“The United Nations Public Service Awards is the most prestigious international recognition of excellence in public service. It rewards the creative achievements and contributions of public service institutions that lead to a more effective and responsive public administration in countries worldwide. Through an annual competition, the UN Public Service Awards promote the role, professionalism and visibility of public service.” Last week, the Gender Unit, Department of Labour, Punjab, was declared the winner in Category 5 — ‘Promoting Gender-Responsive Delivery of Public Services’ — making Pakistan the winner! Last year, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Department of Labour, Punjab, under a Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)-funded ILO project, ‘Promoting Gender Equality for Decent Employment’, collaborated to mainstream gender issues in provincial policies and programmes. The ILO terms gender equality in the work sphere to be a matter of human rights and a “tool to ensure social justice for all and is instrumental in achieving economic growth and poverty reduction at the national level.” The Labour Department Punjab took various initiatives under the project, focusing not only on capacity building and gender expertise but also undertaking to review the labour laws from a gender perspective, to align them to grant equal protection and benefits to the women’s work force. The mission statement of the Labour and Human Resource Department, Punjab is, “Promoting the Welfare and Protecting the Rights of Labour Force and Workmen.” Its objectives are: promotion of healthy labour management and Industrial Relations for greater socio-economic progress and development; to protect the rights of workmen and labour force; to lay equal stress on their housing, health, safety and protection in order to make them more committed to their work; to prevent Child and Bonded Labour keeping in view the national and international standards and to have effective control over weights and measures. An area that is badly in need of some attention from a progressive government is the rights of home-based or ‘invisible’ workers. A large majority of women works from within the home, trying to sustain themselves and their families. According to ILO, “Among the working women in the informal sector, around 80 percent are home-based workers, which make a huge proportion of economy of Pakistan…these home-based women workers (HBWWs) usually belong to the poor, lower or lower middle income background and form various age groups and possess very little or no education at all and have no social protection.” I have a client, in fact many of them, but this particular client has two young children who go to a government school and a husband who does not go anywhere. This particular husband, like many in our society, does not work and beats his wife black and blue for failing to put food on the table, which they do not really own. She used to stitch clothes for nominal money until he sold her sewing machine; then she started to embroider and embellish clothes for a local business, but apparently that work only comes along in the winter. Another business asked her to stitch multi-panelled dresses and pants in vogue currently, offering to pay her Rs 20 per dress and Rs four for the pants, while an average tailor charges Rs. 1,500 and upward for the same and the shops sell such joras (outfits) for a heavy amount. It is indeed a pity that in a country that boasts 48 percent of its total population women, we still exploit women and deny them fair remuneration for their work. An equitable, inclusive and sustainable development is only possible through sustainable poverty reduction, which in turn is dependent on decent work. Home-based workers are in dire need of legal recognition and cover, which guarantees them equality of treatment and wages and provides them easy access to skill training, easy credit facilities and access to the market. Another grey area that lacks formal recognition and legislation is the ‘domestic worker’. Another client of mine, a widow, works in homes, washing dishes, sweeping, doing the laundry, and gets a mere Rs 30 per day. A child employed at someone’s house gets Rs1,000 per month. Most of the domestic workers who are employed from rural areas get a shameful amount of remuneration in addition to being the recipients of indecent and degrading treatment. The ILO Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers, defines domestic work as “work performed in or for a household or households” and includes “tasks such as cleaning the house, cooking, washing and ironing clothes, taking care of children, or elderly or sick members of a family, gardening, guarding the house, driving for the family, even taking care of household pets.” The basic rights that a domestic worker is entitled to are already given to the citizens of Pakistan in the Constitution: rights to protection of human rights, freedom of association, elimination of forced or compulsory and child labour, non-discrimination in employment and occupation and protection against harassment laws are already in place. “Fair terms of employment and decent living conditions”, although covered within fundamental rights, sadly lacks separate legislation. Legislation to protect domestic workers needs to be comprehensive and equitable; it needs to regulate working hours, daily and weekly rest, annual paid leave, regulation of stand-by hours, decent living conditions and so forth. Over two and a half years ago I wrote: “Domestic employees should fare slightly better than their other counterparts, as at least their food, boarding, clothing and medical needs are or should be catered for. But there is no pension. And not all households believe in feeding their domestic help the same food that is put on their own table; most people have the ‘help’ cook separate food for themselves, which of course is always ‘meatless’ regardless of which day of the week it is. There is no law governing the domestic employees and their wages but there is a provision for their medical care in The Provincial Employees Social Security Ordinance 1965. The law states that “every employer of a domestic servant shall be liable to provide at his own cost to the domestic servant medical care, which includes “general practitioner care, including domiciliar visiting; specialist care in hospitals for in-patients and out-patients and such specialist care as may be available outside hospitals; essential pharmaceutical supplies as prescribed by a medical practitioner; hospitalisation where necessary, including cases of pregnancy and confinement; pre-natal confinement and post-natal care, either by medical practitioners or by qualified midwives.” It doesn’t require a rocket scientist to figure out how many of us adhere to this law! The Punjab government raised the minimum wage to Rs 10,000 this year. It is indeed a welcome step. However, this does not apply to domestic workers, whether live-in or reside-out. The government is under a constitutional duty to promote the social and economic well-being of its people and that includes 48 percent women. The duty lies on the government to “secure the well-being of the people, irrespective of sex, caste, creed or race, by raising their standard of living, by preventing the concentration of wealth and means of production and distribution in the hands of a few to the detriment of general interest and by ensuring equitable adjustment of rights between employers and employees.” This includes both home-based and domestic workers. The Punjab government has made Pakistan proud. It is a rare thing for us to be first from the top! In order to sustain this win, it must formulate gender-responsive, equitable policies and legislation for both home-based and domestic workers. The writer is an advocate of the High Court