a universal human right".
This theme is intended to raise awareness of the importance of mental health and to advocate for the rights of people with mental health conditions.
Mental health is just as important as physical health.
Everyone has the right to access high-quality mental health care.
However, millions of people around the world are denied this right due to stigma, discrimination, and lack of resources.
Informal working force in India
India’s informal workforce accounts for more than 90% of the working population.
These workers often operate without regulatory protection, work in unsafe working environments, endure long hours.
They have little access to social or financial protections, suffer high uncertainty and deep precarity, and face discrimination
All of which further undermine mental health and limit access to mental health care.
Gender disparities are also stark.
Informal working force in India
Over 95% of India’s working women engaged in informal, low-paying, and precarious employment,
Women employees often without social protection,.
In addition to suffering patriarchal structures and practices in their social and familial spaces.
According to the UNDP, unemployment and poor-quality employment have consistently been detrimental to mental health.
Informal working force in India
The interviewed 9,316 youth aged between 15 to 34 years across 18 States in India, has shown that they are highly susceptible to negative emotions.
Youth unemployment is one of the highest in India
The State of Inequality in India Report 2022 observes that the unemployment rate actually increases with educational levels.
Particularly for educated young women who show an unemployment rate of 42%.
The half of India’s population is of working age and projected to remain so for two decades.
Policy Recommendations
Informal workers, despite their significant contribution to national income, are perennially exposed to various economic, physical, and mental vulnerabilities.
India’s budgetary allocation for mental health, has over-focused on the digital mental health programme.
Currently under 1% of the total health budget.
As the World Mental Health Report 2022 observed, addressing mental health involves strengthening community-based care, and people-centred, recovery-oriented and human rights-oriented care.
Policy Recommendations
There is an urgent need for proactive policies to improve mental health recognition and action.
This is critical in upholding the basic human right to good health, including mental health, and in advancing to the SDGs.
Especially SDG 3 on ‘good health and well-being’ and SDG 8 on ‘decent work for all/economic growth’.
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