Daily Times

In Pakistan the situation of women is quite alarming and they have to deal with immense pressure and face a seemingly insurmountable array of obstacles, which are preventing them from becoming productive and empowered citizens within our society. No doubt steps are being taken by the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for improving their condition and credit goes to them and the same is the case with home-based workers who work from their homes and earn for survival and ensuring the financial stability of their households. But they face severe problems like inadequate education, lack of skills, physical mobility, health and safety and limited access to productive resources. We need to know what ‘home-based workers’ actually means as it refers to the general category of workers within the informal or unorganised sector who carry out remunerative work within their homes or in the surrounding areas. These home-based workers usually belong to poor, lower or lower-middle income backgrounds, from various age groups, and possess very little or no education at all. They also have virtually no social protection.

It is estimated that there are over 100 million home-based workers in the world and more than half this number are in South Asia of whom around 80 percent are women. Pakistan is one of the Asian countries that has the largest number of women engaged in home-based work and this sector has expanded at a fast pace. This expansion can be linked to the globalisation of industry and the search for efficient means of production through low cost labour. These working women contribute to the national economy and export earnings but sadly they are left on the sidelines by the government and no law or action is being taken by authorities to protect or regularize them. They are denied any form of legal protection, including a minimum wage guarantee or social security benefits. According to a World Bank (WB) study, over 10 million women in Pakistan are engaged in home-based work in sectors like garments, bangles, shoes, embroidery and carpet weaving among other areas. In spite of their contributions to the economy, these women still do not have social and legal protection and are among the most unprivileged members of society. Unlike other types of workers, home-based workers do not have any access to social security benefits and have long working hours with no operational safety and health standards in their work area. Furthermore, Pakistan’s labour laws do not include home-based workers, who are now covered by the definition of worker. Article 3 of the Constitution says that the state must eradicate all kinds of exploitation and ensure appropriate compensation for workers but in reality do these words have any importance? It appears they are just are hollow words since no such measures have been taken so far. Who is responsible for implementing the laws which are mentioned in the Constitution of Pakistan?

For the past few years, women’s organisations have been preparing draft legislation called the “Home Based Women Workers Social Protection Bill”. While this bill was tabled in the National Assembly in 2007 and has undergone several revisions since, sadly it has not yet been approved. Injustice to home-based workers can be confirmed in a conversation with any of them. While talking to a home-based woman worker who makes bangles at home, she said that she is paid Rs 3 for making 350 bangles, but the same bangles are sold by the contractor at Rs 50 or 70 in the market. While going through this story and some others, I came up with a question for the government and lawmakers: you always claim to be providing justice to all, but it appears there is no law for the protection of the rights of workers as they are always in the hands of profit-crazy capitalists. What do you intend to do? As successive governments have been silent on such issues, or seem to be uninterested in working on the legislation necessary, I think they should start by having an immediate review of labour laws to find solutions to the issues of home-based workers through legislation. The government should endeavour to resolve issues of the home-based workers concerning their status as workers, the extension of social security benefits currently applicable only to workers in the formal organised sector of employment through the enactment of a law, enjoyment of core labour standards with the rights and entitlements in addition to all rights and benefits available to other wage earners performing similar work, easy access to comparatively cheaper credit through several ongoing programmes, easy access to markets for their products, protection from malpractices of ‘intermediaries’ and ‘middlepersons’ and the promotion of non-industrial handicraft goods.

If Pakistan agrees to the C-177 law, which has already been ratified by seven countries, it will allow workers the right to establish or join organisations of their own choice and to participate in the activities of such organisations aimed at protection against discrimination in employment and occupation, and protection in the fields of occupational health and safety. It will be a huge achievement if this law gets approved by this government for civil society and for those who have worked hard for getting home-based workers their rights. There is also a need to set up specialised entities or dedicated cells within the existing administrative structure to undertake registration of home-based workers and to subsequently ensure that they receive social protection benefits. Also a true and result oriented tripartite consultation meeting should be organised in which government officials, labour department officials including ministers, civil society representatives and home-based workers sit and discuss a framework to achieve these protections for the workers. While taking these steps will indirectly increase the price of products made by home-based workers, competitiveness can be maintained by placing greater emphasis on quality of products home-based workers produce, in effect, encouraging improvement of their existing skill levels, while simultaneously ensuring that the households of these workers derive greater benefit from the fruits of their labour.

The writer is a Lahore-based
social-political activist. He can be
reached at salmanali088@gmail.com