Unpaid for nine months: Women crisis centre employees in crisis

Provincial govt says salaries will be paid after contracts are renewed

ISLAMABAD: Employees of 12 women crises centres in Punjab have found themselves in a crisis after not having received their salaries for the last nine months.

The delay has been caused due to a legal lacuna.

Contracts of these employees have not been renewed since June last year, therefore their salaries have not been released, an official aware of the issue said.

Although the Punjab government had allocated funds for the centres under its non-development budget, the employees were unable to draw their salaries till their contracts – which expired on June 30, 2016 – are renewed.

The Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Human Rights Centres for Women (SBBHRCW) had been working under the federal government. But after the 18th amendment, these centres were adopted by the Social Welfare Department of Punjab in 2014.

As many as 12 centres are working in different parts of Punjab including Bahawalpur, Dera Ghazi Khan, Faisalabad, Muzaffargarh, Khushab, Lahore, Multan, Rawalpindi, Sahiwal, Mianwali, Sialkot and Vehari.

Employees at the centre complained that while they always received their salaries after months of delays ever since the centres were handed over to Punjab government, but this time they have not been paid for over nine months.

“How can employees work when they have not been paid, they don’t even have money to pay their transport fares to the office,” said a manager of one of these centres while wishing not to be named.

The facilities were established with the objective of helping women suffering from violence and to eliminate all types of discrimination.

The centres also provide temporary shelters to victims of violence in emergencies, medical aid to women in distress, free legal aid, social and psychological counselling, and liaison with concerned agencies for redressing grievances of women at individual and collective levels.

A centre had been established in Rawalpindi around five years ago and has so far dealt with around 1,400 cases. Around half of these cases, officials say, had been resolved without any litigation after the couples decided to stay together amicably.

One employee at the centre noted that many women visit the centre seeking resolution of their issues but are clueless that those helping them at the centre are in a crisis as well.

“We try to resolve their issues and try not to show them that our budget is exhausted.”

Another official at the cen. “We have been hearing that over Rs70 million have been approved [for the centre], but still we have not been given any tentative time when salaries are going to released,” remarked an employee of women crisis centre in Khushab.

An evaluation conducted by a provincial planning department after thorough assessment had recommended that the centres be regularised and handed over to women development department, said another official of the centre.

Punjab Social Welfare Department Secretary Haroon Rafique said that the salaries would be paid once the contracts are renewed. He added that the budget issue had been resolved forever since it had been shifted to the recurring budget.

Asked about regularising employees of the centre, he said that employees would need to secure no-objection certificates from the federal government.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 28^th, 2017.