Woes in the workplace

Labour laws in Pakistan are often widely flouted or employers are simply in ignorance of their existence. This is particularly true relative of women. This has been highlighted by the Women Workers Alliance that has held a convention in Peshawar where it was revealed that 58 per cent of workplaces in the city were violating labour laws and not only for women workers. This is true across the public, private and industrial sectors with working women unsurprisingly being the worst affected.

More than 58 per cent of public-sector organisations surveyed either had no committee to refer cases of sexual harassment to, or if it did have one it was non-functional or ineffective. In a disgraceful 85 per cent of public offices, there was no notice displayed as to what to do or where to go in the event of sexual harassment; and the absence of toilet facilities in the 45 per cent is equally shameful. Additionally, any suggestion that there be daycare or breast-feeding facilities anywhere outside international corporate HQs is met with slack-jawed mystification, likewise compliance with the Maternity Benefits Act.

Women have had to fight for their space in the workplace for a century or more, and to have women-specific facilities they have an increasingly difficult battle in Pakistan. Despite there being a pressing economic need to have more working hands in the family for women outside the home, the workplace is often fearfilled and frequently discriminatory. This is a problem that is not going to go away and can only worsen over time unless women themselves mobilise, demand their rights, demand legislative compliance and challenge misogynistic cultural norms. Very few men are going to take up the cudgels in support of the female cause and men are at the root of the problem anyway. Women around the world are finding their voices and being heard. The women of Pakistan must join them, and not only in the workplace.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 16^th, 2018.

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