From a hot dog vendor in the United States to a girl selling vegetables in the Democratic Republic of Congo to a woman running a tea stall in Bangladesh, street vendors are an integral part of the urban fabric around the world.
They boost local economies, supplying an array of affordable goods and services. But they also face unique risks.
Many face routine harassment, intimidation, and violence, often at the hands of local authorities, including the police. They often live in poverty, dependent on an unsteady income to support their families.
Compounding these difficulties, governments rarely treat these workers – many of whom are women – as legal workers with rights, and this means there is a constant threat of crackdowns that threaten their safety and livelihoods.
Like other informal workers, street vendors usually lack access to social security systems and labour protections and there is a lack of accountability for violence committed against them.
StreetNet International has been told by street vendors that officials sometimes demand bribes and threaten to confiscate the vendors’ goods.
We have also been told of law enforcement agents threatening to arrest women street vendors if they don’t have sex with them. Sometimes, we receive reports of local authorities sanctioning violence against street vendors, including in Peru and Rwanda.
Children of street vendors also suffer. In many countries, street vendors cannot access subsidies and grants for early childhood care, which are available to eligible parents employed in the formal sector. So they often have no choice but to bring their children to work – where they might face violence and harassment.
Faced with these grim realities, street vendors are finding new and imaginative ways to come together and organise against violence and harassment, build solidarity spaces, and protect their communities.
In South Africa, women vendors have created childcare centres, providing a safe and supportive environment for children while their parents work.
They have also set up social and solidarity funds where they pool their savings to pay school fees. Some groups use these funds to make monthly bulk purchases of food staples, reducing prices for individual families.
In Nigeria, Mile 12 market vendors in Lagos, with the support of other workers’ organisations, formed a committee against gender-based violence and harassment, implementing reporting and investigative procedures.
In Bangladesh, street vendors built a housing collective and a kindergarten for their children. Where countries have failed to protect the rights of these workers, street vendors are building community and filling the gaps.
Street vendors show extraordinary resilience and ingenuity in the face of challenges. They continue to imagine new ways of providing and caring for each other, even in the most hostile circumstances.
But they should not have to rely only on each other.
Following years of campaigning by feminist groups, labour unions, and other civil society groups, in 2019 the International Labour Organisation (ILO) adopted Convention No. 190, focused on preventing violence and harassment at work.
This groundbreaking treaty requires governments to adopt comprehensive national laws against harassment and violence in the world of work, including prevention measures, complaints mechanisms, and support for survivors of violence.
StreetNet International was among a group of workers’ organisations that fought hard, and successfully, to ensure that workers in informal employment, including street vendors, were included under the treaty.
As of April 2025, 49 countries have ratified the Convention, including South Africa and Nigeria. Other governments should follow.
Governments should step up and affirm the rights of every worker – formal or informal – to a world of work free from violence and harassment, by ratifying and fully implementing C190.
But we also need urban, social, and economic policies that incorporate the realities of street vendors, support their rights, and uphold their dignity at the same time.
