The Middleman Tax
From STREE — the livelihoods work of the Kshamata Group.
A woman makes a beautiful thing. It sells in a city boutique for a thousand rupees. She was paid eighty. The gap didn't vanish — it was taxed, quietly, by every hand between her table and the till.
We call this "market linkage" and treat it as a favour done to her. Often it's the opposite: a chain of middlemen, each taking a cut for access she could have had directly, leaving her the thinnest slice of the value she alone created.
The skill was never her problem. The distance between her and her customer was. Every link in that chain is a tax on her labour and a discount on her dignity.
So the work isn't another training. It's shortening the chain. Connect her to the buyer directly. Show her what her work actually sells for. Hand her the pricing power the middlemen were counting on her never to discover.
Empowerment isn't teaching her to make more. It's making sure she keeps more of what she makes.
So the question worth putting to any livelihood programme is blunt:
Between her hands and her customer, how many people are taxing her — and why?
STREE (She Transforms Routine to Equitable Entrepreneurship) helps women turn everyday skills into sustainable, dignified livelihoods, under the Kshamata Group.