Page "Ela Bhatt" Paragraph 3

In 1956, Ela Bhatt married Ramesh Bhatt ( now deceased ).

After working for sometime with the Gujarat government, Ela was asked by the TLA to head its women's wing in 1968.

In this connection she went to Israel where she studied at the Afro-Asian Institute of Labor and Cooperatives in Tel Aviv for three months, receiving the International Diploma of Labor and Cooperatives in 1971.

She was very much influenced by the fact that thousands of female textile workers worked elsewhere to supplement the family income, but there were state laws protecting only those who were solely industrial workers and not these self-employed women.

So with the co-operation of Arvind Buch, the then president of TLA, Ela Bhatt undertook to organize these self-employed women into a union under the auspices of the Women's Wing of the TLA.

Then in 1972 the Self-Employed Women's Association ( SEWA ) was established with Buch as president and she herself as the general-secretary.