Women, wages and exploitation

Women the world over, especially poorly paid women, are routinely exploited by their employers. This happens in developed nations as well as developing, but in the developing world it is a particular problem as there is little recourse to law for those women deprived of their due. The situation in Pakistan is particularly bad, and all the more pernicious in the case of women health workers employed on government contracts. Over the last 20 years, there have been innumerable instances of working women in the health sector, lady health workers in particular, having their salaries, small as they are, withheld by the employing body, usually a local or provincial branch of a government-funded agency. For the women employed as vaccinators in the polio immunisation programmes, the risks are high, and many have been killed in the course of their duties. These brave women literally put their lives on the line every day they show up for work. Treating them as contemptuously as they so often are goes beyond the merely shameful.

Today the women raising the voice of protest are in Rawalpindi, daily wagers who had been hired by the district government to conduct anti-dengue drives. Dengue is an annual scourge in Pakistan claiming lives wherever it strikes. It is relatively easily countered with the spraying of stagnant water, along with the education of households as to the dangers of allowing the larvae of the mosquitoes that carry dengue to develop. The women were employed in October 2014 and their contracts said that they would be paid Rs14,400 a month. To date, they have not been paid. Adding to the insult, the government has renewed their contracts and at the same time it has failed to clear the arrears. For a government agency, the money involved is a tiny sum; for the women who may be the only earning hands in their household, it is a lifeline; the difference between eating and hunger, educating a child or not. Health officials have said that the women will be paid by February 8. We watch and wait with considerable interest and urge the authorities to do the needful.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 8^th,  2016.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.