EquidemOrg

04/11/2025

Equidem CEO, Mustafa Qadri, was featured in this Evening Standard article exploring the realities behind Dubai’s rapid growth and the human rights challenges faced by migrant workers.

As Mustafa notes in the piece, “Everyone is being monitored in the Emirates.” The article sheds light on the extreme surveillance, the lack of protection for migrant and domestic workers, and the dangerous conditions many face — including scores of deaths that go uninvestigated. It’s a stark reminder of the hidden human cost behind the city’s glittering façade.

Hearing directly from workers is essential to understanding these realities. That’s why we were glad to help the journalist connect with a worker who could share his experience firsthand — ensuring that those most affected have their voices heard.

📰 Read the full article here:

Thousands of Londoners flock to the Middle East city each year — but behind the façade is a brutally repressive regime where human rights are non-existent

13/10/2025

🌍 Advancing Gender-Transformative Care Systems 🌍

On October 10, 2025, our Senior Investigator in Kenya, Geoffrey Otieno represented Equidem at the W20 Side Event – “Leveraging the G20 to Advance Policy Action: A South–South Peer Learning Workshop on Gender Transformative Care Systems and Policies,” held in Johannesburg.

The workshop brought together policymakers, feminist advocates, researchers, and development partners from Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa to exchange lessons on how care innovations can evolve from pilot initiatives to integrated, gender-transformative public policies.

Discussions addressed:
💡 Financing care as a public good, even in times of austerity
💡 Strengthening governance and institutional capacity for care systems
💡 The role of feminist and social movements in shaping the global care agenda
💡 Building South–South solidarity to advance equitable, inclusive care policies
💡 Discuss legal and institutional pathways to embed care rights
💡Emphasise care work as transformative investment, not a cost

Events like this are key moments for deepening collaboration and advancing gender-transformative policy action worldwide.

08/10/2025

On Decent Work Day: Workers Rally for Injury Compensation Rights in Thailand

Today, workers and allies took to the streets in Thailand to demand full and fair compensation from the Worker Injury Compensation Fund. The protest was organized under the leadership of the Thai Labour Solidarity Confederation (TLSC) with the support and participation of members from the Southern Riders Association (a member of the Global Gig Workers Alliance).

Their call is clear: when workers get hurt on the job, they must be protected — not left destitute.

Across Asia and beyond, gig and platform workers are facing growing risks without any real safety net. Delivery riders and drivers, who often spend 10–12 hours a day on the road, are routinely misclassified as “independent contractors,” excluded from national injury compensation or health insurance schemes. When accidents occur, companies deny responsibility, leaving workers and their families to shoulder medical costs and lost income.

In Thailand, riders have long demanded reforms to ensure that the Worker Injury Compensation Fund covers gig workers too — a demand that echoes across the Global South as millions of workers continue to be denied even the most basic labour protections.

On this World Day for Decent Work, we stand shoulder to shoulder with all workers fighting for dignity, safety, and justice, from factory floors to city streets.
Power and solidarity to TLSC and Southern Riders Association — your fight is our fight. ✊

08/09/2025

🚨 Public Event Alert – Join us at UNGA 2025 🚨

At this year’s UN General Assembly, when so many of us are reckoning with deepening authoritarianism and the erosion of democracy, Equidem brings forward stories of hope,of solidarity and democracy being rebuilt from below through the power of labor movements.

Join us for this gathering with speakers from the Global Gig Workers Alliance, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, the Alphabet Workers Union, the National Nurses Association, and more.

📅 Tuesday, September 16, 2025

⏰ 8:30–10:30 AM EST

📍 Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice, New York 🔥

Seats are limited!

👉 DM us if you need the RSVP form

🚇 Nearest metro: Grand Central

👉 Register (online): https://us05web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_aKCEDIBjS2iRqUl_EfKZ5g #/registration

20/08/2025

Thousands of Nepali workers are being sent abroad on visit visas - meant for tourism or family visits- only to end up in undocumented, unsafe, and exploitative jobs.

In his latest article, Rameshwar Nepal, Head of Investigations at Equidem, exposes how agents, officials, and employers collude to profit from this system, while workers are left vulnerable to forced labour, trafficking, and abuse.

The piece highlights:
👉 How corruption and bureaucracy push workers away from formal migration channels
👉 The devastating risks for undocumented workers, especially women
👉 Why government restrictions can sometimes worsen the problem
👉 The urgent reforms needed to protect workers and ensure safe, dignified migration

📖 Read the full article in English here: https://english.onlinekhabar.com/visit-visas-exploitation-challenges.html

📖 Read the full article in Nepali here: https://www.onlinekhabar.com/2025/08/1746179/how-are-workers-on-visit-visas-being-exploited

एजेन्ट र संगठित समुहले रोजगारीका लागि समेत भिजिट भिसामा लैजाँदा त्यसरी लगिएका हजारौँ श्रमिकहरू आप्रवासन चक्रमा...

30/07/2025

Historic Multi-Movement Call to Action: A World for People, Not Profit

We at Equidem are proud to be signatories to a powerful new joint declaration, led by the International Trade Union Confederation - ITUC, calling on governments around the world to choose peace over profit and democracy over destruction.

As we mark 80 years since the atomic bombings of Japan, this declaration endorsed by movements for peace, climate justice, and workers' rights, issues a stark warning:
👉🏽 A “billionaire coup” is hijacking our democracies.
👉🏽 Global priorities are being set by those who profit from militarism, fossil fuels, and inequality.
👉🏽 Meanwhile, over 100 million people are displaced, public services are underfunded, and the climate crisis accelerates.

The statement demands urgent, bold action, including:
✅ Full-scale nuclear disarmament and universal ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
✅ Global tax justice and a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation
✅ Living wages, decent work, and strong labour rights
✅ Massive cuts to military spending, with reinvestment into healthcare, education, and climate resilience
✅ Expansion of social protection systems for all, especially women, migrant and informal workers
✅ Integration of disarmament and sustainability into national climate plans
✅ A United Nations mechanism to support countries moving away from military-based economies

We join ITUC, Greenpeace, ICAN, 350.org. org Oxfam, International Peace Bureau, and many others in saying:

✊🏽 It’s time to reclaim democracy. Invest in peace. And build a world where human dignity and compassion take precedence over the thirst for power.


📄 Read and share the full statement here: https://equidem.org/a-global-call-to-action-for-democracy-that-delivers-peace-and-prosperity-for-all/

A Global Call to Action: For Democracy that Delivers Peace and Prosperity for All Posted on30 July 202530 July 2025 Updated on30 July 2025 For Democracy that Delivers Peace and Prosperity for All As we approach the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we, the undersigne...

29/07/2025

In June, as the International Labour Conference (ILC) met in Geneva to debate the rights of platform workers, a different kind of gathering took place nearby, not behind closed doors, but out in the open: in the streets, meeting halls, and public forums of the city.

For the first time, gig workers from across the world, from Indonesia, South Africa, Ghana, Pakistan, Colombia, and beyond, came together to speak for themselves. To expose the realities of life under algorithmic management. And to demand global accountability from the very companies profiting off their precarity.

Their message was urgent and unignorable:

You cannot debate the future of platform work without the people who do the work.

Indonesian workers played a leading role in this historic moment. They spoke of declining wages, surveillance through apps, and the daily denial of basic rights, not as abstract issues, but as lived experiences of exhaustion, risk, and injustice. These testimonies were powerfully documented in Harian Kompas by journalist and interpreter Yosepha Pusparisa, who traveled with the delegation and ensured their voices were heard across borders and languages.

At Equidem, we were proud to be an inaugural organiser of this gathering alongside grassroots leaders and global allies. Our aim was simple: create a space for solidarity, strategy, and shared resistance. A place where workers, not tech executives or policy elites, would shape the vision of a just digital future.

Because this is about more than regulation.

It’s about reimagining justice in the era of AI.

It’s about building a digital economy rooted not in surveillance and exploitation, but in dignity, rights, and worker power.

Read Yosepha’s powerful reporting in Kompas: